Augustus: First Emperor of Rome (Adrian Goldsworthy, 2014)

It's hard to believe it's been over five years since my last Goldsworthy, that being How Rome Fell, also known by its British (?) title, Fall of the West. I remember that book fondly because it was the first one I read after moving back to the Bay Area, and it also put in place the reading programs I've been following ever since. Meanwhile, Goldsworthy has been keeping busy, with beefy biographies of Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, and now Augustus, a.k.a. Gaius Octavius, a.k.a. Gaius Julius Caesar, a.k.a. Octavian (frowned upon by the author), a.k.a. Little Caesar (kidding), plus a heap of honorifics like Pater Patrae and all that jazz.

The biggest challenge in writing about Augustus, other than managing his multitude of names, is how to stand out and offer something fresh for one of the most documented portions of Graeco-Roman history, both in terms of primary and secondary material. One big help is that Goldsworthy had been working up to this through his last two books, and it was probably hard not to turn to Augustus after writing about his (adoptive) father and his fellow triumvir-turned-archrival. He is good about being clear about what sources say what about Augustus and how reliable they are. Although I didn't learn anything particularly shocking, his synthesizes his research well and the narrative flows easily. He manages to be accessible to the ancient history newbie as well as the wizened scholar, although the latter may be thirsting for something more niche and in-depth.

To return to the names, Goldsworthy does not use the name "Octavian" in his narrative, although it occasionally appears in the sources he quotes. In fact, if I had to point to what distinguishes this book from other other works on Augustus, it would probably be the careful attention to names. Now, the downside to saying "young Caesar" in lieu of "Octavian" is that it can be a little jarring for readers that are used to the Octavian-Augustus dichotomy. He does impose a few ground rules on himself, though. For example, his adoptive father is always "Julius Caesar", and if readers keep that in mind it helps with the Caesar or Caesar question. Names are also important in other ways. Most obviously, Goldsworthy divides up his narrative into parts named after what name Augustus was using at that time of his life, swinging from Gaius Octavius to Imperator Caesar Augustus Divi Filius Pater Patrae (basically, Emperor Caesar Augustus son of the divine Julius, Father of his Country, nothing fancy). He is good about noting when a source is far enough in the future to "mangle" the titles a bit; although we retrospectively see Augustus as the first Roman emperor, he never classed himself as one (there is a subtle distinction in the office of Emperor which developed much later, and the title of Imperator). Goldsworthy correctly assesses the programs of Augustus as those of a man who attempted to both "restore" the Republic and develop a new structure of governance. How Roman history turned out in the future clearly was not as Augustus envisioned it.

It looks like I'm going to have to get back to the original Caesar and Mark Antony and everyone's favorite Egyptian queen to make the trilogy complete. If they are as absorbing and comprehensive as this book, it should make for a good time. As for this book, all I had to do was walk downstairs to the stacks and pick it up from my own library. If you are not as fortunate to run your own library, fear not. These books are widely held and readily available from most every public and academic library with a slightly-above the poverty line budget. Check out Worldcat to find a library close to you.

The Anglican Spiritual Tradition (John R. H. Moorman, 1983)

It seemed only fair to give my own denomination some air time in light of all of the Catholic history and Catholic-leaning writings I've read over the past year or so. Given we are outnumbered 70 million to 3 million, it can be a little hard to find equivalent Anglican resources. Therefore, while this was very informative, it wasn't the most gripping book I've read. England was a very complex society religiously, and post-Reformation a clear split in the new order soon took shape with the upper classes sticking with an all-but-the-Pope high Anglicanism and Protestant-leaning "low" church catching fire among the common people. It is interesting how sometimes even more extreme results came out of both sides, with some returning to the Catholic Church and others breaking away to new forms of Protestantism, such as Methodism.

Anglicanism differs from its fellow Protestant denominations (even the mainline ones) in that it is apostolic, so, particularly among the high-church types, is the belief that the Church of England is the real continuation of the "one, holy, catholic and apostolic church", not the Roman Catholic Church. Other Protestants tend to observe the "get back to Jesus" idea and throw out the whole Catholic Church back to the beginning. As Luther and Calvin seeped into the lower classes of England, this was an appealing notion.

Also, Anglicanism, by its nature as a fused church-state entity, was strongly influenced by whoever happened to be sitting on the throne. Even though the conventional wisdom was that it emerged fully developed from Henry VIII's reign, most the more differing characteristics from Catholicism came during the reigns of Edward VI and Elizabeth I. Intervening monarchs would prove to be more Catholic, particularly Mary I and James II, but from Elizabeth onward it was its own church, Oxford Movement sentiments or not.

It was interesting to read about all of the changes over time (some of which early on were very violent and aptly illustrated by a fictional account of a very confused priest), as well as the varying strains of thought that exist in Anglicanism (and we aren't even talking about the Anglican Communion here). Again it's fairly dry reading, so a little historical background in English history and the Reformation would be useful before approaching it.

