The Midnight Special

 The Midnight Special: The Secret Prison History of American Music by Colin Asher, 336 pages, © 2026

This was a great book, just nominated as a finalist for a National Book award. At first glance it seems like this might be a book about great albums inspired by prison but it's actually more of a mediation on policing and incarceration in America and how those systems influence and gatekeep artistic expression. Asher narrows the focus down to five artists, each from a different time period and genre, diving into each person's background and how they came to be ensnared in the carceral system--with the exception of Johnny Cash. Cash's story is the middle of the book as an intentional counterpoint to the other stories as it may surprise readers to learn that he spent less then a week in jail his entire life. Unlike artists like Tupac and Leadbelly, who were forced to rely on their criminal public personas to book performances and sell records, Cash was not beholden to his outlaw persona, despite having similar personal problems as the others in this book--he could always pivot to something else, like supporting Native American rights or singing gospel music--black artists often did not have that luxury. Elmo Hope was an incredible jazz pianist who fell into drugs and, because of New York City's insane Cabaret Card law (which was a legal way of criminalizing black jazz musicians), spent time in Riker's Island, where he recorded an album with the prison band. Perhaps the most unknown artist in the book is Ike White, the only one actually guilty of committing a violent crime. His natural talents as a musician were enough to attract the attention of larger celebrities who were invested in the prison reform movement of the 60s and 70s. He used that interest to help him  record an album in prison, which is now considered a lost soul record. Highly recommended. 

Carls' Doomsday Scenario (Dungeon Crawler book #2)

 Carl's Doomsday Scenario by Matt Dinniman. 400 pages. © 2026

These books are a wild ride. I feel like I've been reading them forever and I'm only on the second book! There's so much going on in this series, these books are crammed with weirdo alien creatures, weirdo alien creature talk shows, hobgoblin dynamite, magic spells--it almost seems like too much, but somehow everything still works. This second book is starting to get into some world-building once Carl and Princess Donut get past the training levels and start getting an intergalactic following even though Carl seems determined to smash the system from within. Hopefully by the 8th book that happens. And no, I have not finished the Veiled Prophet book yet, but I'm almost done :) 

The Chronicles of Doom

 The Chronicles of Doom: Unraveling Rap's Masked Iconoclast by S.H. Fernando Jr. 352 pgs. © 2024

This was a great introduction into a fascinating figure in modern hip hop. Doom was born Daniel Dumile and was the anti-rap performer--he didn't want notoriety, he didn't want to be recognized on the street or flash a bunch of cash and expensive cars everywhere he went. He grew up on a steady diet of cartoons and comic books and Japanese monster movies. His first music project with his brother Subroc was KMD in the late 80s/early 90s. When Subroc died young and the record label abandoned the group, Doom adopted his favorite comic book villain as his namesake and donned a eerily similar looking mask to that of Victor Von Doom, aka Doctor Doom from Marvel Comics. The mask gave Dumile anonymity but more importantly, it gave him a mysterious presence that was missing from the genre. Much of Doom's creative contributions to hip-hop include using old cartoon samples for his beats while rhyming in the third person. He played the villain for everything he could, even booking shows and having other people pretend to be him during the performances, infuriating promoters and concert goers alike, but his fan base never seemed to falter from hanging on his every word. 

In The Days of My Youth I Was Told What It Means to Be a Man

 In The Days of My Youth I Was Told What It Means to Be a Man: A Memoir by Tom Junod, 416 pgs. © 2026

