Merry Christmas, everyone. Okay, I REALLY need to get back to a regular routine of posting to this site. It will be a New Year's resolution, for sure. In the meantime, I will endeavor to assemble a few "Ten Best" lists to send off 2004. Look for these in the course of the next few days.
Anyway, this morning Santa Claus brought me a shelf load of books (and some audio CDs and DVDs), the list of which I am pleased to share with you:
- Oh, Play That Thing by Roddy Doyle. Doyle is an Irish author (and Harry Potter scribe Jo Rowling's favorite writer) who penned The Commitments and Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, which won the Booker Prize. This is his new novel.
- Chronicles, Vol. 1 by Bob Dylan. The highly regarded memoirs of a pop music genius.
- His Excellency: George Washington by Joseph J. Ellis. The historian who gave us Founding Brothers and the Jefferson biography, American Sphinx, now turns his attention to the father of our country.
- All I Did Was Ask: Conversations with Writers, Actors, Musicians, and Artists by Terry Gross. Featuring interviews from the public radio program"Fresh Air."
- Leonardo da Vinci: Flights Of The Mind by Charles Nicholl. A biography of the consummate Renaissance man.
- Songbook by Nick Hornby. In which the author of High Fidelity waxes philosophic about his favorite dozen or three pop songs. It includes a CD of selections discussed in the book.
- John James Audubon : The Making of an American by Richard Rhodes. Another biography, this one from the Pulitzer Prize-winning Rhodes.
- 1,000 Places to See Before You Die by Patricia Schultz. A travel book from my sister, well suited for the plans I have for the next couple of years (my next sabbatical being just around the corner!).
- The Know-it-all: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World [Abridged Audio CD version] by A. J. Jacobs. In recorded form, this will be a good travel companion in the car, I think.
- Band Of Brothers DVD boxed set. I asked for this gift. I've seen just snippets of it, but by all accounts this is a brilliant collection. My good friend Tom Generous, a military historian, gives the series a rave review.