My copy, strangely enough, came from my church's library. Most library copies are usually only available in academic libraries, so it may be worth tracking down second-hand on the cheap if you aren't familiar or comfortable with interlibrary loan. Of course if you are Episcopalian or feel comfortable visiting one and it is not too "low church" I bet you will find a copy there. Consult Worldcat for a library near you that carries a copy.

The Catholic Church Through the Ages, 2nd ed. (Fr. John Vidmar, OP, 2014)

Astute readers of this blog will know right away this one was for class. I read it, so it counts! I actually read it over the course of about eight months. Sure, I could have torn through it back in 2015 and added it to my last year book count, but that wouldn't have served me well in class. So, consider this, in terms of the book count, an exercise in delayed gratification.

Although the book served as our textbook in the class, Fr. Vidmar wrote this book for a general audience. In the introduction, he explains the work is in part a way to make church history more accessible to the average parishioner and address criticism over history-based homilies that "the sheep were not fed." As far as being a classroom text, it has good and bad points related to this intent. On one hand, it is a very friendly volume and reads quickly. Although there are some holes and some parts are overemphasized, it generally managed the two-thousand year sweep in a reasonable number of pages. Also, unlike other church history books, Vidmar is relatively agenda-free, though he does presume most of his readers are Catholic. The danger with the book, however, is that he sometimes slips into a "golly gee" tone with lots of exclamation marks. Also, as stated in the introduction, he is targeting the parish, not the classroom. Therefore he readily anticipates what a priest may have to reckon with when he gets hard questions in church history: the Inquisition, the Crusades, "Hitler's Pope", and Luther, Calvin, Zwingli and company all trigger a more defensive writing style. All of these are understandable in providing the reader with tools to answer those tough questions, but in the classroom they can suck all of the oxygen out of all the other topics.

All in all, it's not a bad book to pick up if you are curious about the long history of the Catholic Church, and it certainly won't hurt if you are Catholic, though I didn't find myself being frozen out. Hitchcock's history (read a couple years back) is much more academic and opinionated, but also more thorough. It all depends on how in-depth you are ready to go.

I read my copy through my place of employment, liberally borrowing the reserve copy. Even though it is a general history, it is published by Paulist Press, which means public libraries probably don't have it on their active watch lists to acquire. The 2005 edition is more widely held than this edition, and you probably won't suffer too badly if that's what you can find, unless Popes Benedict XVI and Francis are the end-all be-all of your interests in the Church, or plan to rely on Vidmar's bibliographies for future reading. Check out Worldcat to find a holding library near you, or shell out $20 to Paulist or, of course, there's always "Earth's largest store" for the unimaginative.

Obasan (Joy Kogawa, 1981)

It's a national pastime to announce your are moving to Canada in protest of some political thing or person you don't like. A lot of times the person who says this clearly didn't do the research since whatever it was they hated about the United States so much was even more present in the Great White North. While I don't know anybody planning on leaving for Canada over the treatment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, if there were such a person, they would find nothing in Canada to make them feel better.

That's what brings us to the thrust of the featured book, Obasan. The book's title means "aunt" in Japanese, although, especially with the counterpart word for "uncle", it can also be a term of respect to an elder member of the community. Although the book advertises itself as a tale of one family's dealings with Canada's traumatic Japanese relocation policy from the eyes of a child, it is actually framed around that child in her adult years putting together the pieces through memories and the collected evidence of her activist aunt. However she is not the "Obasan" the gives the book its title. Rather it is her great-aunt, the ancient, strong, silent type, who is both a pillar of strength and frustration for the protagonist.

Farewell to Manzanar is fairly standard-issue reading in high schools around here. There are a lot of parallels between the two books, and where they diverge is in the post-war period. It took a lot longer for Canada to come around on their internment policy, whereas the United States declared the camps illegal in 1944. Sure, there was extensive aftermath in both countries, but Manzanar takes a more personal approach, detailed the family's struggles after leaving the camp, overcoming prejudices, and so forth. Obasan, on the other hand, features a family that is not only booted from their British Columbia home, but also kicked out of their adopted wartime home in the mountains after the war ended and forced even further into the interior into truly wretched living conditions. Canada's anti-Japanese laws were so entrenched that Japanese-Canadians weren't allow back to the West Coast even after the war was over, which had a permanent impact on moving Japanese-Canadian culture well into the Canadian heartland.

On a style note, Obasan can be a little confusing. If you like to read stories that maintain a consistent tense, you are going to be a little frustrated by this book. The present tense is employed both in the novel's "present" (1972) and "past" (around 1940 onward) and it isn't always immediately clear when the action changes back. Just to really mess with the inattentive reader, the past tense sometimes slips in when there is a direct memory that doesn't fall in the primary "past" setting.

