Sharp right turn

Ron David's JAZZ FOR BEGINNERS (1995) is the best, funniest book on music I've read in quite awhile. It really is a sort of comic book, presenting a short history of jazz in less than 150 pages -- so simple that even a dummy like me can understand it.
I love David's jazz Attitude. ("If jazz can't include Keith Jarrett, that's jazz's loss." And "Miles Davis died in 1991 -- 10 years after his horn." Ouch. Has David not heard Miles's AURA?) David's text is laugh-out-loud funny, he's not shy about expressing an opinion, and he includes a long list of key albums to hear. And the drawings/cartoons/caricatures of jazz legends are both hilarious and true-to-life. Easily worth an hour of your time if you're interested in the music. (The BEGINNERS series also includes SEX FOR BEGINNERS -- maybe I should check THAT out!)
E. Jean Carroll's HUNTER (1993) is an attempt at a biography of gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, famous for writing books like FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS, FEAR AND LOATHING ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL '72, HELL'S ANGELS, and lots of great, crazed, allegedly non-fiction pieces for ROLLING STONE back in the '60s and '70s.
However, Carroll's book isn't a biography. It becomes an excellent "oral history" of some of Hunter's outrages, narrated by his old friends, old girlfriends, former co-workers, and his ex-wife. There wasn't much of Hunter's life that he didn't write about himself in his string of books that came out in the '80s and '90s. Carroll chose to set the friends' excellent oral history in a fictional framework -- in which she tries to out-outrage HST himself, and it's just silly.
Of course, the real final chapter isn't here -- Hunter's suicide, which happened a decade or so later. He always DID have way too many guns around. You can read all you want about Hunter's real life and his constant scrambling for money in the two huge volumes of letters that he left behind.
If you're a fan, HUNTER's almost worth it for the friends' fond memories.
Michael Largo: THE PORTABLE OBITUARY (2007) -- I had some hopes for this, a detailed look at the ways rich and famous people of the past really died. But it isn't very funny, not even "darkly" funny, and Largo's writing is sometimes kind of awkward. If you're going to tackle a subject like this, you've got to do it with some style....
John McPhee: THE RANSOM OF RUSSIAN ART (1994) -- In one of his shortest books, McPhee tells how a bumbling, rather absent-minded professor from Pennsylvania was able to smuggle thousands of paintings by Soviet dissident artists out of Russia during the height of the Cold War. The paintings are now worth millions of dollars. McPhee includes photos of some of the art -- there was some pretty weird stuff in the stash. The IDEA of this book is brilliant -- so was the smuggler. But the book is maybe too short, it doesn't quite hit with the impact it should. After the art photos, McPhee's text is only 144 pages. You can read the book in an hour or two. Interesting what people can get away with, though....
Ed Viesturs: K2: LIFE AND DEATH ON THE WORLD'S MOST DANGEROUS MOUNTAIN (2009) -- I was hoping for some of that icy-cold Jon Krakauer/INTO THIN AIR feeling here, and there is some of that -- Viesturs has been around for some harrowing mountain-climbing disasters. But in his writing he sounds like such a competent, level-headed guy that it's hard to believe he'd ever make a bad mistake while climbing.
Mikal Gilmore: NIGHT BEAT (1998) -- A big collection of music pieces from ROLLING STONE and other places. Gilmore writes sensitively and with feeling about the artists and the music, but his subjects are the same old lineup -- Beatles, Stones, Dylan, Springsteen, Nirvana, Michael Jackson, Marvin Gaye, Al Green, Punk Rock, Lou Reed, Doors, Randy Newman, Elvis, Miles Davis, etc. There isn't much new here, and Gilmore -- though good, detailed and conscientious -- isn't Lester Bangs or Robert Christgau or Greil Marcus, though he's enjoyable enough to read. It just isn't enough somehow. Not much jumps off the page like I hoped it would. Best thing in the book is a hilarious, cranky series of interviews with Keith Jarrett -- that man really IS a pain in the ass!
Barry Miles: PAUL MCCARTNEY: MANY YEARS FROM NOW (1997) -- Not much new here either, unless you want to argue with Paul over old songwriting credits. "In My Life" was half Paul's? Paul was into tape-loops and the avant-garde long before John? OK, but only the Beatles era is covered here, as if Paul's life ended in 1971. There's 650 pages of Paul setting the record straight. And there's STILL no further details about that Frank Sinatra/Perry Como-style big-band "crooner" album Paul recorded before he joined The Fabs....
Timothy Egan: THE WORST HARD TIME (2006) -- Have only read a couple chapters of this, but it's already pretty involving -- a detailed look at the Dust Bowl, probably the worst ecological disaster in America's history, described by the people who lived through it. My grandparents were in the Dust Bowl, in Kansas, so I have some interest in the subject....
Carl Honore: IN PRAISE OF SLOW (2004) -- Have only read a couple chapters of this, but Honore's thesis is that everything is better if you slow down a step and take time to enjoy it a little -- work, food, sex, everything. (I thought everybody knew sex was better when taken slowly...?) Hard to argue with Honore's thesis, but good luck selling it in a country where most people seem to be in a hurry all the time. Especially young people....
Rod Stewart: ROD: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY (2012) -- I've only sniffed at this. I plan to read about Rod's early rocker/singer-songwriter years before he became mega-famous, then stop. Unless he proves so charming that I can't resist. Which seems unlikely....
It's amazing what you can find at Goodwill. Most of the books above I found at one of the four Goodwill stores in my area. Just wanted to say thanks for donating for people on a tight budget -- like me, most of the time....