I just deleted my Facebook account. My main beef with Facebook is that it’s a wide channel for distributing lies, untruths and misinformation. According to Pew Research, 45% of Americans get some of their news from Facebook, and 20% do so “often.” It alarms me that Facebook has just announced a new news service. I …
Author Archives: Dean
Ken Burns’ Country Music
I hear music, not words, so I don’t much like music that comes in the form of “songs.” The whole of Ken Burns’ PBS series on country music (in the U.S,) celebrates singer/songwriters. They are the protagonists, the ones credited with creating country music. They are the front men and women, out front, singing songs …
The Autograph Man
Novel by Zadie Smith, 2003 I’m a big fan of Zadie Smith, but I don’t get this book at all. It’s about the fairly pathetic life of a man who deals in autographs of celebrities, mostly movie stars. But I think now I’ve read all her novels; this is the one I liked least.
A Dangerous Man
Novel by Robert Crais, 2019 I like to read “junk books” like this. Crais’ protagonists are Elvis Cole, a private investigator and his friend, Joe Pike, a sometime mercenary and compassionate tough guy. I like Crais and Connelly because their books are well crafted, have good characters and plots, and are set in Los Angeles. …
Bright Lights, Big City
Novel by Jay McInerney, 1984 Is this book an anachronism? The Amazon blurb said it was a sensation when it was first published in 1984. It’s about a young man, working as a fact checker at a New York publication very similar to to the New Yorker. He’s fairly unsympathetic. He’s one of those writers …
The Beginning
I read a lot of books, listen to a lot of music, and watch a lot of movies. I thought I might enjoy commenting on them. As the saying goes, “learn by writing, as much as by reading.”