Like many of the books I've been reading this year, I got my copy of Obasan from the public library. It must have been one of those "core" books that falls pretty darn close to the original publication date and will probably remain in the library collection until it falls apart. It was Godine hardcover with zillions of checkout stamps, but it still seemed pretty sturdy after 35 years of library use. As a core title, copies exist at nearly every public library in the United States, but you can check Worldcat and locate one for yourself!

Story of a Soul: The Autobiography of St. Thérèse of Lisieux (1898)

This is the first of a few books you will see posted here relating to the course I'm taking in Church History. Although this isn't the first book we read, it's the first one I completed all the way through. After the semester ends, I'll "mop up" the remainders of a couple books we only read part of, just because I'm a suffering completionista.

Carmelite spirituality is very effusive! You are best friends with Jesus and use a lot of exclamation points to convey your faith! I'm not sure I could even channel a tenth of Thérèse's enthusiasm, which is saying a lot (for her), because her health was pretty awful through most of her 24 year lifespan. However, even without the bubbly prose, Therese had a lot to teach the world. As featured in the thesis statement of my paper, the late nineteenth century, the backdrop of the First Vatican Council, was one where the "regular human" was getting reduced to a speck in the sea of huge systems of industrial capitalism and nascent Marxist models of society. While Pope Leo XIII address these big concepts in his encyclical Rerum novarum, Thérèse, just a few years later, looked to the smallest things in her search for God. That is what makes her important: she makes the small things significant in a time where small things might as well have been invisible.

I read my copy from my own library, but you needn't go on an epic quest to a theological library to find your own copy. Not only is this ICS Publications's bestselling title (in fact their whole publishing house was founded on it), but it is also available from numerous public and academic libraries.

The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln (Stephen L. Carter, 2012)

Well, this seems like a nice little historical novel about....wait a second. Impeachment? Don't you mean "assassination"? What's going on here? This is the same Stephen Carter that brought the world well-regarded historical novels such as The Emperor of Ocean Park, no?

In all fairness, if you knew nothing about American history, you might think this actually is an historical novel. Unlike other works of alternative history, Dr. Carter feels no need to introduce time travel, alien invaders, or even overt humor. He subscribes to the very "soft" side of the genre, where even big events ultimately do not rupture the timeline. In fact, aside from perhaps a couple big differences from our own history, it is likely this could have served as the history of our present reality.

The notion that had Lincoln survived the assassination attempt, he would have been impeached (and likely convicted) by the radical wing of the Republican party is not a new idea. However, it is still shocking to modern ears to think that one of the most well-regarded presidents in history could easily have ended up as one of the worst. It all hinges on how much one can believe that Andrew Johnson, Lincoln's successor who actually was impeached (and missed conviction by one vote), was just following Lincoln's Reconstruction plans for the South.

This is one of those books where it is important to read the afterword. The author goes through it exacting detail how he diverged his fictional world from the historical record. Even though I felt like I was on top of all the changes, he made many minute changes I wasn't aware of. Thankfully, this didn't distract from my enjoyment of the book in its own right. As I have noted in the past, I get easily annoyed with authors who change large events for the sake of making their books more interesting.

I picked up this copy from a branch of my local library system. It is readily available from numerous libraries. Find one near you by steering yourself over to Worldcat.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (Hunter S. Thompson, 1971)

Five years ago I decided to fill in all the gaps in the Terry Gilliam film series. For the most part his movies are not all that great. I admire him as an artist and person, but they can't all be zingers. You've got the classics, like Time Bandits, Brazil, 12 Monkeys, and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen on one hand, then stuff like Tideland and The Brothers Grimm on the other. Fear and Loathing (the film) falls a little more toward the latter, kind of around Fisher King and Jabberwocky territory. It was good enough that I put the book into my extensive to-read list and forgot about it for the next five years.

This is not a film blog, so I'm going to address the book here and only reference the film, of what I can remember, in relation to the book. I had actually read a little bit of Thompson (The Great Shark Hunt, a chapter or two) back in high school, so I remembered that he has a distinctly fast-clipped style of narration. I think this is where the film struggled, but that's just a natural challenge of adapting this work in any way, not a Gilliam thing. Surprisingly, it is quite lucid and engaging, so I didn't feel too confused at any point, even though Thompson ingested more illegal drugs in about one minute than I have in my entire lifetime.

There are huge debates about how much of Fear and Loathing is true. Google is full of debate about it and there is the whole question of the "gonzo journalism" subgenre, which Thompson pretty much owned all to himself. You cannot escape the Faulkner quote if you do this search: "The best fiction is far more true than any kind of journalism and the best journalists have always known this." While a lot of people are concerned about the actual identity of the attorney friend or if the Mint 400 was a real race, I don't let myself get bogged down in the minutiae. Vegas and vicinity, although they have aged 45 years since the book was written, are unmistakable. The musings on the American dream and existence of God could (and have been!) used as source material for homilies and sermons. Also, anyone who has been to Vegas knows exactly what Thompson is talking about.

