Hello music lovers. Here are the additions and removals from my playlists. I’ve reduced the number of piano solos quite a bit, added a classical piece, a calypso rock number, a gospel song, and some original folk recordings.

Additions
Bushland Boogie (ABC Kids)
Fall in California (JillSuttie)
Gotta Lot Of Rhythm In My Soul (Dixie Aces)
Honky Tonk Blues (Stacey Earl)
Hungarian Dance No 5 (Johannes Brahms)
Rock Around The Clock (Calypso Steelband)
Rockaria (Electric Light Orchestra)
Skin Deep (Jill Suttie)
Songs Stay Sung (Zoe Mulford with Windborne)
This Old World (Goldia Haynes)

Removed songs (but not deleted, just rotated out of current playlists)
Barrelhouse Woman
Boy from NYC
Down the road a piece
Feel it Still
Jelly Roll
Jimtown Blues
Joe Louis Rag
Memphis Blues
Slow Blues with Stride
Alexanders Ragtime Band
Aunt Hagar’s Blues
Bloominton Breakdown
Death Ray Boogie
Dream Rag
Just Strollin’
Nordeast Rag
Stompin’ One for Sonny
The Davis Street Blues
Cold Mountain Shout
Down the road a piece
It’s Right Here for you
Little Brothers Little Boogie
Mac’s Boogie
Sammy Price Boogie
Sun Flower Slow Drag
The 31 Blues

A Certain Idea of America: Selected Writings by Peggy Noonan
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Noonan, a former speechwriter for Ronald Reagan, is a conservative Republican, but not a MAGA one. If the GOP was still where she is, I would probably still be a Republican. But it isn’t, and I’m not, and Noonan recognizes Trump for what he is. She doesn’t mince words about either party or politicians of any stripe, in fact. She’s very good at criticizing people. This is a collection of those criticisms and other musings, all of which appeared in the Wall Street Journal in her regular column there.

She writes well enough and I agree with much, maybe most, of what she says in the book. But there are some significant problems with it. It is highly repetitive. It is preachy. It is out of chronological order, so in some cases she has declared some things to be certain that turn out not to occur later. At times she seems prescient and other times foolish. I read this for my book club. It got boring so fast that I wouldn’t have read past the first third had I not felt obligated to complete it. As a reading experience Noonan is better absorbed in weekly or monthly articles, not all crammed together like this.

View all my reviews

The Perfect Child by Lucinda Berry
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

It’s hard to rate a book highly when it is so unpleasant to read. This was billed as a psychological thriller and murder mystery, but it’s better characterized as a horror story. No one who reads this will ever want to take in a foster child or adopt. The writing isn’t bad and there is enough suspense to keep the reader engaged, but it’s a long trip to a disturbing climax.

View all my reviews

Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II by Elyse Graham
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The book tells about how intellectuals, largely professors in the humanities, but librarians and other bookish types contributed to the intelligence success of the Allies during WWII. There are many exciting or fascinating stories, such as the raid on the Telemark heavy water plant in Norway and Operation Mincemeat. For someone new to the subject the book will be a treat. Unfortunately, this is well-trodden ground and there is very little I haven’t heard or read about often many times in books, movies and TV. I only read this because it was a selection by my book club. While I enjoyed the book in places, it felt like a slog at times since I knew so much of it. I realized the author was trying to put a new slant on it by focusing on the egghead angle, and I’m glad to see them get their due, but I think she was pushing it a little too far. There were places where she said, perhaps rightly, perhaps not, that such and such a triumph was due to the intelligence work of these scholars. In a sense it might be true since every step by every single participant was probably necessary to reach success, that a bit like saying the tailor who made Muhammad Ali’s boxing gloves beat Joe Frazier in the Thrilla in Manilla because he couldn’t have won without those gloves. For us jaded intel types, there’s not much new here.

View all my reviews