About Book Marks
Recent Reviews
Sebastian Junger
Positive Booklist Journalist and filmmaker Junger returns to the fertile ground of male camaraderie and the pushing of limits ... The setting is conducive to ruminations on the concept of freedom, and, with muscular prose and vivid, poetic descriptions, Junger both conjures the trek and ponders the nomadic lifestyle, Genghis Khan, Daniel Boone, fugitive slaves, the Seminole Indians, boxers, and the Gini coefficient.
Richard Thompson
Rave Booklist Thompson proves himself equally adept as a memoirist, ably capturing the 1960s and ’70s music scene; the exciting, exhausting, and harrowing life on the road; and his spiritual awakening when he finds affirmation, fulfillment, and peace in Sufism. Just as he has a knack for lyrics, Thompson has a way with words on the page, offering colorful portraits of his contemporaries and collaborators, including the immensely talented though self-destructive Sandy Denny, Fairport’s singer ... Thompson’s humor and insight also shine. He evocatively recreates a time and place, and. like his shows, his memoir leaves you wanting more.
Peter Guralnick
Positive Booklist Guralnick’s obsession with the blues prompted him to become a music scholar ... Guralnick is drawn to iconic figures, whose inventiveness and audacity removed boundaries and shaped popular music as we know it ... Must reading for lovers of American popular music.
William Gibson
Positive Booklist Gibson blurs the line between real and speculative technology in a fast-paced thriller that will affirm to readers that it was well worth the wait ... Gibson wrote about the internet before there was an internet; plenty of readers will be anxious for his take on AI.
Bruce Conforth and Gayle Dean Wardlow
Positive Booklist ... a sober, well-researched and -documented account of the life and times of the Delta-born Robert Johnson, whose 29 sides, recorded in the 1930s, still resonate today.
John F Ross
Positive Booklist Ross makes vivid Powell’s adventures, drawing on journals and contemporary accounts, even capturing the drama of vicious battles among scientists vying for federal funds, including Powell’s clashes with senators and bureaucrats, in this fascinating portrait.
Robert Hilburn
Rave Booklist Based on extensive interviews with Simon and many others, Hilburn (Johnny Cash, 2013) has assembled a thorough and engrossing account of the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, who broke up a successful partnership and triumphed as a solo act. Hilburn delves into Simon’s youth in Queens, his many loves (including Carrie Fisher and Edie Brickell), and philanthropy. He also closely examines Simon’s approach to making music including his revisions, experiments in the studio, and worldwide search for interesting sounds.
Ann Powers
Rave Booklist Tracking popular music from New Orleans’ Congo Square through the blues queens, early rockers like Elvis and (of course) Little Richard, on through the sixties of Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, and all the way to Madonna, Michael, Prince, and Beyoncé, Powers reveals an extraordinary breadth of knowledge and insight and has produced an absolutely essential addition to any pop-culture collection.
Ellen Ullman
Positive Booklist Ullman maintains a healthy skepticism regarding the notion that technology will cure all that ails us ... she brilliantly questions the computer’s capacity for sentience.