en-US Sat, 12 Apr 2025 05:59:02 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Review7482380776 Sat, 12 Apr 2025 05:59:02 -0700 /review/show/7482380776 Jeri gave 3 stars to Dylan Goes Electric!: Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Night That Split the Sixties (Hardcover) by Elijah Wald
bookshelves: pleasure-read, currently-reading
Like many I expect, my wife Katherine and I went to see "A Complete Unknown." I liked it. Sure, I would imagine some of the scenes were pure fiction -- I mean, did Johnny Cash really meet up with Dylan at Newport and did Pete Seeger really pick an axe and try to cut the cable to end Dylan's electric set in March 1965? Who knows. But it made for a fun film, one that opened a cinematic window into a tumultuous time not unlike ours today.

So, when I saw the film pulled from Elijah Wald's 2015 book, "Dylan Goes Electric," I put my name immediately onto a list at our local library. I was far from alone. I had to wait four months before "Dylan Goes Electric" was available. I then dove in. I liked it. But ....

First of all, I am no Dylanologist, like my good friend, Scott, a college professor who teaches a course on Dylan. So, I found myself poring through page after gate that felt like walking through mud. Elijah Wald did some incredible research to unearth a snapshot of that time when Dylan was young and unknown. But like many nonfiction writers I've read, I found him going into a lot of rabbit holes about tertiary characters to reveal a more comprehensive picture. That kind of deep dive research is needed, and if I was a Dylanologist, I would be hungry for those kind of details. But I am not, and the way I see it, that kind of research helps you write with authority and gives you an insight of what to leave in and -- what to leave out.

In the end, "Dylan Goes Electric" was a struggle for me. I ended up speed-reading through parts to get to Dylan passages because I had to get it back to the library to avoid a fine and get it for the next person on the list. And for me, that is no way to read a book, any book. ]]> Review7447201743 Sun, 30 Mar 2025 06:29:08 -0700 /review/show/7447201743 Jeri gave 5 stars to North Woods (Hardcover) by Daniel Mason
bookshelves: argosy-book-group
Review to TK. Man, this was a good book. Don't give very many five stars. But this book is one. ]]> Review7407892485 Sun, 16 Mar 2025 08:26:39 -0700 /review/show/7407892485 Jeri gave 4 stars to When Ghosts Come Home (Hardcover) by Wiley Cash
bookshelves: pleasure-read
I've always enjoyed novels by Wiley Cash. I've read everything he's written, and of course, what I enjoy is that he sets his novels in a place I know well -- North Carolina. His third. novel, "The Last Ballad," left me a bit disappinted. Didn't grab me like his last two, "A Land More Kind Than Home" and "The Dark Road to Mercy."

Maybe it was because he based "The Last Ballad" on a dark chapter in the history of his hometown, Gastonia, NC, and he felt hemmed in by facts that always are stubborn. But with "When Ghosts Come Home," Cash let his imagination do jumping jacks without the worry of history or facts. What he came away with was quite the page turner in a usually sleepy part of North Carolina, a small town on the coast known as Oak Island.

I know that town well, and Cash setting the novel in the mid-1980s was a ncie time capsule to revisit, a time before cell phones, AI and divisive politics. Just plain old evil and greed.

Cash, who teaches creative writing at UNC-Asheville, is a master at his craft. And in "When Ghosts Come Home," he was at the time of his creative game. A joy to read. And quite the twist at the end. When I finished, I closed the book and went, "Damn."

Then I turned to the acknowledgements to glean something of how he came up with such a sordid, yet realistic tale of who we are. That's where I read this, addressed to his two young daughters: "Your mom and I hope to leave something of ourselves behind for you, and we hope to leave it behind in a less dangerous world."

Nice.

]]> Review7389008476 Sun, 09 Mar 2025 10:54:15 -0700 /review/show/7389008476 Jeri gave 4 stars to Braving the Wilderness (Hardcover) by Brené Brown
bookshelves: pleasure-read
TK ]]> Review7338738840 Thu, 20 Feb 2025 04:52:53 -0800 /review/show/7338738840 Jeri gave 2 stars to You Dreamed of Empires (Hardcover) by Álvaro Enrigue
bookshelves: argosy-book-group
]]> Review7282251273 Sun, 02 Feb 2025 04:27:59 -0800 /review/show/7282251273 Jeri gave 4 stars to You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters (Hardcover) by Kate Murphy
bookshelves: work-read
]]> Review7208443571 Sun, 12 Jan 2025 17:41:53 -0800 /review/show/7208443571 Jeri gave 3 stars to How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen (Kindle Edition) by David Brooks
bookshelves: pleasure-read
TK ]]> Review7208448117 Sun, 12 Jan 2025 17:39:12 -0800 /review/show/7208448117 Jeri gave 4 stars to Iron Flame (The Empyrean, #2) by Rebecca Yarros
bookshelves: pleasure-read
TK ]]> Review7208443571 Sun, 12 Jan 2025 17:38:49 -0800 /review/show/7208443571 Jeri gave 3 stars to How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen (Kindle Edition) by David Brooks
bookshelves: pleasure-read
TK ]]> Review7208443571 Sun, 12 Jan 2025 17:38:03 -0800 /review/show/7208443571 Jeri gave 3 stars to How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen (Kindle Edition) by David Brooks
bookshelves: pleasure-read
TK ]]>