White Riot by Joe Thomas

White Riot by Joe Thomas
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The first of a trilogy, set in Hackney and based on real cases, Joe Thomas's WHITE RIOT is a gritty, uncomfortably authentic thriller.

1978 - punk, Rock against Racism, National Front, Anti-Nazi League, reggae, police corruption, Margaret Thatcher...

1983 - Style Council, more corruption, more racism, more Thatcher...

The more things change…

Against a background of political and racial tension, seen through the eyes of DC Patrick Noble, investigating racist attacks in the area and with undercover agents in both far-right and left wing groups, Suzi, a photographer in the music scene, and Jon Davies, a Hackney council solicitor, Thomas captures the feel, the sounds, the smells of the time. WHITE RIOT is very reminiscent of the RED RIDING books by David Peace, whose blurb adorns the cover.

It is a relatively downbeat story, as anyone who remembers, or has an interest in, the time might expect, and it is full of uncomfortable parallels to the Britain of today. The reader cannot help but compare the events in the novel to the divided, unequal society we now live in. I really look forward to seeing where this story goes, even though I fear I already know.

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Long Road: Pearl Jam and the Soundtrack of a Generation by Steven Hyden
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have just finished Steven Hyden’s Pearl Jam book, a series of personal reflections and essays, very well written and entertaining. Reading the book is like having a conversation with a friend about a shared love; I don’t agree with his opinion on some points, and eras of PJ, but I really enjoyed the debate.

The book is structured as a mixtape with each chapter, loosely, focused on one song, in many cases a live performance of a particular song. Focused is perhaps wrong; the song actually acts as a springboard for a wider discussion of some aspect of the band’s history, recordings and concert tours, their activism and politics, their conscious retreat from stardom. I really enjoyed this way of approaching my relationship with a band who, in most days, remains my favourite.

Hyden maintains the mixtape analogy by dividing the book into two sides. Side A is the’90s - the incredible success of the first three albums, Pearl Jam’s, and particularly Eddie Vedder’s, struggle to cope with it, especially in the wake of the suicide of Kurt Cobain, leader of Nirvana, the band most closely tied to, and setup as rivals to, Pearl Jam by both the music and mainstream press. Side B concentrates on what Hyden considers is Pearl Jam’s second phase when albums became less important than live shows and I do agree with him to a large extent, although some of my favourite PJ songs have come in the 21st century.

A Pearl Jam concert is a unique event though. The band never repeat a setlist. A full-album show is a surprise, one-off event rather than the money spinning world tour that many other acts would do. Hyden is right that Pearl Jam survived, when others didn’t, by putting ‘their mental and physical health above rock stardom’ and by making ‘good decisions, including the ones that looked like bad decisions at the time.’ That ‘difference’ is partly why I saw them three times in the summer of 2022, all three concerts, in London and Italy, being different from each other, and different from any of the times I had seen the band before; its the reason why I, and countless other fans pour over setlists and gladly buy official bootlegs of the concerts to which we have been, and many more to which we wish we had been.

I'm now heading off to listen to every bootleg from the 2000 Binaural tour...

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#BlogTour - The Pact by Sharon Bolton

 A golden summer, and six talented friends are looking forward to the brightest of futures – until a daredevil game goes horribly wrong, and a woman and two children are killed.

18-year-old Megan takes the blame, leaving the others free to get on with their lives. In return, they each agree to a ‘favour’, payable on her release from prison.

Twenty years later Megan is free.

Let the games begin . . .

THE PACT is a twisty, and twisted, thriller about a careless, thoughtless crime and its long-lasting impact on the lives of those who perpetrate it. It takes a really talented author to produce a novel as enthralling and entertaining as this one with protagonists so thoroughly unlikeable. The teenagers, whose late night thrill ride the wrong way down the A40 ends in the deaths of a young family, are spoiled and entitled; the adults they become twenty years later are, despite the apparent successes they have made of their lives, just as nasty. The exception, at least in terms of her success, is Megan, who for some reason takes full responsibility for the crash that has the potential to ruin all their lives; she is however no more likeable than the others.

That Sharon Bolton not only keeps these people interesting but makes the reader care about what happens to them is astounding. The novel rattles along at a fast pace, told from the viewpoints of each of the group, so willing to accept Megan’s offer yet so anxious to avoid the consequences of the pact they agree to. The real pleasure is in watching the relationships unravel as the group start to become suspicious each other. It is frantic and fun.

Thanks to Tracey Fenton of Compulsive Readers @Tr4cyF3nt0n and Trapeze Books @TrapezeBooks for the invitation to the BlogTour.

