Non-fiction book reviews part 2

Non-fiction book reviews part 2 - music

This is part two of a series where you learn more about me, based on the NetGalley review books I request and review. (Part 1 here.) Today we are talking about music. I'm not the biggest music fan. I listen to music, but it's more a "lets put something on while I cook dinner" than a "$1200 for Taylor Swift tickets, seems like a bargain" kind of thing. Recently two books about artists I like (and occasionally listen to) came up on Negalley:

Dolly Parton: 100 Remarkable Moments in an Extraordinary Life by Tracey Laird (publishing 10/10/2023)

This is a measured, well researched and comprehensive scan across Dolly's whole career. It has lots of information, photos of Dolly across her career and an informative, factual and easy to read tone and layout. It uses a wide range of secondary sources to provide this information. What this book does not do (or try to do) is provide any new or controversial material. It would make a great coffee table book, and I'd recommend putting on a Dolly album, pouring your beverage of choice, sitting back in a comfy chair and enjoying.

David Bowie Rainbowman 1967-1980 by Jerome Soligny (publishing 5 September 2023)

This book is the exact opposite of Dolly Parton, with loads of original research, lots of original interviews and many pages without pictures, which is not surprising, givben this book is more than 700 pages long.

Oddly this book is written in the present tense (in 1969 Bowie is living in...) which I found peculiar. It's full of interviews "with the musicians, producers and friends who knew Bowie best" almost all of whom are men. I don't know if this is a reflection on Bowie and his life or on Soligny. This biography is very, very detailed and gets very technical at times. This is not a volume for the casual fan, but for those who want to take a deep dive into the music of David Bowie.

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Unravelled wednesday and WAYRN - the one where I prepare

We are heading off for some camping and hiking and general R&R on Friday, so I'm currently in planning and preparing mode. Of course that mainly means deciding what to knit - I'm going to make the Old Romance cardigan by Joji Locatelli. The yarn is wound and I'm ready to go. I completed Leon's Winter Set (2023) just in time, and it's currently blocking. I'm reading Georgette Hayer's Fredrica , which I am enjoying very much. Regency romance is so sweet and, unlike current romance offerings, I know it won't suddenly tumble into gynaecological territory! For unexplained reasons, NetGalley is offering some Georgette Heyer books at the moment - (maybe it's re-release?) and I'm taking this opportunity to read a few more of them And that's my week in knitting and reading. To read my all my book reviews, and to see everything I knit, you can find me on Ravelry as Sharondoublekni t and on GoodReads as Sharondblk . I'm joining in with Kat ...

Yarnalong - the one with the final bit of transport

Remember how I took every form of transport known to man a fortnight ago? Well, I was missing just one thing, suburban trains. But today I got to remedy that, knitting my way to Dandenong for work. Yay? My Char jumper has been knitting up ridiculously fast. It's easy, pleasant and a well written pattern. I'm reading Rachael Herron's latest book The Ones Who Matter Most . It's a good read so far, family centered fiction, easy to read but still emotionally challenging. I'm listening to Evelyn Waugh's Men At Arms . I'm enjoying it, I didn't really know what to expect, but some of it reminds me of Catch 22, in that it catalogues the absurdities of war and bureaucracy. The narrator has the perfect upper crust English accent and I'm very pleased it's the first of a trilogy. And that's another week of reading, knitting and catching trains everywhere for me. Do pop along to Ginny's blog to see what she and the rest of the yarnalong ...

Why Andrea Mowry, why? (A rant and a rather nice finished object)

As mentioned, prior to our hiking trip I suddenly, and rather randomly, decided to knit Andrea Morwy's Traveler Shell . It's basically an open fronted rectangle in a knit purl pattern. The pattern is FOURTEEN pages long. Why is the pattern 14 pages long? Because, instead of explaining the ten row repeat and then putting the shaping on top of that (e.g. decrease while continuing to knit in pattern), she writes out the entire ten row knit purl sequence every time something changes. Additionally, most of the time she starts with even number being the right side and wrong numbers being the right side,which is just plain odd. It's confusing and it's like she wants to keep you looking at the pattern for every row, rathe than following the very intuitive stitch pattern, which I had memorised after one repeat. The instructions for the band just say 'pick up x number of stitches'. No ratios, no acjnowledgement that different bits of the band have different ratios. Afte...

What I made, by Sharon

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