A pleasure—and an education—for any music fan.
A lively, heartfelt exploration of the many worlds of popular music.
Even though this is a big, capacious book, New Yorker staff writer Sanneh is not exhaustive in his treatment of seven categories of sound: Jazz and blues are only lightly mentioned, for instance, even though both had a formative role in rock and R&B, and some readers may wonder why he calves punk rock off from rock to constitute a genre of its own. Still, as he writes, “if you emphasize genres, you inevitably find yourself thinking about the otherstars”—i.e., other than the major players, which explains his numerous mentions of Grand Funk Railroad, which, though disliked by critics and connoisseurs, was “one of the most popular rock bands in America.” Sanneh begins with a pioneer who’s still at it, Dion DiMucci, and moves on to Bruce Springsteen, “who was a bit of a throwback even when he first emerged, in 1973,” before surveying dozens of rock artists. Throughout, the author shows himself to be a master of the mot juste—e.g., “Starting in the late seventies, Van Halen perfected a Day-Glo variant of heavy metal”—and his consideration of the plight of “quiet” singer/songwriters (think James Taylor and Carole King) is intriguing. Some of Sanneh’s genre-slotting is arguable: Prince, for example, can fit into just about any category except country, while many of Steve Earle’s country songs are as punk as anything by the Sex Pistols. As for country, the author is spot-on when he observes, “Just about everyone can agree on Dolly Parton. But when it comes to country music, people seem to disagree on just about everything else”—save that even the most treacly of country acts is expected to pay homage to Hank Williams every now and then. Sanneh can be funny (“If a track went ‘Oontz, oontz, oontz, oontz,’ it was likely to be a house track,”) snobbish, and even harsh, but it’s clear that he’s listened to just about everything with ears and mind wide open.
A pleasure—and an education—for any music fan.Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-525-55959-7
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2021
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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