In short, don't let a mediocre movie scare you away from what is a true modern American classic. It isn't without its faults, but it will give you plenty to think about and discuss with others for years after you finish it. Just don't make any more film adaptations. Please.

I checked this out from the public library. It isn't hard to find, but it enjoys wide appeal among a variety of age groups even after all these years. You may need to get on a waiting list, and be prepared to have any renewals denied, as there is a good chance somebody else will be waiting for it!

A History of Christian Thought Volume II: From Augustine to the Eve of the Reformation (Justo Gonzalez, 1979)

Gonzalez left us at the end of the Council of Chalcedon in 451 at the end of his first volume in this series, then consciously resumes the story around 100 years earlier with Augustine. Although Gonzalez continues to cover the Eastern Church in this volume, the focus here is more firmly on the West and the theology of Augustine is so central to this that putting it in the first volume would have caused an unwelcome break in these connections.

Since reading the first volume, it just so happens I've done a little reading on Augustine, so using him as a starting point for this volume was indeed welcome. He is really the theologian par excellence of the West, which by the fourth century was becoming considerably more grounded in its theological discourse than the East, where single words ended up being the focus of prolonged diatribes. Maybe it had something to do with barbarian hordes pushing down hard on your domain. The four great heresies Augustine grappled with (Manichaeism, Pelagianism, Donatism, and Arianism...oh my!) and his responses to them would set the tone of theological discourse in the West during this period.

Since Gonzalez is attempting to handle the whole of Christian thought, there is a couple "meanwhile" breaks to cover what is going on in the East. As the Byzantine Empire faded away in the later part of the period covered here, the coverage gets more scrappy. I'm depending on Pelikan, who devotes an entire volume of his series to all of Eastern theology (minus the very beginning and end), to get a clearer picture. More on that later...

As with other volumes in this series, I borrowed them from my church's library. The series is common in academic libraries, but not so much public libraries. If interlibrary loan is not a feasible option where you live, the volumes are relatively inexpensive to purchase.

Are You Fully Charged?: The 3 Keys to Energizing Your Work and Life (Tom Rath, 2015)

I've read enough business literature of late (aka "bizlit") that I've been finding titles through author associations and references made in previous works. This one comes from the former, although it was confirmed with a hearty recommendation at a conference last summer.

Tom Rath has been the darling of the bizlit world lately thanks to the popularity of the revived StrengthFinders (rechristened "StrengthsFinder 2.0", naturally), originally conceived by his grandfather, Donald Clifton. In spite of the similar covers this book doesn't deal much with those attributes. Instead, Rath is look at the things all of us need to be engaged in work.

Not being engaged at work sucks. The purpose of everything seems pointless and life degenerates into staring at a computer screen and doing nothing important until the clock strikes five. For Rath if you want to be engaged at work you need a full charge, and that means (1) meaning, (2) interactions, and (3) energy, which are the tenets around which the book is written. The first is pretty straightforward: know the meaning in each thing you are doing. I think this is a challenge to managers to assign work in a smart way. As I pointed out in the aforementioned conference, there's a big difference between tedious and meaningless work. While the first may sometimes be necessary, the second should be avoided at all costs. Interactions, the next principle, is a big challenge for us introverts, but it's so fundamental to what we do to work things out through how they benefit others, and not necessarily ourselves. Finally, there is energy. After reading this book I don't feel the least bad about taking naps. But more than that, it is important to know that rampant sitting is lethal and most of us eat crap. Address the former through exercise and get those 10,000 steps and for the second one, read labels and eat real food like fruits and nuts and not processed garbage (or as I think Michael Pollan says "food-like substances"). I must admit it is easier said than done and while I'm a big fan of movement, I don't get enough sleep (even with the naps) and don't eat right (though not atrociously, thanks be to God).

Speaking of references to other books for ideas of future reading, there were a number of good suggestions in the back of this book, so I'll probably check some of those out at a later time.

I read my copy through the public library, although it isn't as widely held as one might expect, given the connection to StrengthsFinder. In fact, I had to use our local interlibrary loan service to get it, but everything worked out fine. Look it up on Worldcat and see if there is a library near you that has it!

Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic (Tom Holland, 2003)

It's so great to begin a new year on March 1. At least that's when I started this. We'll see what date stamp actually ends up on here. Before we plunge into the 2016 Blog Experience, some points of housekeeping.

First, no weekly albums for now. I need a break and I don't relish starting eight weeks in the whole. God willing, I'll bring them back in 2017, hopefully with a bunch of exciting new stuff. Looking over what was reviewed - 365 of them in 2014 and 52 in 2015, I was amazed to see there are still plenty of great albums out there needing attention. And bad ones too. Those might actually be more fun to write about!

Second, while the books are holding down the fort this year, I'm starting a reading project that will live on a different blog site. Unlike this little vanity project, this would be a site I would like to promote in the best of completionista tradition. Essentially, I plan to read every Stephen King book written, from Carrie to whatever he most recently published by the time I finish. This will be a very long undertaking since I still want to read other things, but I'm hoping that the pacing is properly enough to give each work the proper amount of thought and consideration. When the site goes live (probably on the first post on Carrie since I don't want to be a tease) I will give out of the details, including a name and a link (neither of which I have thought of!).