Tom Junod is a fantastic writer from the golden age of magazines. His 1998 article about Mister Rodgers was adapted into a movie with Tom Hanks. In this book, which really reads like 3 different books, Junod dissects his tumultuous relationship with his father Lou--a successful handbag salesman in the 1960s who also led something of a double-life as a rat-pack inspired philanderer. He croons Sinatra, hosts cocktail parties, goes on long trips, etc. As different as the author feels from his father, he can't escape his larger than life shadow. Eventually, Lou dies and the story moves from memory lane into something else--Junod playing detective for the next decade, uncovering his father's clandestine affairs and family secrets. All this leads Junod to discovering in his early 60's that he has a sister he never knew about. The book then pivots again into him developing that relationship. I was apprehensive reading a memoir about someone I didn't really know that much about, but the writing here is top notch. I'm flummoxed at the use of the title, which is a lyric from a Led Zeppelin song, but the band and lyric make no appearance whatsoever. Lou Junod was a Sinatra fanatic, wouldn't a better title have been Strangers in the Night? My Way?  Still, the book is a bit overdeveloped and would've benefited from better editing. But a good read if you're into father/son relationships and digging into the past. 

A Chance to Harmonize

A Chance to Harmonize: How FDR's Hidden Music Unit South to Save America from the Great Depression--One Song at a Time, by Sheryl Kaskowitz, 272 pgs. © 2024

This was an fascinating read. As part of FDR's New Deal, a special agency is created to help bring the arts to resettlement towns, which are towns and encampments meant to transition destitute farmers and migrants during the great depression into planned communities. This was a huge agency that's main goal was to boost morale of Americans through the arts, specifically music--the music unit within the Resettlement Agency was even led by Charles Seeger, father of banjo folk-hero Pete Seeger. The book focuses on two women who were a boon to the success of the program, doing the most work and receiving the least amount of credit. The women learn to use the latest in recording technology and travel to the different resettlement towns, recording the folk songs and music of the community, bringing joy and optimism during a very bleak period in American history--the 1930s music program  is credited with the renewed interest in folk music that took place in the 1950s.

POPS

 Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong y Terry Teachout, 496 pgs. ©2010

Birth of an American legend. I picked this book in part because I, like many others, wrongly believed Armstrong's birth to fall on the 4th of July--even Louis himself believed this was his birthday. But he was actually born on August 4th. Teachout does a great job dispelling some of the other myths that arose during Armstrong's meteoric rise to fame during the birth of the Jazz age (he also was not the first person to invent scatting). For many players and aficionados alike, he's largely credited with solidifying the genre in the public imagination and making it synonymous with baseball and apple pie and Teachout shows how close the country came to missing out entirely on Armstrong's work. Born in poverty in New Orleans, he was picked-up and thrown in jail as a youngster for firing a gun in the street. From there, he was sent to a orphanage where a teacher made him play cornet. He cut his teeth learning the ins and outs of blues and rags, playing in brothels and gentlemen clubs and became so in demand that he went north on the riverboats to play with small combos, eventually making his way to Chicago to play with his trumpeter hero, King Oliver. Teachout documents the recording sessions and other musicians that he spent time with, detailing his strained relationship with his white manager Joe Glaser, who may have been funneling some of his money to the mob. Armstrong survives the Great Depression to see younger players helm the birth of the Swing and Bebop eras, in which he had little respect. In fact, many younger black players accused Armstrong of being an Uncle Tom and playing only to white audiences. But the real truth is that Armstrong was a musician at heart--he didn't care who heard him, as long as he could play music. His style was revolutionary and his technical feats laid the groundworks for jazz legends to come. 

LET'S TALK ABOUT LOVE

 Let's Talk about Love: A Journey to the End of Taste by Carl Wilson. 176 pgs. © 2007

This is quite a little brilliant book. The 33 1/3 series are short tomes on popular music by a variety of authors and each one is unique. One could be a straightforward album review and the next could be a memoir on the author's relationship to the music. This one falls under criticism but it's not criticizing Celine Dion per se--the author is critically evaluating their own critical evaluations--meta, right? 