Review: A New Day Yesterday: UK Progressive Rock & The 1970s

A New Day Yesterday: UK Progressive Rock & The 1970s by Mike Barnes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Really enjoyable meander through progressive rock in the 1970s. I took my time with this, adding notable tracks to. Spotify playlist and listening along. Mike Barnes is clear that his subject is progressive rock and not Prog, a term which encompasses a particular subset, albeit one that most readers would be more familiar with. Barnes finds few concept albums and fewer wizards and hobbits. He does find musicians willing, and able, to push the boundaries of ‘popular’ music, whose influences are as likely to have been Leoš Janáček as Elvis Presley.

Rather than a strict chronology, Barnes finds themes with which to structure the book. He begins with the big hitters - King Crimson, Pink Floyd, ELP, Genesis, Yes and Jethro Tull - before taking a look at some possibly less well-known groups. This is perhaps the book’s only weakness, at least for me; I have never really had much interest in ‘the Canterbury scene’ and can’t get on with Van Der Graff Generator much either. I did find Henry Cow, of whom I had never interesting and came away with a renewed appreciation of Gong and Steve Hillage.

The book ends with a reappraisal of the often repeated theory that punk was a reaction to, and the end of, progressive rock (it really wasn’t) and revisits some of the better known names, and how they had changed by the decade’ s end.

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Review: Roger Daltrey: Thanks a lot Mr Kibblewhite: My Story

Roger Daltrey: Thanks a lot Mr Kibblewhite: My Story by Roger Daltrey
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Roger Daltrey’s story read by Roger Daltrey. Perhaps not as enthralling as Pete Townsend’s WHO I AM, Daltrey seemingly a more contented and less conflicted individual, it is nonetheless a hugely entertaining autobiography from one of the great singers, and survivors, in rock history. More humour than In Townsend’s book too and even more so having Rog read it himself - on a couple of occasions he starts to laugh as he reads particular passages, as it comes back, and has to have another go...

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Review: Where’s My Guitar?: An Inside Story of British Rock and Roll

Where’s My Guitar?: An Inside Story of British Rock and Roll by Bernie Marsden
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Bernie Marsden is a guitarist’s guitarist, talented and unassuming, a bluesy player with a distinctive yet adaptable style yet none of the questionable attitude of more recognised ‘rock stars’. WHERE’S MY GUITAR is Bernie’s autobiography, updated to 2019, and details his remarkable career playing alongside ex-Deep Purple stars, Jon Lord, Ian Paice and David Coverdale in Paice Ashton Lord and Whitesnake, Cozy Powell, Jack Bruce, Gary Moore and many others. What the vast majority of these relationships share is the respect in which Bernie is held. Even his falling out with Coverdale, with whom he co-wrote the songs which have largely allowed him to pick and choose his projects, was due to other’s mismanagement and has been mended, DC writing the foreword to this edition. Bernie even managed to win over the notoriously difficult Ginger Baker although it is an experience he didn’t relish repeating.

There are surprising diversions such as his work in the theatre, his role as musical director for the band formed by professional tennis greats such as Pat Cash, John McEnroe and Vitus Gerulaitus, and the related ‘almost’ gig with Cliff Richard, a particularly amusing section. Marsden comes across as a thoroughly likeable man and the book reads like listening to a old friend. But, like one of his Whitesnake numbers says, he ‘loves the blues’ and it is Bernie’s interactions with blues singers, famous and not so famous, which really ‘tell his story’....

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Review: Uncommon People: The Rise and Fall of the Rock Stars 1955-1994

Uncommon People: The Rise and Fall of the Rock Stars 1955-1994 by David Hepworth
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

More a collection of articles than a cohesive narrative, Uncommon People is well-written and entertaining but lacks the singular focus of his previous book 1971 - Never A Dull Moment.

In truth, the book could have cut off at the end of the '70s, there being many, many more 'Rock Star' stories from rock & roll's first quarter century than thereafter and Hepworth's approach of one essay per year means that interest tails off towards the end. That said, his piece on Prince, which really hangs on the allegations against Michael Jackson, makes interesting reading in light of the recent Jackson documentary, and his piece on Kurt Cobain is one of the best examinations of the inability to deal with fame that I have ever read.

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Review: Aja

Aja by Don Breithaupt
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"Bringing a post-Gershwin compositional gusto to post-Dylan subject matter (and filtering it through the lens of post-Nixon America)."

There is always something for the music-lover to glean from these little books, the 33 1/3 Series, each of which focuses on a 'classic' album. Some of them centre on what the music means to the writer and how it fits into his or her life; some appear only tangentially related to the album in question. Of those that I have read, this one goes deeper into the form of the music and its construction, perhaps a little too deep at times but it does suit Steely Dan and Aja.