That's that. Now let's travel back in time to late 2015. I am desperately hoping to complete a 43rd book for the year, but must settle for the crushing humiliation of falling ten books short of my goal and not getting a flashy badge on Goodreads. Book 43 of 2015 must therefore become Book 1 of 2016.

Rubicon is a darn fine way to start of the new year, earning a bona fide 5-star rating, something only about one in six books achieve and particularly rare in recent years either because I'm becoming jaded or picking worse-than-usual books. Tom Holland is an excellent writer and has managed the trick of writing books that educate the beginning learners, yet can still be enjoyed by folks with degrees in the field. I was a little worried about what I had gotten myself into when I was a little underwhelmed by his 2005 book Persian Fire, which chronicles the epic conflict between Greece and Persia. I was hoping for a more Persia-centric account, but Holland had a uphill battle in that most of the sources come from the Greeks. Therefore it ended up reading a bit more like a standard Persian War story than a fresh new angle. Rubicon, on the other hand, occurs during one of the most heavily-chronicled periods of world history, plus I think the subject matter lies somewhat closer to Holland's expertise, all of which made for a really enjoyable reading experience.

Why this book, among the plethora of reading choices about the late Republic era? First off, it is a fresh account, which considers the vast amount of prior scholarship in its narrative. Holland moonlights as a novelist, so it doesn't hurt that it reads like fiction (in a good way) at times. More interesting, however, is the lens Holland uses to examine the period. His main interest here is the role of the Roman citizen during a time of great violence among two parties, the optimates and the populares. In fact, he indicates that he had hoped to call the book Citizens, but that title is already owned by a well-respected work on the French Revolution by Simon Schama. The Rubicon incident itself is not the entire focus of the book, but, all cliches aside, it remains perhaps the single most dramatic point in the turbulent flow of late Republic history, therefore Holland wasn't ashamed to use it as the title.

The copy I read was borrowed from the public library and the book is commonly held by most public libraries and many academic libraries. Look up the book on Worldcat to find a library near you that carries it and check it out for yourself!

(Note for a new year: all book cover images are linked to Goodreads data and are intended as fair use for this decidedly non-commercial endeavor.)

A Passion Play (Jethro Tull, 1973)

We bring 2015 to a belated close with the most perplexing of Jethro Tull albums. Just the prior year they had thrown their hat into the 1970's concept album phenomenon with Thick as a Brick. Musically it is top notch and the first full album to feature the "classic" Tull lineup of Ian Anderson, Martin Barre, John Evan, Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond, and "new" drummer Barriemore Barlow. It should be noted though that all of them except for Barre were in the proto-Tull band called the John Evan Smash, so it was more of a return than an entirely new lineup. However, scratch the surface of the album a bit and you will notice that the whole thing is a joke.

The problem with the following release is that it is most definitely not a joke. A Passion Play attempts to valiantly merge the serious messages of Aqualung with the structure of Thick as a Brick. The result is an album far more challenging than either of those. The cruel twist is that everybody seemed to want to funny Jethro Tull back again. The elaborate stage shows for A Passion Play were a bust and reviews of the album were scathing and sent the band reeling. They would temporarily leave the concept album club with their next album, Warchild, but then plunge back in to various degrees through the rest of the decade, but as a different-sounding type of band than they once were.

This album is still really difficult to fathom, as are many single-song albums. Other than the interlude ("The Story of the Hare Who Lost His Spectacles") the structure of the album is monolithic and hard to digest. Oddly enough, unlike Thick as a Brick, the band provided some guidance as to the four acts and sixteen parts (including the interlude), while the other album revealed nothing between the lines of the "St. Cleve Chronicle" and it was only in the age of iTunes that Ian Anderson decided to break it up into named parts. Also, the topic matter is deadly serious, no less than the nature of life and death itself. With apologies to Frank Zappa, between the complex musical structures and lyrics, there was no commercial potential here. Now, I'm not trying to say the album failed because it was not commercial enough, but rather there is no easy entry point to the album. Most other concept albums are album to find their sweet spot, some memorable hook, and belch out a single for the masses and lead them in to the entire work. Not so much here.

I had nervously avoided this album was quite a while, going with every other album by the band up through Warchild before considering this one. Undoubtedly there was a lot Jethro Tull had to share with the world and this is an important part of that, a magnum opus by the resurrected John Evan Smash featuring Martin Barre. However this is not the album anyone should start their Jethro Tull adventures with unless they are looking for an excuse to not bring them into their lives.

Becoming Steve Jobs (Brent Schlender & Rick Tetzeli, 2015)

If it's not obvious from the date stamps, I kinda...uh...to put it in PG terms, "soiled the bedsheets" in the last few months, both in terms of reading anywhere near my goal (I fell ten books short) and posting reviews in a timely manner. This was the last book I read for 2015 and I'm posting this closer to Easter than New Year's Day. Sigh.

