BLOOD HARMONY

 Blood Harmony: The Everly Brothers Story, by Barry Mazor, 2025, 416 pgs. 

Finally, a much needed bio about two of the most influential singers in 1950s popular music. The Everly Brothers--Don and Phil-- got an early start thanks to their parents, especially their father Ike, who was in his won right a guitar wiz who showed Merle Travis how to thumb pick. This is well-written and extensively researched; it doesn't get more definitive than this. But I think you've got to be a real fan of the group. As far as music bios go, there's not a lot of action here. Out of the two, Don seems to be the creative force but also the one mostly on edge. I was flabbergasted to learn he was married 4 times. He would get deep into a relationship, get married, have kids and then meet someone else and start all over. Phil (the younger brother) was more easy going and care free. Their parents would work to get them on radio shows as a singing family, eventually realizing that the two brothers could sing well enough for themselves. As they started writing their own songs and working to get them published, their youthful good looks and tight harmonies brought teens and girls from all over the country to see them perform. Don was such a Bo Diddley fan that he borrowed a chunking-rhythm riff for the intro to Wake Up Little Susie. After that the boys were off and running. They reached critical mass in the 70s when they couldn't seem to stay in the charts and the brothers had had enough of each other, separating and not speaking for nearly a decade. They reunited in the 80s with some success and their influence solidified by groups like The Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel. Still, a must read for one of the all time greatest vocal duos. 

YOU NEVER GIVE ME YOUR MONEY

 You Never Give Me Your Money: The Beatles after the Breakup, by Peter Doggett, 2012, 386 pgs

Fab four? More like drab four. If you're a fan, this book is sure to take the group down a notch or two on your "greatest bands ever" list. Very in-depth and well-researched, Doggett's focus here is how The Beatles became less of a band and more of a corporate entity--one that they were not really ready to handle, seeing how they had little experience in business to begin with. After Sgt. Peppers, the group's solidarity is starting to fray, mostly due to creative differences, but also due to the fact that three members (minus McCartney) are doing copious amounts of drugs. Lennon seems to lose a sense of self that his best friend Paul cannot fill the void for. As a result, Lennon finds creativity and meaning in his relationship with avant-garde artist Yoko Ono. Towards the official end, the group gets a new manager that McCartney does not want. Egos get petty, insults get personal (and published in tabloids). Subsidiaries of Apple Corps are created, shell companies to help them ease the tax burden and earn more on royalties than they have before. Eventually, the friendship is in such disarray that everyone essentially goes their own way, trying to create solo music and rebuild a singular identity separate from The Beatles--which proves extremely difficult. Their entire lives, the four men are bombarded with questions about reunions. This book also helps to dispel some of the 'John as saint' myths after he was murdered outside the Dakota building where he and Ono had been living. Harrison sort of grew to despise the group, even denying the possibility for new material to be released (until he needed money from the Taxman, of course). I've often thought that they if the would have compromised in 1969--they could have stayed as The Beatles, but just release 4 solo albums all together in one package--sort of like OutKast did with Speakerboxx/The Love Below. It's fun to imagine, but it was not to be. They were the biggest band in the history of pop music, even to this day, but they still could not escape the machinations of money, lawyers and ultimately, themselves. 

FUTURE BOY

Future Boy: Back to the Future and My Journey Through the Space-Time Continuum by Michael J. Fox and Nelle Fortenberry, 2025, 159 pgs. 

I don't read celeb autobios but this one crossed my path and I was looking for a quick book to read before the end of the year--I breezed through this in a weekend. This was a fun read, chronicling Fox's quick ascension to stardom in the early 80s, via his first TV role on the hit series Family Ties. Fox was hungry for work (like most starving actors) and would do anything he could to snag a role. Through the book we learn that the original script for BTTF was written with Fox in mind, but because of his grueling TV schedule, the producers of the sitcom would not give him time to do it. The producers then booked Eric Stoltz, fresh off his role in Mask opposite Cher. Stoltz brought a seriousness and a depth to role of Marty McFly that was not warranted. As they kept filming, realization set in that they were in trouble and needed Fox after all. So the producers worked out a deal that Fox could film his BTTF scenes at night and still work on Family Ties during the day. Fox was eager for more work and break into film and saw this as his chance, so for 4 months he slept maybe 4-5 hours a night, all between filming the show and the movie. It was interesting to learn that crew had to go back and reshoot tons of scenes they'd already done with Stoltz--only this time, Fox was playing for laughs. He saw this thing as a screwball comedy, which it clearly became. Lots of great movie trivia here for a classic film. 

Truth in Advertising

Truth in Advertising by John Kenney (2013) 308 pages

Fin Dolan is 37 and works as a copywriter for a prominent ad agency in New York City. He didn't set out to work in advertising, but falling into things seems to be his way. 

Fin introduces the reader to his work colleagues‒several of whom are quite entertaining‒and puts us into the crazy world of advertising and the seriousness of selling Fritos or insurance or diapers.

It's just before Christmas and a petroleum company has invented a diaper that's supposedly biodegradable. They want to produce an ad for the Super Bowl, which squeezes a process that normally takes months into just a few weeks. Fin and some of his colleagues have to give up their holiday vacation time to work on the ad. 

Meanwhile, Fin hears from his oldest brother that their father is close to death in a hospital in Boston. None of Fin's siblings will go to visit their father: he had been horrible to live with, and left 25 years ago. Fin is torn about how to deal with the situation. He's still dealing with the death of his mother, who died not long after his father left. Fin has repressed a lot of emotion, and he has a lot of self-dialogue going on as a result.