Author, Don Breithaupt obviously loves the album and understands music theory and he puts Aja in context, not only with what was happening in the music industry at the time of its release in 1977, but also within Donald Fagen's and Walter Becker's output and their influences with inform the album. There is a large part of the book devoted to the recording of the album and I personally love that kind of stuff although, even for me, the in-depth examination of poetic techniques such as enjambment or the relationship between E9sus4 and Amaj9 chords gets a little too much. Breithaupt is also fond of purple prose such as that quoted at the start of the review but all of this is forgiven when it leads, as this book does, to a fresh listen to, and new appreciation of, the music.

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Review: Stone Free: Jimi Hendrix in London, September 1966–June 1967

Stone Free: Jimi Hendrix in London, September 1966–June 1967 by Jas Obrecht
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

As the subtitle suggests, "Stone Free:Jimi Hendrix in London, September 1966–June 1967" concentrates on a very specific period in Hendrix's life, from his 'discovery' in New York by ex-Animal, Chas Chandler, until his triumphant appearance at Monterey Pop in June 1967. The nine months between these events, when Jimi left his native USA to come to London, form the Experience, record his first music under his own name before returning to America on his way to global superstardom, are covered in great detail by Jas Obrecht, former editor of Guitar Player magazine. The book takes us on a month-by-month chronological journey as the unknown Hendrix takes 'Swinging London' by storm. The author is thorough if a little dry. He covers the Jimi Hendrix Experience's first gigs, where the guitarist's technique astounded contemporaries such as Eric Clapton and Pete Townsend, the mismatched package tours, with the likes of Englebert Humperdink and the Walker Brothers, which took him around the UK and into Europe. Obrecht lists the recording sessions, locations and numbers recorded, which produced Hendrix's first singles and his debut "Are You Experienced?" album. We also learn where Hendrix lived during the period.

The writing is a little 'matter of fact' but never tedious. The book does appear to be aimed at the 'Guitar Player' crowd rather than a general audience although, strangely given the revolutionary guitar sounds on that first album, Obrecht seems a little unsure how much 'technical' detail to include. There is a detailed analysis of whether the left-handed Hendrix used a right-handed Fender Telecaster on 'Purple Haze' ("the second overdub, at 1:08, is a repeat of the previous motif...") which would certainly appeal to a guitar player but the author only very occasionally revisits HOW Hendrix was playing. Elsewhere, the author touches on potential financial mismanagement by the group's handlers. He also mentions drug-taking. But, by limiting himself strictly to the period in the title, many things are never followed to a natural conclusion.

I enjoyed the book but suspect the readership is going to be fairly limited. It will not attract those new to Jimi Hendrix's music and will not entirely satisfy those familiar with his work. As a fan and a guitarist, I would love an extended examination of the recordings.

Thanks to NetGalley and University of North Carolina Press for the advance review copy.

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Review: AC DC's Highway To Hell

AC DC's Highway To Hell by Joe Bonomo
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

One of the more straightforward 33 1/3 books, Joe Bonomo’s Highway to Hell is an examination of AC/DC’s breakthrough album and, while I profess to prefer this type of book to the more fanciful in the series, the real problem is that, while Highway to Hell is an excellent album, there is really not a lot here that requires detailed examination.

The book is split into three ‘chords’ - the first section puts the album in context and then essentially describes the songs in order; the second is a fairly pointless discussion of the album cover and live photos; the third a history of the band following Bon Scott’s death and the author and some of his friends looking back on how much they liked, and continue to like, the album. It’s all fairly inconsequential and very much US-centric but, if it makes you dig out the album again, it’s not a bad read.

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Review: Led Zeppelin's Led Zeppelin IV

Led Zeppelin's Led Zeppelin IV by Erik Davis
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I like the 33 1/3 books and I like Led Zeppelin, although I have never subscribed to the hyperbolic nonsense and mythologising that constitutes the vast majority of the material written about the band over the years. I mean, they were an very good band but they were no Deep Purple…

In the first few paragraphs of his book, Erik Davis describes buying “a copy of that literally nameless slab of luminous rune-rock we must stoop to dub Led Zeppelin IV, or Four Symbols, or Zoso” and I almost stopped reading but, a few lines later, “sure it was cock rock, but it was also a mystery, wrapped in an enigma, stuffed into a cock.” I thought, maybe this is tongue in cheek.

In truth, there is a lot of nonsense in Davis’s book. He decries myth making and then proceeds to tell the story of Zeppelin’s fourth album with the mythical journey of ‘Percy’ which he seems to feel winds through the two sides of the album. He does have a sense of humour but also a tendency to use the purple prose with which the music press used to be filled. But, ultimately, it is a short book and there is enough here to hold the interest.