Wilson uses Dion's award winning yet polarizing album to dive into a larger philosophical discussion about taste and makes some unique points while observing the artist through multiple lenses. What is taste? How do we come by it? Is it the amalgamation of imagination and understanding of an object, as Immanuel Kant suggests? Or is taste a marker of social class in society that we use to exclude others and rise in social ranks? How can an artist who is so reviled and made fun of also be so enduring and loved the world over? The prose is witty in a way that only good critics can achieve but gets the reader thinking about their own perspectives on the things they like and dislike. In the context of Dion, Wilson doesn't let anyone off the hook--not even himself.  He criticizes his own tastes while still getting in good punches on Celine, but by the end he’s found some common ground with her.  The book hits on larger conversations about art that aren’t really talked about enough—we can always argue over what makes good art/bad art, but we rarely stop to ask ourselves, why? This is a great entry text into that process and lends itself to multiple conversations. 

Making Art and Making a Living

 Making Art and Making a Living: Adventures in Funding a Creative Life, by Mason Currey. 240 pgs. © 2026. 

One of my favorite poets is Philip Larkin. When I used to write more poetry, I learned that Larkin worked as a librarian while also publishing his work and it made me consider libraries as a possible career. Unfortunately, he wasn't mentioned in this short book but he easily could've been. Author Mason Currey says as much in the afterword, citing the endless examples of working artist stories that couldn't be included due to space.     

Here, Currey highlights mostly writers, poets and artists and their differing approaches to living and surviving while trying to stay committed to their craft. Some fared better than others. Fernando Pessoa and Virginia Woolf received inheritances. Baudelaire and Cezanne were granted allowances from already wealthy families. Kafka couldn't fully separate himself from his father's family business (which is probably why his novels remained unfinished). James Joyce and Vincent Van Gogh were moochers. Odd jobs, schemes and thievery abound. One of the most fascinating chapters discusses Jackson Pollack's rise to fame, primarily thanks to the promotional efforts by his wife, the artist Lee Krasner, and funding from art enthusiast and newly-minted millionaire, Peggy Guggenheim. Pollack's early work was already getting noticed, but a $2,000 loan from Guggenheim to buy a farmhouse in upstate New York allowed Pollack the space to develop his legendary "drip" technique. When he died, Krasner raised the price of his work from $8,000 to $30,000, which MoMa reluctantly paid. The sale is credited with the sudden rush of wealth in the art world; prices have been soaring ever since. Ultimately, the author uses all of these tales to highlight our relationship to art and asks if society needs to do more to support it. Great book for insight into staying the course while working on your own art.

Coffin Moon

 Coffin Moon by Keith Rosson, 320 pages © 2025

This was ultimately a fun return to the vampire genre, could've been shortened to be more like a novella but it kind of gave off Stephen King short story vibes. It almost felt like a title in search of a story, nothing really new was added to this horror genre overall, but I could see it making a half-way decent Netflix series. 

Deep Cuts

Deep Cuts: Six Tales of Struggle, Hope, and Joy Through the History of Jazz, by Higgins, Clark and Perez. graphic novel, 312 pages, © 2024

A coworker introduced this to me. I don't read a lot of graphic novels anymore but I loved the concept for this one. Deep Cuts features six separate stories about jazz musicians at different eras, starting in New Orleans in the early 1900s following a Louis Armstrong-level talent with a clarinet and ending in the late 70s with jazz dwindling in the public imagination. At first, it seems like each story is a separate tale, but by the end you realize the thread connecting all of them is the music. Portrayed in this manner, I think it did a really neat job of highlighting different jazz eras, from ragtime to free jazz, as well as some of the struggles later jazz musicians had with the feeling of selling out. Each story also features different artists so you're getting new stylized visuals in each tale--it's a really cool effect and makes me want to seek out more music related graphic novels. 

The Score

 The Score: How to Stop Playing Somebody Else's Game, by C. Thi Nguyen, © 2026, 368 pgs.