I recently created a "bizlit" category for some of my more practical reading, but rather than stuff it with a bunch of dry advice-type books, I punctuated it with interesting business biographies. This one came to my attention thanks to an article built around an excerpt where now-CEO of Apple Tim Cook essentially offered up his liver to save the failing one inside Steve Jobs. If you don't have the patience to read the article, Jobs's reaction was an immediate and vehement refusal, which is many ways encapsulates the man presented in this book.

On the spectrum of Jobs-lit one can go from Hatred (0) to Gush (10). This one probably falls around a 6, a little more flattering of the subject than average, but with qualifications. It mostly hinges on the insights gleaned from journalist Brent Schlender (Rick Tetzeli is openly acknowledged as secondary and whenever the first person is used, it is Schlender playing the role of "I"). Schlender had a bit of a love-hate relationship with Jobs in their various encounters, though four years after Jobs's death Schlender is more inclined to refute the haters than tear into Jobs himself. There is a clear attempt to put some distance between this book and the Walter Isaacson tome.

Probably the most interesting part of the story is not Apple's early days or later renaissance, but Pixar. I came away from this book thinking that it may actually have been Pixar that re-framed Steve Jobs, transforming him from the petulant man-child of the first chapter (even Schlender won't dare sugar coat that time) to the sagely CEO-slash-genius we all know and love now. It really help to solidify his parallel work-family ethic, creating somebody who could be both a megalomaniac of a businessman and humble as a person, though the latter took some time to figure out. And even in the final days of his life Jobs and Schlender regrettably bumped heads one last time and it was never resolved. This is definitely not a handbook to understanding the psyche of Jobs. The man remains as complicated as ever, even beyond the grave.

Hot Wire (Trapeze, 1974)

Trapeze, mostly unknown to the casual rock fan these days, was the ultimate workhorse of a band during the 1970's. They defied the odds, boiling down to one original band member before finally disbanding, surviving losses that would have killed off much better-known groups. Hot Wire comes on the heels of one of these losses, a particularly painful one because by all indications the band seems to be on the verge of breaking out.

I noticed that of all the Trapeze reviews here, none are from the Glenn Hughes era (the first three albums), though he does lend his vocal talents to the 1976 second self-titled album. These three albums are probably the most highly regarded of the bunch, though none of them made a dent in the charts, and perhaps the love comes from fans of the band Glenn went on to join, Deep Purple. By the final album, he had taken such a dominant role, it was hard to imagine a Trapeze without Hughes. By his last days in the band he was handling all vocals, and even providing guitar accompaniment to regular guitarist Mel Galley, with a session bass player hired for live shows.

When Hughes joined Deep Purple, the original Trapeze, once a five-man band, was down to just two: Galley, and drummer Dave Holland. At first this appeared to kill the band, unless calling your first greatest hits package The Final Swing was some kind of inside joke. When the collection became the band's first appearance ever in the charts, Galley and Holland probably started thinking that news of the band's death was a bit premature, and suddenly the notion of a fourth album, minus Glenn, didn't seem entirely implausible.

The four-man lineup idea in those final live shows must have still appealed and even though it wasn't the same guy, Pete Wright was brought on board to handle bass, while the missing second guitarist, which Hughes briefly served as, went to Rob Kendrick. Neither one, as far as I know, could sing, so Galley pulled himself out of vocal retirement to fill that role. Going into the fourth album it looked like all of Glenn's old roles were filled as best could be hoped.

The result, Hot Wire, is a vastly different album than either of the first three. Of course, the first three among themselves didn't sound like each other (one gentle, one hard, one funky), but Hot Wire expanded on the jam-based songs contributed by Galley and his brother Tom for the previous album. None of the songs have the kind of depth that Hughes could pour into his own songwriting, but, as evidenced by live recordings from around 1975 onward, the songs would become staples of their performances, capable of being stretched out to crazy lengths and still sounding fresh. Even with Hughes gone, Galley could still show off some funky chops, with "Midnight Flyer" being, without question, the song of the album that probably made Glenn wish he hadn't left so hastily.

I think if I read my liner notes back in the day correctly, Hot Wire was the only "regular" album by the band to see any action in the charts, albeit the very low parts of the chart. I'm not sure if the slow build over the first three albums finally drove enough interest to convince buyers to invest disc-unheard. If so, it may have been a bit of a shock with all the changes. Or perhaps there was enough interest thanks to the bands new connections with more prominent rock outfits like Purple. However it was pretty much all downhill from this point and not in the good way. An abortive reunion with Hughes in 1976 left things awkward with the new guys and soon Kendrick was out, and, weirdly, assembled his own rival version of Trapeze based in Texas. Pete Goalby replaced him and brought a new voice for the 1979 album Hold On. When that album failed to reverse the slide, drummer Dave Holland jumped ship for Judas Priest and the band was further reduced to more session-grade players, and Galley's departure to Whitesnake ended things once and for all.

