BoD: Hammer of the Gods
I don’t know why I’ve been on such a music and books kick lately. Maybe it’s because of Michael Schaub’s guide to rock novels presented over at BookSlut. Maybe it’s because I’ve been watching two of my heroes, Gene Simmons and Tommy Lee, on their TV reality shows. Regardless, I’ve been going through some music…
continue readingBoD: The Assault on Tony’s
Don’t worry about saving food. Don’t even worry about toilet paper, electricity, clothing, or a radio. Just protect the booze. In John O’Brien’s The Assault on Tony’s a group of hardcore alcoholics barricade the door of their neighborhood bar and prepare to ride it out as a race riot engulfs the city outside. O’Brien, author…
continue readingBoD: Lords of Chaos
Feuding rappers from the East Coast and West Coast don’t have the market covered when it comes to musical warfare. So here’s our Book-of-the-Day, Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground by Michael Moynihan and Didrik Soderlind recount the story of how nearly 100 churches were burned and desecrated, while suicide,…
continue readingBoD: Bookmark Now
The essays collected together in Bookmark Now: Writing in Unreaderly Times present some interesting perspectives on the state of modern writing and publishing. In the introduction, written by editor Kevin Smokler, the 2004 National Endowment for the Arts Reading at Risk report serves as the catalyst for this examination of reading and writing. The report…
continue readingBoD: Among the Thugs
In 1982, literary editor extraordinaire Bill Buford was living in London, running the prestigious magazine Granta. He caught a train at a rural railway station in Wales and was soon over-run by soccer (or football to them) supporters who were methodically destroying everything in their path. Fascinated by what he saw, Buford spent the next…
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