Crowned Heads – Thomas Tryon, 1976 ½★

Tinseltown on the Fade

The work of Thomas Tryon commands respect for its highly literate tone and the author's way of drawing out a good mystery.

But his often hard-to-comprehend protagonists and thinnish plots make reading him a chore at times, and that aspect of his work becomes especially problematic when inspiration is not working.

Such was the issue I had with Crowned Heads.

The Beatles: Recording Sessions – Mark Lewisohn, 1988 ★★★★★

Peeking Behind The Beatles' Curtain

It's natural to hesitate at seeing how something you loved was really made. Like that scene in The Wizard Of Oz when Toto pulls open the wizard's curtain, the result may be somewhat deflating.

So when Beatles fans like me got a chance to see what really went on when the Fab Four recorded their famous records, excitement came with more than a dollop of wariness.

It wasn't warranted.

A Magic Summer – Stanley Cohen, 1988 ★★★½

When the Mets Ruled the Earth

The summer of 1969's beautiful reputation is largely unwarranted.

Woodstock was a traffic and public-hygiene nightmare. The Beatles proved the love you make isn't equal to the love you take if Allen Klein is allowed in the mix. Billy and Wyatt demonstrated why it was hazardous for long-haired motorcyclists to tool around the Deep South.

But for fans of the New York Mets lucky enough to be there, 1969 was a blissed-out trip of heavenly delight.

Jurassic Park – Michael Crichton, 1990 ★★★½

A Few Bugs in the System

I never thought I'd want so much to see a little girl die. Then I had the chance to meet Alexis Murphy, maybe all of eight years old, in the pages of Michael Crichton's famous franchise starter, Jurassic Park.

What an hateful brat!

I know science fiction is supposed to make you feel strange things, but wow, I was not expecting this.

One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich – Alexander Solzhenitsyn, 1962 ★★★★

Life Under Article 58

The usual superlatives one wishes to bestow upon One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich fall away after one finishes reading it. Is it fair to describe as a statement to hidden hope, or of the irreducible dignity of man?

It sure doesn't feel that way when you finish it. Hardship is endured, yes, but hardly the ennobling kind.

The Brethren – Bob Woodward & Scott Armstrong, 1979 ★★★★½

Courting History

Like the Cosa Nostra and the Vatican, the U. S. Supreme Court is an institution of vast influence which nevertheless gets to operate largely under the media radar. It isn't often one gets to peak behind the curtain.

Give authors Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong points for not just getting such exclusive access, but using it so well.

Sackett's Land – Louis L'Amour, 1974 ★½

Weak Start to Sackett Series

Louis L'Amour is commonly called the most popular novelist of the 20th century, with some 260 million books sold by century's end. But he wasn't critically well-regarded, and there are times reading him you understand why.

Sackett's Land presents him in surprisingly weak form given the pride of place this novel enjoys in his oeuvre.