For awhile this album and the one to follow (the second self-titled album) were very hard to find thanks to a cut-rate distributor suddenly vanishing without warning. However, I'm happy to report both have made it to the world of digital music and at a very agreeable price.

Grendel (John Gardner, 1970)

As promised, John Gardner's Grendel, right on the heels of its thousand year older counterpart.

I suppose you don't absolutely have to read Beowulf first, but so many of the references and allusions would fly over your head. Being fresh off of the classic work, I think I caught most of them, and I especially liked how the Dragon got worked into the story. I'm not a lit-crit scholar, but it seemed like the Dragon was not intertwined with Grendel or Mommy (though the mightiest monster of them all he was).

Modern re-tellings of classic works are a cottage industry of sorts with some better than others, and right now I'm looking at you, ridiculous amount of Jane Austen quasi-fan fiction. Gardner's fiction is all over the map, so he didn't fall into the Gregory Maguire/Wicked trap. Some of other titles look pretty interesting and I might go check them out in the future.

Finally, to those who just want to give up and watch the movie, let me just say that Grendel's mom, from the prose here, looks nothing like Angelina Jolie, not even one molecule of one iota.

Peace Sells....But Who's Buying? (Megadeth, 1986)

Just in case you were lulled by the reviews of thousand year-old books and hundred year-old music, here's a reminder that it's all random here.

I've managed to cover a decent sampling of the Megadeth story over the past two years, at least the story up until Dave Mustaine's "injury" in 2002 that temporarily ended the band. Since then they've cranked out six more albums of varying quality.

Here we go back to almost the beginning, with the band's major label debut. It features the "original" lineup (I qualify this as it is actually the first lineup of Megadeth to record, not the first ever) and can safely be called an expansion of the first album's sound, with improved production. Like most of the "first era" Megadeth albums, it is useful to see this album as a competitor with Metallica, who in the same year released their third album, Master of Puppets. While that album is very "pure" thrash, Megadeth is a little more adventuresome, with a bit more varied compositions and instrumentation. Although it has harder-than-Metallica sections, that isn't always the case. Geographically, too, Megadeth was dealing with competition from hair and glam metal, which were in high gear by mid-decade, all of it based in Southern California. If anybody needed to see the contrast side by side, just check out the Decline and Fall of Western Civilizations Part II, where Megadeth looks and sounds completely different from all their hairspray-drunk counterparts. Their rivals up in Northern California didn't have to deal with this nearly as much, so it's a real credit that Megadeth was able to stand up to it and forge their own sound.

This was the first Megadeth album I ever owned. Being in high school I remember sheepishly making sure my parents weren't around for tracks like "Black Friday" and "Bad Omen", lest they think their only son turned into a god-foresaken devil worshiper. I never went full Slayer when it came to faux-Satanism, but this was close!

Beowulf (Anonymous, c. 900)

File this one under "books I've always wanted to read but never got around to reading". Although technically not on my official list of classics to read, it was a bona fide prerequisite for the next book I had lined up, John Gardner's Grendel. I just couldn't justify reading that one without reading this one.

My Anglo-Saxon is a bit rusty, so I read the Seamus Heaney translation, which instantly became the gold standard of English translations upon its release in 2000. For the purists, the original (well, technically not the original, but essentially the same original language) appears on the left hand pages, while Heaney's translation, with light annotations appears on the right. Heaney's verse is fluid and easy to read and I never felt lost at any time. Sometimes vivid translations will take something away from the original, as I have noticed in various translations of Homer, but I will have to leave the verdict to others as to Heaney's liberties with the original.

To those who are thinking about watching the movie instead, beware. Grendel's mom definitely in no way, shape, or form would resemble Angelina Jolie even remotely. Besides, you might even be able to finish this book faster than the running time of the film.

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74, "Pathetique" (Mariss Jansons, 1986)

I think Tchaikovsky's 6th has been featured here before, but this one is a different conductor. It was a decent value and the reviews were very good. Then a particular relative caught wind that I was exploring classical music and hit me with all six symphonies. This, however, was my first taste of Tchaikovsky outside the annual Nutcracker spins.

Without sneaking a peek at that previous post, I think I recall saying there was a lot of darkness in this symphony, written not long before his death, which was arguably a suicide. I still stand by the sentiment, but there is a lot going on here, particularly in the first movement. The third movement is probably the most instantly recognizable and ends with such authority that many will often applaud at the end of it, which is a huge no-no in today's classical concerts. (To which others counter that it is a modern invention to hold all applause to the end of the symphony.) But seriously, it's a big finale except for the fact it's not a final movement. The final movement is actually familiar to me through its surprisingly faithful interpretation by the Nice back around 1970, when Keith Emerson was feeling in particularly classical mood. It appears on Five Bridges and Elegy, two albums I don't own, but it made it into the Immediate box set as a bonus track.