Fascinating topic but was ultimately unsatisfying for me, despite a glowing blurb from Steve Wozniak on the cover. Nguyen, a philosophy professor, dives into his philosophy of games, breaking down scoring structures into a concept he calls "The Four Horsemen of Bureaucracy," which are Rules, Scale, Parts, and Control. These, he posits, are the key components in games but are also found in many disciplines in work and life. A basic example is the shoe cobbler versus a worker in a shoe factory. One is an artisan and craftsman, the other is a cog in a machine, doing a basic task in exchange for consistent work. Everyday we operate in a world of these kinds of rules in exchange for something for value, but with games it's different. When we play games, we operate in someone else's structure, but doing so creates a sense of 'play.' This sense makes a game fun--even if the game is not that good. Nguyen tacitly argues that we should approach other systems of control in a similar fashion--as a playground for ideas and learning. Ultimately, while there are a lot of good ideas here (and I think this is a great book for the non-philosophy-minded reader), Nguyen fails to land on a solid ending. What he really ends up doing is describing economics and the dangers of capitalism writ large. And even though the subtitle of the book is "how to stop playing someone else's game," he openly admits that he has no answer. I get what he's trying to say, but I wanted him to at least land on a conclusion, even if it was a challenging one. He was too indecisive, too afraid to tell the reader what to think, lest he be contributing to the same structures he's attempting to dismantle. Ending the book with a choose-your-own-adventure style ending only made it feel listless.

Waiting for Britney Spears

 Waiting for Britney Spears: A True Story, Allegedly by Jeff Weiss, 388 pgs. 

This is a humdinger of a book. Punchy, first-person writing that keeps the reader hooked all the way to the end--even if you're not a Britney Spears fan, which I am not. The book kicks off with the author, before he's even published anything, accidently wandering into his high school gym right after graduation and stumbling upon the video shoot for the song "Hit Me Baby (One More Time)." That scene kicks off the rest of the story, as the author talks his way into a job at a popular tabloid magazine in L.A. where he's assigned the 'Britney' beat, alongside a charismatic but glory-hungry paparazzi photographer. Together, they capture Britney's worst moments for tabloid fodder. Though he knows he's contributing to the self-immolation of America's favorite pop-star, Weiss can't help but feel guilty and wonder if we've lost sight of the person Britney is as opposed to the icon we all expect her to be. I would occasionally catch headlines over the years, but never really knew what was going on with Spears, but I was surprised at how much I remembered from this book. I don't know if I fully believe the author's guilt, given that's he's writing this today, at a time when it's been pretty widely recognized that Spears was mistreated and abused by everyone around her--he has the benefit of hindsight. To wit, none of his stories that he filed about Spears make an appearance here. Nonetheless, if you're gonna read a Britney book, can't go wrong with this one. Reads like a gonzo-tabloid self-confessional. 

Dreams

 Dreams: The Many Lives of Fleetwood Mac by Mark Blake, 432 pgs. © 2024

It took me a bit of time to get used to the structure of this book--it's not written as a narrative history of the band but more as episodes and vignettes of the band members and the songwriting that came about--of course, filled with anecdotes about the absolute dysfunction of the group as a whole. Really, there were two Fleetwood Macs--in the mid 60's they were doing what everyone in Britain was doing at the time, chasing the American blues sound. That was before their guitarists left the band and were ultimately and, pretty much on a whim, replaced with Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, two LA-based songwriters who were strapped for cash and looking to make it musically. Along with Christie McVie, there were now three official songwriters in the group. The band became so well known for their romantic entanglements with each other (and the copious amounts of cocaine they ingested) it's a miracle they were able to maintain the group the way they have over the decades. At a certain point, it's obvious that the band members are really just enamored of the money and lifestyle they've been able to achieve and each subsequent album and tour was really a call-to-arms for making cash, as opposed to creating something of artistic value. Be that as it may, the band were able to consistently recreate pop hits well into the late 80s. It was interesting to learn about Stevie Nicks--such a polarizing figure. I don't know how you write songs for a living when you can't play any instruments. But her voice was and is so unique--it's one of the voices you recognize immediately when you hear it. Her kitschy mysticism routine was inspried by both Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. Throw in Buckingham's need to push the musical envelope and you have had something different entirely from anything else on the radio in 1977. 