And Davis does find some interesting ways into the music, despite his concentrating on Page’s preoccupation with magic(k) and Percy’s ‘bona fide quest’ (which, it has to be said, despite having concocted it entirely unaided, he does lighten by comparing it to ‘The Odyssey or The Hobbit or Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.’ He makes interesting observations about the differences between vinyl and MP3 and how consumption of the former made for a more immersive, and yes, perhaps, a more magical experience; the final chapters which take the songs in pairs are very readable; Davis also spends time on Led Zeppelin’s, primarily Jimmy Page’s, wholesale thievery, whether from blues greats or Bert Jansch, which many other authors are too willing to excuse.

Perhaps I just prefer those 33 1/3 books which delve into the making of the albums. I’m glad I finished this but it is not one of my favourites.

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Review: Trampled Under Foot: The Power and Excess of Led Zeppelin

Trampled Under Foot: The Power and Excess of Led Zeppelin by Barney Hoskyns
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"The paranoia and the suspicion and all that stuff is part and parcel of who he is, and unfortunately it manifests itself in some weird ways."

I don't like Jimmy Page although I do like a lot of his music. I don't like that Page appears to be unable to share credit (unless legally enforced in doing so) - whether in stealing from Willie Dixon and other blues greats or taking full credit for every note, every sound on Led Zeppelin albums to the extent of changing engineers in case any of them had the temerity to claim they did anything other than position the faders exactly where Jimmy told them to. I don't like that he resurfaces every few years to repackage and resell the same 8 or so albums. 2018 being Zep's 50th, we can expect to go through the cycle again.

I don't like John Bonham. He was a good drummer, but he didn't invent drums. He was a thug.

I do like Robert Plant. He has had a musical life after Zeppelin and some of it has been good.

I do like John Paul Jones, a seriously under-estimated musician. He also seems like a nice man.

I do like Barney Hoskyns but I would have liked some commentary from him, an opinion. Trampled Underfoot is essentially a chronological arranging of various interviews and, while they tell a fascinating story, I expected at least some counterpoint to the likes of Mick Wall's "You are Jimmy Page and you are justified in robbing everyone blind because you are a genius and they would never have been as good as you anyway..." (see When Giants Walked the Earth) or the salacious Hammer of the Gods.

There is a fascinating story here but I think Hoskyns could have told it better.

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Review: We Are The Clash: Reagan, Thatcher, and the Last Stand of a Band That Mattered

We Are The Clash: Reagan, Thatcher, and the Last Stand of a Band That Mattered by Mark Andersen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

We Are The Clash: Reagan, Thatcher, and the Last Stand of a Band That Mattered
by Mark Andersen, Ralph Heibutzki

An admirable attempt to put the last few years of The Clash into a political and social context, ‘We Are The Clash Reagan, Thatcher, and the Last Stand of a Band That Mattered’ is the story of the band’s final days set against the turmoil of Thatcher’s Britain - the miners’ strike, the Falklands War - and Reagan’s America - the Cold War threat of ‘limited nuclear war in Europe’, Iran-Contra - times that should have been made for a band as politically outspoken as The Clash.

The authors have written a well-researched and very readable history of a period in The Clash’s history which has largely been ignored by the vast majority of music journalism. The band had splintered: drummer, Topper Headon had already gone, struggling with heroin addiction and, in a move which would have been unthinkable a couple of years earlier, in 1982 Joe Strummer had sacked founder member and lead-guitarist, Mick Jones. In most retrospectives, including the band’s own, The Clash ended here but, as the authors rightly point out and evidenced by bootleg recordings of the time, musically, The Clash were in pretty good shape.

Andersen and Heibutzki also offer a succinct history of, and commentary on, the contemporaneous events of the early 1980s. In the UK, Margaret Thatcher’s war on the mining industry tore communities apart and caused bitterness and resentment that still resonate today. In the USA, Ronald Reagan was conducting a more covert war against ‘the threat of communism’ and breaking all manner of laws in doing so. The arms race with USSR came as close as it ever did to ‘Mutually Assured Destruction’ when, on September 26, 1983, only the gutsy stubbornness of Stansilav Petrov, a Soviet ‘early warning system’ monitor, in not reporting what turned out to be a malfunction as an actual attack, prevented the start of WWIII.

The failure of the book is that, despite valiant attempts to connect the band to the times around them, there was actually little connection. Little connection, not because of any failure on the authors’ part but rather because The Clash, and Joe Strummer in particular, were in such a state of disarray that, other than a few low-key gigs in support of the striking miners in the UK, they failed to make any meaningful impact.

