Blogocentric Formulations

Keep The Lies of Locke Lamora In Your Heart

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SONG: "Keep Me In Your Heart"
ARTIST: Warren Zevon
STATUS: Deceased (mesothelioma, 9/7/2003)
ALBUM: The Wind (2003)

Even though he's probably best known for the song "Werewolves of London," this is my favorite song from Warren Zevon. It's both sad and hopeful, inspiring and depressing. If you're a fan of the show House, you might recognize it from the soundtrack of the series finale, which I thought was one of the best final episodes of a show, ever. If you're a fan of the show and want a walk down memory lane, here's a fan's homage to the show using the song:

Warren Zevon was the son of a Mormon mother of English descent, and a Jewish immigrant from Russia who served as a bookie under infamous Los Angeles crime boss Mickey Cohen. "Stumpy" Zevon, as his father was known, was even best man at Cohen's marriage to his first wife. Warren studied classical music under Igor Stravinsky, and eventually dropped out of high school and moved from Los Angeles to New York to be a folk singer after his parents divorced when he was sixteen.

In the 1970s, Zevon toured regularly with the Everly Brothers, and even helped both Don and Phil Everly separately as they tried to establish solo careers for themselves after their break-up. Without a successful career and facing a lack of money, Zevon eventually moved to Spain where he worked with a former mercenary-turned-tavern owner to compose "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner." A few years later, he returned to Los Angeles, shared a room with Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham (of Fleetwood Mac fame), and worked with Jackson Browne to release his debut album, which featured collaborations with the Eagles, Linda Ronstadt, and Bonnie Raitt, among others.

Over his career, Zevon staged two career comebacks from obscurity, and was a frequent guest (and substitute band leader) on David Letterman's late night programs. After being diagnosed with mesothelioma, the original prognosis was that he only had a few months to live... but he held on long enough to witness the birth of his twin grandsons and the release of his album The Wind. The album received five posthumous Grammy nominations, the first nominations or wins of his three decade long career.

                   

PROMPT: A book I didn't think I would like but pleasantly surprised me is...


This is a difficult prompt for me to answer because I don't tend to choose to read books I don't think I will like... and when I do read books I don't think I'll like for whatever reason (like when my wife convinced me to read the Twilight series), I generally find that I wasn't too far off the mark in the first place. So it's tough to find a book I've read that I thought I wouldn't like; instead, I might have to go with a book I thought would be just "okay" and ended up being surprisingly good.

ASIN: 0575079754	The Lies of Locke Lamora (Gollancz) Product Type: Book
	Amazon's Price: $ 19.78 Buy Now!

I read this book right in the middle of a serious fantasy kick earlier this year. I devoured books by Brandon Sanderson, Joe Abercrombie, Patrick Rothfuss, Emma Newman, Daniel Polansky, Mark Lawrence, V.E. Schwab, and Peter Brett. To be honest, by the time I got to this book, I was a little burned out, and also convinced that there would be no challenges to my "best in fantasy" throne after reading Sanderson, Abercrombie (a longtime favorite of mine), and Rothfuss. Their books were just so good and how many more fantasy worlds could interest me? Enter Scott Lynch and his delightfully funny and twisted Gentlemen Bastards series.

If you enjoy fantasy novels, read this book. If you're a fan of clever and oftentimes crass comedy, read this book. If you enjoy heist stories, read this book. This book (and its two sequels so far) are easily the best fantasy series I've read in years. Rothfuss' Kingkiller Chronicles is a very close second, but I have to give Lynch's Gentleman Bastards the edge for having such a wicked sense of humor and combining a fantasy novel and a crime novel into one delightfully entertaining package.

Although I technically only thought I would find this book "okay" rather than not good at all, it's easily one of my favorite books that I've read this year, and a strong contender for a book I'd read again (and we've already established in "Gatsby is a Soul Man"  that I don't re-read books lightly!). Highly, highly recommended.