What's in the hopper

Life, Keith Richards
Guitar Lessons, Robert Taylor
Complete Calvin and Hobbes, Bill Watterson
Windup Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi
A Game of Thrones, George R.R. Martin
Conversations with Octavia Butler, Conseula Francis
Force of Nature, Laird Hamilton
The 4-Hour Body, Timothy Ferriss

When Giants Walked the Earth

The Facts:  Mick Wall is a British music journalist who has written for the music weekly Sounds, Kerrang!, and Classic Rock magazine among others.  This book is a biography of the band Led Zeppelin, describing how they came together, the excesses of road life in the 70s, and the aftermath of the break-up of the band in 1980.  Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones honed their skills as London session players, while John Bonham and Robert Plant worked the small clubs in Britain's Midlands before they all came together as Led Zeppelin in 1968.  This was really a Jimmy Page band, born from the wreckage of the Yardbirds, and formed with the intention to transcend what rock bands were doing at the time.  The band took on all of Page's musical influences and experience, and yet the alchemy of the four musicians playing together made it something more than just a Jimmy Page outlet. Their quick success, the power and energy of the live shows, as well as an unflinching look at life on tour are all documented in a matter-of-fact reporting style interspersed with second person interludes.  These interludes are explained by the author a product of his imagination based on "thorough biographical research".

Is it good?  I enjoyed learning about the members of the band as musicians, how they got their starts, and how they developed their skills.  I also enjoyed hearing about how each of the albums were created, as well as the amount of work and attention to detail that went into the finished record.  It was surprising to learn how many of their songs were built on existing songs - nowadays we'd call that ripping other people off.

Cringey bit: The second person interludes did not work, or I should say, I might have enjoyed that when I was eleven, but not so much now.  Also, it's clearly Jimmy Page worshippy and Robert Plant bitchy.

Favorite Part:  In addition to learning about the band as musicians, I also enjoyed learning about Aleister Crowley and how the occult influenced Jimmy Page.