The College Crowd Digs Me

"I gotta take me on a permanent vacation." --> Aerosmith <-- Take a two week trip and you feel like you've done something.   Samuel Pickwick and his wealthy cronies decide to skedaddle outta the city for a two year romp exploring the English countryside. Now that's what you call a vacaysh ! Charles Dickens ' first novel finds him weaving a humorous tale of misunderstandings and happenstances that follow likable Pickwick and his goodnik buddies wherever they travel.  In the process, Dickens brings to the forefront many social issues that would be more famously explored in his later novels. At over 800 pgs, "The Pickwick Papers" (1836) is not for the faint of heart.   Dickens occasionally stretches sentences like he's pulling apart a Slinky.  And the slangular dialect of the period can take a bit of warming up to. But once you catch on to the rhythm of the word-flow... (and you will) ...it's a pretty dang entertaining r...

"They're running up behind you  and they're coming all about. Can't go east 'cos you gotta go south." --> Queen <-- Horror stories about friends heading off to cabins for some rest-&-rec only to meet up with nasty strangers has been done...ten times ten. So anybody attempting to write another one had better know how to bring it. And hard! But it was 1980 when Jack Ketchum delivered this gut-wrenching page-turner. And even after some forced editing.... "Off Season" ...still received a huge backlash for its gore and violence. So much so, Ballantine Books withdrew their support after the novel's first printing. Jack Ketchum...a real nice guy. Thirty years later, this controversial gorefest still maintains cult status. It has since been reissued in Ketchum's original unedited version ...and that's really the way to go. "Off Season" is a fast, disturbingly fun novel about surviving in an extremely twi...

" I've been trying for a long, long time. Just to capture you inside a rhyme ." --> Starz <-- The Five is a terrific Robert  McCammon novel, though certainly not the palpitating type of thriller we have all come to enjoy and expect.  Sure, the elements of horror and suspense are in there, but they take a backseat to the wonderful characters deftly created.  Each member of the rock band... The Five ...ring true.  Nothing clumsy or forced.  No false notes.   The Five are a group of veteran musicians, talented and sincere, but have never quite tasted the sweet fruits of success.  And they are on the last leg of a tour that threatens to be their last.   This 500+ novel... is an homage to all "Rockers", past and present, who've tried to do their thing in this world.  And to all the fans who love them for it.  "Cherry Baby" - Starz I've been trying for a long, long time Just to capture you inside a rhyme. I've...

"We're the kings of the party, cause we're the baddest people alive." --> Brownsville Station <-- To be a member of the Mafia...a "wiseguy"...is to be a member of an incredibly exclusive club. To borrow a famous George Carlin line, "it's a big club...and you ain't in it!" Such was the life for Henry Hill .  From a young kid being a gopher for Paul Vario (a high ranking made-member of a crime family) until reaching the level of a bonafide mobster... Hill had been dipping his hands in a variety of criminal pie. Living fast and having fun.  And then it all came crashing down. Though most have seen the Scorsese film... "Goodfellas" ...there are still plenty of intimate details within the pages of this book that will fascinate and surprise.   The day-to-day living conditions alone...for many wiseguys doing time behind bars ...were nothing short of amazing. Brownsville Station - "Kings of the Party" / S...

"Let me keep on sleeping F orget that I'm alone. One day of faceless living is 24 hours too long."      --> Angel City <-- In this amazingly true adventure,  Sir Ernest Shackleton and his handpicked crew of 27 men attempt to cross the Antarctic in a 3-masted wooden ship named the Endurance . Alfred Lansing's straightforward telling of the crew's extreme day-to-day living conditions are nothing short of harrowing. What starts off as a journey of exploration quickly becomes an exercise in stayin' alive. (And I'm not talking Saturday Night Fever.) Shackleton observing his men saving one of their boats. Forced to evacuate the ship or risk being crushed by the ice...the crew seek refuge on a moving ice floe. For 17 months, these strong-willed men have death looming over their shoulders. Daily battles with Mother Nature are a constant. No one else knows where they were and no way to call out for help. Fascinating still, was the l...