Confessions (Augustine of Hippo, 397)

This is a fascinating book that no mere blog post will adequately describe, so I'm just going to stop here.

Eh, that feels like a cop-out review, so I'll try to be a little more substantial. This is the third (and final) book I read for class this past semester. Unlike the previous two "required reading" entries, this is, of course, a complete work of a substantial length, not a collection of excerpts as the other two were. Also interesting is that this one falls chronologically well before the material contained in the other books, by about 500-1000 years. However, I understand the reasoning behind this. As the second half of the course will take us into the Reformation, competing views of Augustine's philosophy take hold among the Catholics and Protestants and it is important to understand where those connections come from. (Extra credit: The Protestants latched on to the anti-Pelagian aspects and the Catholics to the anti-Donatist ones.)

The Confessions is a big gushy love letter to God. Augustine heavily quotes from the Psalms (a somewhat anti-Manichaean strategy of embracing the Old Testament) to enforce his language of love. Although some call this Augustine's autobiography, it is not strictly so. First of all, the chronicle of his journey to conversion comprises the first ten books. The last three are some of the most intense exegesis of just a few lines of Genesis you'll ever read in the Patristic era. So if you are looking for information about his later years, such as being ordained bishop, you won't find them here. What you will find are profound discussions of the mind and the will, the nature of time, and other huge metaphysical matters. It's not for everyone, but I agree that it is definitely a book every seminarian should read before ordination.

As for the translation this is the Catholic-leaning Frank J. Sheed translation. It's a fine translation, particularly for those of the Catholic persuasion (and this Protestant was just fine with it). However there is no universal agreement on the "best" translation. Some would contend the original Latin is the only way to go. That may be a while before I get around to being able to do that.

By the way, the Peter Brown introduction should not be skipped. If I ever write an essay even half as good as that one, somebody put my name in for some kind of special award.

The More Things Change (Cola Moon, 1999)

(cover art to come!)

It's downright rare for one band with the dreaded (or coveted?) "lost bands" tag to have two posts, but Cola Moon has achieved the honor! To get the story up to this point, check out this older post about their debut EP Welcome to the Paradox. This is the second EP and together you can safely consider them to be the band's sole complete, albeit short, album.

Each of the three songs here are somewhat more complex than the four from the previous EP. Each song has quiet and rocking sections and overall there is an added complexity in arrangements and instrumentation. The opener and title track is probably the most straightforward, but just to show that nothing is completely simple, the verses have a ska feel to them. The second track, "Photographs" is a quieter number, but not entirely so. Probably the best of the three is "Last Dollar", which also seems to be a quieter song, but actually delivers some of the most intense moments of the entire set, complete with a flute accompaniment that I'm sure would make Ian Anderson proud.

Now, as the tag indicates, this is a "lost band" - you won't turn up a whole heck of a lot if you google them. Usually a warning sign is if this blog post shows up in your top ten search results! As with many young bands, life intervenes and the rock and roll life was not to be the destiny of Cola Moon. As friends have told me, it's an all or nothing game and those who desire it have to give 100% and risk a lifetime working at McDonald's if they can't hack it. For the rest of us (which is almost everybody) plan B soon becomes plan A, and while not (overtly) glamorous is probably a far less treacherous way of living. I have no idea what became of these fine lads (who, I will repeat, are in the 30's now), but I hope from time to time they break out one of their old EP's and think of the good old days.

Worldwar: Tilting the Balance (Harry Turtledove, 1995)

It seems appropriate that this should be a proud part of my "2015 backlog" project, now entering the second month of 2016. This is the second book in Turtledove's Worldwar series. Believe it or not, I read the first book on my honeymoon, almost eight years ago! At this rate, I will finish the final book in the overall Worldwar/Colonization series around 2050.

This isn't the greatest series ever, but you could do a lot worse. My interest in Turtledove goes back to a mind-blowing reading of the epic Guns of the South followed by an eleven-book workout of what is informally called "Timeline-191". I knew Worldwar was lurking around, but it the whole "World War II and aliens!" concept didn't strongly appeal to me. I had a lot of time to kill on the beach in Maui, so in addition to starting a Michael Connelly regimen I tried out the first book of the series.

In true Turtledove fashion, the books are a rotating series of perspectives, usually around five per chapter with twenty chapters total. Most of the viewpoints are those of fictional low-level characters, but there is some inclusion of real-life characters in wildly different situations just to keep things interesting. Since we're only at book number two, I'm not sure if any character will become famous or notorious as the series progresses (thinking of a Jake Featherstone becoming a Confederate Hitler in Timeline-191). I wouldn't trust this Jens guy, but his hard-luck story is more a victim of circumstances at this point than any kind of evil schemer plotting.

So will I move on to the third book? Probably. Will I read it this year? Probably not. Will I read it this decade? Let's just say I'm trying to be a better person.