Category: Book review

• June 11, 2012

  Book review, Puttin’ the Blog in Balrog

  Why I read Tolkien

  In a school newspaper article back when I started grade ten, a snippet of advice for would-be readers of fantasy ran thus: “Read Tolkien. Live Tolkien. Love Tolkien. Memorize Tolkien. Tolkien, we would like to note, has absolutely nothing to do with inhaling drugs.” Fortunately, at 14, I was already up to speed on the…
• June 6, 2012

  Book review, Werewolf Wednesday

  Parson, composer, werewolf hunter: Sabine Baring-Gould

  Sabine Baring-Gould is by no means a celebrity today, but in the 19th century he brought a modern sensibility to an ancient body of superstitions: werewolf lore. I first came across his name thanks to A Very Special Christmas, of all things. On the 1987 compilation album, among the carols recorded by the then-current crop…
• April 30, 2012

  Book review, The coolest stuff

  Authors put the bite on vampires and their ways

  We’ve all heard enough about vampires recently. Everyone knows they look like frumpy old ladies, overjoyed that an aging population means they fit in nowadays. Or that they keep humans penned up as food, and having sex with a human is tantamount to bestiality. Or that when a vampire slayer starts killing them off, they…
• March 2, 2012

  Book review, Metal Monday, Music

  Nikki, I think we’ve heard this one before

  I read Mötley Crüe’s The Dirt about a year or two after it came out and it is a flat-out great read, even for someone who, like me, followed the shenanigans of Nikki Sixx, Vince Neil, Tommy Lee and Mick Mars when they were high atop the metal heap in the 1980s. Back then I…
• February 24, 2012

  Book review, Metal Monday, Music

  Rough life makes for a great read

  I’m not always keen on rock biographies. Some, like The Dirt, which tells the sordid story of Mötley Crüe, is a great if at times unbelievable read. Others, like Two Sides to Every Glory, which chronicles AC/DC’s rise and then ignores most what happened after 1990, leave something to be desired.  And I’ll always have…