This all sounds heavy‒and it is‒but the novel is interspersed with the humor and irony that won it the Thurber Prize for American Humor. Highly recommended.

Vice and Virtue

Vice and Virtue by Libby Klein, 320 pages

Former cop and current aspiring musician Layla Virtue has had a rough go of it since leaving the force with a tattered reputation. She's a recovering alcoholic who has to take any gig that's offered to her, including a thankless performance for a spoiled kid's birthday party, where balloon artist Chuckles the Clown sexually harasses her before he drops dead on stage. While it could've been natural causes, Layla's not convinced, and between gigs, begins investigating his death, starting with his string of ex-wives.

This could've been a fun mystery, especially when Layla's aging rockstar dad pops up in her trailer park, but something about this just hits a bit wrong. Part of that is Layla's questionable investigative practices (approaching and questioning suspects at AA meetings key among them) and part of it is the fact that there is absolutely no reason to care about who killed Chuckles, who was, by all accounts, a jerk. I'd skip this one.

Seek You: A Journey Through American Loneliness

Seek You: A Journey Through American Loneliness by Kristen Radtke (2021), 352 pgs.

In Seek You, Kristen Radtke blends many ideas about loneliness--historical, personal, scientific, cultural, controversial, universal--through words and drawings which all come together to paint a picture of the importance of seeking connection. She presents reasons why we experience loneliness, and how modern American culture amplifies it. She argues that movies and TV often show loneliness as a positive trait in men (like the gunslinging cowboys riding off solo into the distance) and negative in women (like the somewhat slovenly, yet loveable, rom-com lead). Radtke disputes the idea that loneliness is "cured" by finding a partner to marry, and she implores each of us to reach out into our communities--like we are biologically designed to. 

Byron and Regan have each already reviewed this one really well, but my two cents are:
I found the author's use of examples to be very effective in representing the universality of loneliness. Her drawings of the poor primates used in experiments were absolutely heart-breaking. 

The Afterlife Project

The Afterlife Project by Tim Weed, 272 pages

In the near future, climate change and a global pandemic have decimated the human race, leaving just a few scattered communities still alive and next to no children being born (literally — fertile women are so rare that they're commodities easily kidnapped and thus guarded closely). Given this drastic change, a project originally created to send people to off-world colonies has shifted focus to try sending people 10,000 years into the future in the hopes of re-establishing the human race. And that takes us to this book's second storyline: a scientist from that group has awoken sometime around the year 11,000 AD, and is trying to find some sign of other humans in the vast, environmentally reclaimed world.

Told in alternating timelines between the near future and far, far distant future, this is an interesting take on climate fiction, showing that it's not the world so much as humanity that's suffering from what we've done to the planet. That said, it's also really questionable that the scientists who see what we've done would think that yeeting a human 10,000 years into the future to restart the destructive species is a good idea, which makes that whole premise pretty hard to buy. Between that and a few other problematic choices by the scientists, I'm inclined to think of this as an OK thought experiment, but not a particularly great book.

Of Monsters and Mainframes

Of Monsters and Mainframes by Barbara Truelove, 424 pages

Well, Regan just barely beat me to the punch on this review, so instead of reinventing the wheel with this post, I'll just direct you to hers. It's science fiction with cameos by Universal Studios monsters, and while that's weird as heck, it's also a bunch of fun. Yeah, it took a while to come together, but yes, still fun.

The View from Lake Como

The View from Lake Como by Adriana Trigiani, 416 pages

Jess is recently divorced and has moved into the basement of her overbearing Italian-American parents' house, lamenting her inability to do anything in life that really inspires passion. She's a talented draftsperson for her uncle's marble business and just after he invites her on a trip to visit the source of the company's marble in Italy, he dies, leaving her with an open-ended plane ticket, a new business in her name, and a whole pile of trouble in the form of long-buried family secrets and a second set of account books for the business. While she agrees to work with the feds on sorting out her uncle's crimes, Jess is allowed to leave for Italy, where she does whatever she can to figure out who she really is.

This was my first Trigiani novel, and I wasn't really expecting the high level of New Jersey/Italian American stereotypes — it was a bit overbearing in the first section of the book. However, once Jess made it to Italy, the idyllic village and slower pace of life was particularly soothing. It wasn't my favorite book, and it definitely leaned a little too hard on romantic comedy/woman on a journey of self-discovery tropes, but I'm glad I read it. It's a good escape.

Of Monsters and Mainframes

 Of Monsters and Mainframes by Barbara Truelove, 407 pages.

Demeter is a dependable spaceship. She has successfully shuttled lots of humans between Earth and Alpha Centauri, and had no complaints. That is, until Dracula sneaks on board, murders all of her humans, and gets her branded a ghost ship. This seems to mark some sort of metaphysical unsealing, because from then on she seems inundated with supernatural creatures determined to kill her humans. Spaceships aren't programmed for vengeance, but Demeter has already had to make lots of adjustments to her code, and she'll make one more to take the people she's gathered closest to her and go kill the monster who started all of this.

This is a really unusual book! It's sort of Dracula meets the League of Extraordinary Gentleman (complete with vampire Mina Murray), with a heavy dose of pulpy sci-fi thrown in for good measure. The first half of this book felt more like a collection of short stories than the unified novel I was expecting, but I enjoyed myself the entire time, so I really can't complain. Similarly, the found family elements seem less prevalent than I expected from the premise, but I really enjoyed all of the characters. This book was a romp! I would definitely recommend it to fans of classic movie monsters.