Ye Olde Partners Page

*The New and Improved Rock 'N Roll Edition*

"Forward he cried from the rear
And the front rank died
And the General sat, as the lines on the map
Moved from side to side . . ."
--Roger Waters, Us and Them

1) YOU DON'T KNOW DICK . . . Somewhere in that miasma of data that is known as the internet, I learned that former President Dick Cheney has written an autobiography. Like a modern day Percy Fawcett from The Lost City of Z (9781400078455) 15.95, I had to hew my way through a tangle of undergrowth on the web that announced important news like Kim Kardashian's wedding and that Lindsay Lohan is wearing a Pippa style dress, but finally, I stumbled upon something useful -- the New York Times review of Dick Cheney's In My Time (9781439176191) 35.00. I believe one sentence in Mr. Kakutani's review summed it up nicely, "Indeed, the memoir -- delivered in dry, often truculent prose -- turns out to be a mostly predictable mix of spin, stonewalling, score settling and highly selective reminiscences . . ."

Professor Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore^TM butts in, "I am awarding GryffindorTM five points for the use of the word 'truculent.'"

So yeah, it's just what I imagined. The title reminded me of a Led Zeppelin song:

"In my time of dying, want nobody to mourn,
All I want for you to do is take my body home . . ."

However, if you do want to relive the glory days of the Bush administration, we should have more stock back in on Monday . . .

2) I MISS BON SCOTT . . . I wish I could do the mincing guitar lick leading into this song, but the lyrics will have to suffice (sung to AC/DC's Thunderstruck):

"Oh, Wonderstruck, yeah
We're reading under a tree
Can you turn the page please

Wonderstruck, Wonderstruck
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Wonderstruck
Wonderstruck, yeah, yeah, yeah


Said he can write
Drawing with lines
Yeah, it's alright
He'll do fine . . ."

Brian Selznick's long awaited title, Wonderstruck (9780545027892) 29.99, will be available at all fine bookstores on September 13. Check your stock . . .

Odds & Sods

Yesterday, I saw something somewhere on Drew Magary's The Postmortal (9780143119821) 15.00. The premise sounded intriguing. A near-future world where aging has been vanquished. People can still die via accident and the like, but if you're careful then you can live for many lifetimes. Some obvious problems are an ever faster growing population, and some not so obvious, such as career long home run records. Today I am sold on it because of his Book Brahmin interview in Shelf-Awarness; you can read it here:
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/issue.html/?issue=1547#m1313
Anybody who lists Motley Crue's The Dirt as their favourite title is okay in my book . . .