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Recent Posts
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Knit One, Purl Two
- What’s New for the 19th of January: Go Ahead, Be Pleasantly Surprised At What’s Here
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Ancients and Venerables of Guild of St. Nicholas
- What’s New for the 5th of January: A look back at books Gary reviewed in 2024; some seasonally appropriate Nordic music and a little new jazz
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Biscuits
- What’s New for the 22nd of December: A Solstice Story, Crow Girls, Scrooge, Marley, Elizabeth I, Revels and more festive holiday reading; The Lion in Winter on stage and screen; Jethro Tull, Steeleye Span, Christine Lavin, swinging jazz and more holiday sounds
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Fireplaces
- What’s New for the 8th of December: Elizabeth Bear fiction; some holiday related offerings including new music from The Unthanks, Americana tinged jazz, Polar Express, and more
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Eggnog
- What’s New for the 24th of November: Norwegian winter holiday music, archival jazz, new roots music from around Europe, and more; books and what not about things fictional & medæival
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Pudding
- What’s New for the 10th of November: a grab bag of books from our favorite authors; Richard Thompson and Stephane Grappelli on film; music from all over; and comfort food
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Brandy (A Letter to Tessa)
- What’s New for the 27th of October: The Byrds Live, Trader Joe’s Organic Hot Cocoa Mix, Some Excellent Music Reviews, Folkmanis Puppets of an Autumnal Nature, The Mouse Guard begins…
- A Kinrowan Estate story: All The World’s A Stage
- What’s New for the 13th of October: Elizabeth Bear tends a pot of turkey stock, Groot and Rocket Raccoon, A Video and Fiction set in India, Tasty music reviews, and music from Irish trad band Clannad
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Autumn is Here (A Letter to Anna)
- What’s New for the 29th of September: Louisiana’s Lost Bayou Ramblers, live music by Kathryn Tickell, Ottawa based urban fantasies by Charles de Lint, Norwegian saxophonist Karl Seglem, Gus on the Estate Kitchen garden and other Autumnal matters
- What’s New for the 15th of September: Autumn on the Estate is here
- A Kinrowan Estate story: A Pudding Contest
- What’s New for the 1st of September: A grab bag of books, music, and film that touch on the theme of work
- A Kinrowan Estate story: A Ghostly Librarian
- What’s New for the 18th of August:
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Breakfast, Korean Style
- What’s New for the 4th of August: A raft of Cuban music reviews; Trader Joe’s chocolate peanut butter cookies; Looking at J.R.R. Tolkien; And a Cuban band documentary
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Kedgeree
- What’s New for July 21st: All music — books on The Pogues, Sandy Denny, Lowell George, Zappa, and more; Cajun mardi gras on film; and Cajun, zydeco, and klemer related music
- A Kinrowan Estate Stoty: A Guest Lecturer
- What’s New for the 7th of July: A Passel of Roger Zelazny Reviews, A Write-up of an Irish Pub, Two Pieces of Live Music by Rosanne Cash, Where Irish Coffee Originated, Irish (and a Little Welsh) Music of a Modern Sort
- A Travels Abroad story: Truly Shitty Celtic Metal
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Tag Archives: biography
Evan I. Schwartz’s Finding Oz: How L. Frank Baum Discovered the Great American Story
Faith J. Cormier wrote this review. Finding Oz is a biography of L. Frank Baum, author of the Oz books. Rather than being one of those ghastly concoctions that look at their subjects’ public lives in total isolation from the … Continue reading
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Tagged Americana, biography, L. Frank Baum, nonfiction
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Giorgia Grilli’s Myth, Symbol and Meaning in Mary Poppins: the Governess as Provacteur; and Valerie Lawson’s Mary Poppins, She Wrote: The Life of P. L. Travers
Faced with two books on a similar theme, where one is a critical analysis and the other a biography, I am generally inclined to the critical analysis. As an academic historian, I regard biography with a certain amount of suspicion. … Continue reading
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Tagged biography, fantasy, literary criticism, literary fiction
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Jack Vance’s This Is Me, Jack Vance! (Or, More Properly, This is I)
Jack Vance has been one of the most continuously productive and popular and arguably one of the most influential writers of science-fiction. He’s also a mystery writer of note. (His is a name that I see popping up again and … Continue reading
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Tagged autobiography, biography, non-fiction
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Luis Ortiz’ Emshwiller: Infinity x Two — The Art and Life of Ed and Carol Emshwiller
“I like the idea of going through different careers. It’s like being reborn a number of times.” That is probably the best summation of Ed Emshwiller’s life, from the horse’s mouth. Known to science-fiction fans of the 1950s, ’60s and … Continue reading
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Tagged biography, illustration, nonfiction, science fiction
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Colin McPhee’s A House in Bali
Colin McPhee, a Canadian-American composer who had much more influence on American music than the body of his music might indicate (see Colin McPhee: Composer in Two Worlds by Carol J. Oja), left behind two books that were as influential, … Continue reading
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Tagged autobiography, biography, music
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Carol J. Oja’s Colin McPhee: Composer in Two Worlds
The music of the East, particularly the gamelan of Indonesia, and even more particularly that of Bali, has a longer history of interaction with the music of the West than many might imagine. Claude Debussy first encountered the gamelan in … Continue reading
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Tagged American music, biography, music, world music
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Jean-Marie Déguignet’s Memoirs of a Breton Peasant [ed. Bernez Rouz; English trans. Linda Asher]
It is not often that one gets to read the memoirs of a peasant, because it’s not often that a peasant writes a memoir. This particular peasant was Breton, which is, for those fascinated by a part of the world … Continue reading
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Tagged autobiography, biography, history
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Joseph Bristow, ed.: Oscar Wilde and Modern Culture: The Making of a Legend
From the vantage of a century later, it’s hard for us to understand the last years of Oscar Wilde’s life and those immediately after his death. His disgrace after his conviction for committing acts of “gross indecency” with another man … Continue reading
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Tagged biography, critical studies
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Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey
I’ve been reading Joseph Campbell’s books for decades, beginning with the massive, four volume The Masks of God in the late 1960s or 1970s. (I’m not sure what it says about me that I would jump right into a 2,000 … Continue reading
Arnold Steinhardt’s Violin Dreams
I run across a fair number of musical biographies, autobiographies, reminiscences, and the like, all the way from Berlioz as seen by his contemporaries to Ned Rorem’s somewhat scandalous diaries. The common thread, of course, is that they are about … Continue reading
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Tagged biography, classical music, music
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