Venetian Vespers - A Novel

Venetian Vespers by John Banville, 2025. I just finished Banville's latest novel, a puzzling historical mystery that takes place in Venice 1899 which I read in six days. It is  a very strangely haunting noir novel in a fascinating location. Some interesting but creepy people too.

This is the 14th John Banville I've read.

Orson Scott Card - The Authors List

Orson Scott Card. The Authors List with 7 books read. Six of the seven books read were part of the Ender's Game series of science fiction novels. The series started out very interesting but starts to drag as they go on. The author also politicizes in some obnoxious social issues. He continues to write lots of science fiction novels but I'm just not into them or him anymore.

Orson Scott Card books I've read:

• Enders Game, 1985 - Mar 2000
• Speaker For The Dead, 1986 - May 2000
• Xenocide, 1991 - Aug 2000
• Ender's Shadow, 1999 - Feb 2001
• Shadow of the Hegemon, 2001 - Mar 2001
• Empire, 2006 - Dec 2006
• Ender in Exile, 2008 - May 2010

Have A Nice Day - Kitchen Listening

Have A Nice Day - Kitchen Listening. Super Hits of the 70's: Have A Nice Day Volumes 1-6.

An incredible collection of 70's hits from Rhino Records. This very entertaining set of 72 songs in about 4 hours and we played it in a couple of sessions while making meals and hanging out. A lot of crazy weirdly giant brain washed hit songs along with some great classics. There were a few really big hits on the radio that I never heard much because of my time at sea in the early 70's and these volumes here are from those early years of the decade. There are 25 CD volumes for the decade.

And the sign said long-haired freaky people need not apply. We had a great laugh eating dinner when the song "Timothy" from The Buoys came on. 

What It Is - Kitchen Listening

What It Is! Funky Soul and Rare Grooves: 1967-1977 - Kitchen Listening. A wonderful various artists compilation of funky soul music in a 4 CD set of 80 songs from that decade that was released in 2006 from Rhino Records.

This set makes for an incredible listening experience that goes on for a little over five hours. One of the things I loved about this collection was the deep cuts and the not well known but fantastic artists represented here.

I came of age musically as a teenager in Philadelphia and this was a lot of the stuff I listened to growing up into young adulthood. I started out with Motown and doo-wop but quickly got into that funk with James Brown and beyond. I saw a lot of soul and funk bands during this decade too including JB. More on the album on AllMusic.

Louis L'Amour - The Authors List

Louis L'Amour. The Authors List. I've read 7 of his Western novels. I read them all in 1972 while on a six month Navy Mediterranean Sea cruise. 

During those months at sea I read a lot of novels from Edgar Rice Burroughs and H.G. Wells. Also the first Godfather book and The Exorcist but I ran out of books and was looking around for something to read. A large number of my fellow sailors were Country Western dudes from the South and the West and they were reading lots Western novels so that's how I got into Louis L'Amour... a classic writer of that genre. I read 7 novels during that cruise.

He wrote 89 novels in his lifetime plus another 14 short story collections and a couple of non-fiction books. The author described his works as frontier stories.

Louis L'Amour books I've read:

• Sackett, 1961 - May 1972
• Hondo, 1953 - Jun 1972
• The Sackett Brand, 1965 - Jul 1972
• Killoe, 1962 - Aug 1972
• The Daybreakers, 1960 - Aug 1972
• Lando, 1962 - Sep 1972
• The Broken Gun, 1966 - Oct 1972

Banana Bread

It's been awhile since we made any Banana Bread but this evening Becky put one together and I can't wait to have some for breakfast tomorrow morning.

Update 3/29 - The banana bread is delicious.

Mexican Food Leftovers

Tonight for dinner we had some of the leftovers we brought home from La Fiesta Cantina last night. We added some rice we had leftover from the a couple of days ago and also a fresh salad. It was a nice meal.

Somebody's Fool - A Novel

Somebody's Fool - Richard Russo, 2025. Today I finished reading this third book in his North Bath series which takes place in that town in Upstate New York. I enjoyed the book a lot like I did the books of his that I've read but this one also kind of weirded me out with his descriptions of the characters and their relationships with each other. It was also odd the way the characters from the previous books in the series reemerged again years later. 

The first book of the series, Nobody's Fool, was written in 1993 and I read it in 1994. The second book, Everybody's Fool, was written in 2016 and I read it in 2017. And now here I am reading Somebody's Fool which was written in 2025. So each book came out about 10 years apart. 

Overall this is the ninth Richard Russo novel I've read and the first in almost ten years. I wrote about Russo in my Authors List series here. There are still a lot more of his books that I would like to read but right now I'm starting another John Banville novel... Venetian Vespers that was just published a few months ago.

Broadside - Kitchen Listening

The Best of Broadside 1962-1988: Anthems of the American Underground from the Pages of Broadside Magazine and released from the Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. 

Today is No Kings Day and a great time to listen to the 5 disc compilation box set released in 2000. The album runs about five and a half hours of contemporary folk music of it's time with much of it very topical development of an American social consciousness in popular music.

This is a great collection of music and an awesome listening experience. Here is a breakdown of the album on Discogs and a little history of Broadside Magazine.

J. K. Rowling - The Authors List

J. K. Rowling. The Authors List with 7 books. Yep, the Harry Potter books. I had a Harry Potter moment in my life in the spring of 2012 when I decided to read all of the books which I checked out of the campus library one by one. I read all seven books between April and June. So yes I enjoyed my Harry Potter experience.

Then I continued that experience by checking out all of the movies from the library and watching them one after the other in just under two weeks.

J. K. Rowling books that I read:

• Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone, 1997 - Apr 2012
• Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets, 1998 - Apr 2012
• Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban, 1997 - Apr 2012
• Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire, 2000 - May 2012
• Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix, 2003 - May 2012
• Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince, 2005 - Jun 2012
• Harry Potter and The Deathly Hollows, 2007 - Jun 2012