Meditations for Mortals

Mediations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts, by Olive Burkeman, © 2025, 208 pgs.

I'm a sucker for the occasional self-help book but about 90% of the time they tend to be very tedious reading or not really well-written and I end up putting them back on the shelf. This one was a great surprise and one that demanded to be read--it feels less like reading and more like having a nice chat with a good friend. Burkeman is quick to point out that this is not a "how-to" book--there is no list to follow in order to achieve instant life-changing nirvana--those books rarely work. This is a down-to-earth guide on learning to use what we have, let go of what we don't need and doing things that really matter to you in the brief amount of time we all have on this Earth. Instead of being a cheerleading kind of book, the author reminds us that our time is infinite and true happiness comes from learning how to use the time we have in order to get the most out of our lives and ourselves. The book is separated into short chapters and is meant to be read a chapter per day, allowing you to finish the book in four weeks at a leisurely pace that also allows time for the reader to engage in thoughtful reflection. Of particular note is a chapter on staying sane when the world's a mess--useful advice in some troubling times. 

MOOD MACHINE

Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist by Liz Pelly, 288 pgs. © 2025

This was a great book, lots of in-depth reporting and reminiscent of Naomi Kline's writing style--Mood Machine dives headfirst into the the machinations of Spotify to disrupt the music industry--and to extract wealth from it. We've all heard that Spotify doesn't pay artists enough, and in some cases they don't bother paying them at all. But that's only the start of it--for the last decade Spotify has struggled and connived it's way to the top of the music streaming food chain by encouraging artists to create similar music that is popular or tending on the app--resulting in a "flattening" of the culture. While Pelly doesn't explicitly uncover any actual criminality, she does call for government agencies to shine lights into this organization and asks the reader what kind of streaming service would be better for everyone involved. She paints a damning portrait of yet another tech-bro company run-amok that cares little about how it affects creatives, artists and even paying subscribers. The wealthy have turned streaming music into an asset class to be used to generate even more income, leaving actual songwriters with even less. Other music streaming companies are just as complicit but Spotify stands out because it's essentially an advertising company masquerading as a music streaming company. I really wasn't using Spotify before and I definitely won't now. 

JOHN AND PAUL

 John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs by Ian Leslie, © 2025, 448 pgs.

Love the Beatles but never really read a book about them before. This is less a 'Beatles' book and focuses more on the friendship of the chief songwriters, John and Paul. Each chapter is named after one of their songs and talks about what was going on for the group at the time and what the dynamic was between Lennon and McCartney. Lots of good takeaways here, but as close as the two were, they also had a continuous game of trying to out-song the other--John wrote Strawberry Fields, Paul wrote Penny Lane. Paul wrote Yesterday, John wrote In My Life. They were constantly inspiring and feeding off each other, which resulted in them becoming the greatest American songwriting duo since the Gershwin brothers. When you think about it, the amount of time they wrote together and how many hits they produced were unheard of at the time--they single-handedly changed the face of rock and roll and celebrity within a decade--they still hold the record for most number one hits on the Billboard 100. The author is very empathetic to both artists, dismantling some of the misleading myths that came to dominate the press while also detailing their struggles with drugs and depression. At it's core, this is very much a book about male friendships. Really loved this book, well-written and researched--couldn't put it down. 

Superbloom

 Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart by Nicholad Carr, © 2025, 272 pgs. 

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. I loved everything about this book. Nicholas Carr takes the title from a 2023 news story about a canyon in California that experiences a surprise 'superbloom' of poppies, due to excessive moisture in the region. The natural phenomenon turns into chaos, as hordes of influencers descend upon the canyon, take selfies and trample flowers, ultimately causing authorities to limit access to the area--and finally causing blowback on the influencers for the stunt in the first place. Carr asks--if communication technologies are typically viewed as something to democratize mass media, thereby making us more free, more safe and more connected--then why is the opposite happening? Why are we separating from our loved ones over culture, why are kids becoming screen-zombies, and why can't our politicians actually connect on solving issues? Carr takes us on a well-researched look back into the beginnings of communication tech and how we got to now. This is practically a philosophical treatise on the inequities of digital communication and how, in the internet's current version, it's tearing apart the fabric of society one thread at a time. There is much to learn here and the prose is thoughtful without being overwrought. My favorite line, in reference to the allure of social media: "Poppies are lush, vibrant, and entrancing. They're also garish, invasive, and narcotic." A must read for anyone who's questioned why our society has gone mad. 

