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Things I Bought That I Love

 I've been lucky to acquire some good books in recent days. Here are three:


*"Blood and Ink." Named by the Times one of the true-crime standouts of 2022, this is the story of a pastor and a choir member who had a blatant affair in the Roaring Twenties. They were found murdered, outdoors, in their Jersey town.

The one thing I look for, in any book, is great characters. This one has a "man of God" leaving sexy notes for his girlfriend in certain dusty hymnals. A bereaved spouse becomes hooked on "the spiritual world," and he looks for his wife's ghost at a seance. A reporter invents emotional scenes to try to force one suspect to (accidentally) confess. A widow with secrets gets a makeover; she thinks journalists will be kinder to her if her style evolves, and she becomes "Insta-ready."

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Wonderful book.

*"Dickens and Prince." This is Nick Hornby observing that Dickens and Prince both died in their fifties, and both showed stunning productivity. Both had early success; both may have been driven, in part, by a sense of loss that grew out of life with a negligent mother. (One theory is that the absence of a mother can cause you to dig deep for ambitious energy. This might explain the career of Stephen Sondheim.)

Nick Hornby--who thinks a great deal about artists' choices, and who has spent a fair amount of time in Hollywood, in recent years--makes the argument that no artist will hold the world's attention for half a century. The trick is to enjoy your art, and to find ways to *keep* enjoying the process until you die. For this reason, Hornby admires Prince--who lost his audience, but who kept on working, and working. Hornby also observes that Dickens basically "owns" a holiday (Christmas), while Prince owns the color purple. We see purple, and we think of Prince--and this is around forty years after "Purple Rain" first played on the radio.

*"Moo, Baa, Fa La La La La." This is Sandra Boynton. The first line is: "Deck the halls with cows and holly." There are cows wrapped in chains of green leaves. Later, the chickens say, "Bock," and it's bedtime (eight o'clock). Happy pigs go caroling. A tour de force.
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