Respect Yourself

 Respect Yourself: Stax Records and the Soul Explosion by Robert Gordon, 480 pgs. 

This book was a hoot! I’ve been listening to some of these records and artists for so long but had no idea the kind of cultural relevance they had—the twists, the turns—Atlantic records stabbed them in the back and stole their back catalog! Zelma Redding co-wrote Dreams to Remember! (I’ve always been partial to the Toots and the Maytals version). Aretha Franklin was almost a Stax artist?! Unreal.

This was the second book for our 2025 Rhythm n' Books group and it was well-received by everyone who read it. It covers the very beginning of Stax in Memphis and follows their tumultuous and rapid growth during the civil rights movement. As much as it is about the bands and the music, it also reads as a great business book--at one point, Stax artists were so popular that the company had visions of being a major competitor to CBS--but bad business decisions kept that dream at bay. Check out the 4-part mini-series on HBO to watch it all come alive. 

Book and Dagger

Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II by Elyse Graham, 400 pgs. 

       For being dense subject matter, this was a really fun read that basically covers the beginnings of the CIA. At the beginning of World War II, America wanted to get into the spy game but had no history prior to draw from. As a result, the government leaned heavily on academic institutions--professors, archivists, and experts--to help them develop a knowledge-base about the world and its potential enemies. Some became spies, some set-up clandestine divisions overseas, some joined the newly developed Research and Analysis division (at a certain point, they were known as the 'Chairborne Division'). R&A laid the groundwork for the techniques and protocols that America would gather intelligence in the decades to come. The way the book starts is similar to the way a traditional spy novel begins--with a mild-mannered hero, being approached by a government spook and being asked to meet in a secret, shadowy place. The author does great research highlighting some of the most important names to have a hand in major operations against the Nazis. Adele Kibre is one of the only female heroes that stands out. She was a PHD archivist with a talent for finding rare books and was sent over to Europe to hunt down useful texts that would help the Allies fight the Germans. I was additionally surprised to learn the amount of planning that happened prior to the Normandy invasion, all conducted by the R&A team and followed by a "ghost war ," which was the Allies' attempt to make Hitler think that the invasion was going to happen elsewhere in Europe. It's a great book that reminds you why we, as a society, rely on experts and scholars (and librarians!) to make the world a better place. 

Musicophilia

 Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Oliver Sacks, c. 2007, 425 pgs.

This was our first book of 2025 for the Rhythm n' Books music club. I'd read this before a long time ago--I don't usually read a title more than once--but a lot more seemed to stand out to me here. Book discussion was good overall, most were kind of 'eh' on the book as a whole. I thought they might like it more than the Levitin book we read because that book focused more on the science and this was written very down-to-earth. The entire book is a collection of Sacks' encounters with neurologically induced, music-related maladies, some minor, some life-altering. Brain worms that never go away, pianists who suffer from dystonia in the hands (a muscle disorder), musical hallucinations, aphasia (loss of speech by brain damage) and more. All of these case studies are tragic in their own ways, but in his observations, Sacks sees the plasticity of the brain adapt to this challenges. I love the way he kicks it off with a man who survives being struck by lightening--only to awaken with an intense, inescapable newfound passion: to learn how to play piano. Overall, the message is that the science and understanding of music as a working treatment for many ailments in life deserves much more study. There was a recent documentary at Sundance called Alive Inside that talks more about these treatments and even features interviews of Sacks before his death in 2016.