'The gap between Strummer’s aims and his ability to live them yawned even wider.’

‘“Where was The Clash? They were AWOL, missing in action, nowhere to be seen”’ - Billy Bragg

The book is littered with awkward transitions between what was happening with The Clash and what was happening in the world because the truth is that The Clash failed to turn up.

‘Three days before Reagan chose to wager his regime on this desperate ploy (selling arms to Iran), The Clash played the Rockscene in Guehenno, in a remote region of France.’

The authors neatly sum up the significance of The Clash at the time in this one sentence. Not only was the venue remote, the band remote from shady and probably illegal political machinations but on that particular date - July 13, 1985 - “seemingly every major rock act on earth played the Live Aid concert for African famine relief..” All of these events were calling for The Clash and The Clash didn’t show up.

The authors make a good case that the major cause of the end of The Clash was not the sacking of Mick Jones but the return of manager Bernie Rhodes. Rhodes, who had been instrumental in pulling the band together with Jones, prior to Strummer’s recruitment, before being ousted, saw an opportunity to take the reins and steer The Clash in the direction in which he wanted to go. The band toured as directed by Rhodes and, more significantly, the album which put the final nail in the band’s coffin, ‘Cut The Crap’, was Rhodes’ vision, a melding of punk and ‘80s electronic pop.

The authors offer a hearty defence of the album, on which few of The Clash save Strummer make any real contribution - guitar parts are heavily processed and lost in the mix, the drums are largely programmed and played in a drum machine - but their arguments are weak. Early demos of many of the tracks on ‘Cut The Crap’ suggest a much better album was in there but the final result is weak. As the book points out, Joe Strummer was lost at this point, occasionally literally, and The Clash did not really exist. A busking tour was a final stand and, had the album been successful, could have led to a resurgence but Joe Strummer essentially walked away and, thankfully, Bernie Rhodes plans to keep the band going without him came to nothing.

The book should be a must-read for Clash fans. It is well-written and is largely successful in placing The Clash in context with the times. That the band failed to engage with the world around them is not the fault of the authors but perhaps serves to mark not just the end of The Clash but the beginning of the end of any real political influence of rock and pop groups as a whole.

We Are The Clash: Reagan, Thatcher, and the Last Stand of a Band That Mattered
by Mark Andersen, Ralph Heibutzki is published by Akashic Books on July 3, 2018.

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Review: Hotel California

Hotel California by Barney Hoskyns
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"It's not easy when you take someone who's basically right out of puberty and who becomes a millionaire responsible to no one."

Barney Hoskyns's 'Hotel California' is the story of the late '60s rise of country rock and its descent into late '70s AOR; idealism into hedonism; dope smoking, laid back hippies into cokehead, egotistical control freaks. Of course, there are those who were already halfway there even at the Laurel Canyon scene beginnings - Stephen Stills comes off particularly badly - and it would be difficult to make it in music without a strong ego, but Hoskyns's story is largely a tale of innocence and experience.

This is not a primer for California music; the book is almost novelistic and has a huge cast of characters and presupposes the reader's familiarity with many of them, not just the Crosby's, Stills', Nash's and Young's but also the Warren Zevon's and Lowell George's. Hoskyns takes these characters and weaves their individual threads into a complete tapestry of the times, albeit one which becomes badly torn and frayed at the end. He takes us from the idealistic Laurel Canyon community, the singer-songwriters at the Troubadour, an extended family who wrote together and played on each others albums, at time when record companies supported 'artists', to back-stabbing, suspicious superstars who tried to outdo and undermine each other at every turn. And, along the way, the casualties like Gram Parsons and Judee Sill.

I enjoyed the book, and revisiting the music, immensely and would recommend it to anyone with more than a passing interest in the period. It is much more than the subtitle, "The True-life Adventures of Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young, Mitchell, Taylor, Browne, Ronstadt, Geffen, the Eagles, and Their Many Friends", would suggest and I look forward to picking up Hoskyns's "Small Town" which I hope expands on The Band's story in the same way.

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Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink by Elvis Costello
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Despite having listened to Elvis Costello’s music since 1977, following his career from his early angry, spiky New Wave recordings with The Attractions, through the country songs of ‘Almost Blue’ and later collaborations with the Brodsky Quartet and Paul McCartney, knowing he is married to Diana Krall, when I think of Costello it is still the skinny, snarling young man spitting cynical lyrics from behind a Fender Jazzmaster that I picture. Only when you list the artists that Costello has written, recorded and performed with - Attractions, Imposters, Nick Lowe, Specials, Daryl Hall, Diana Krall, Ray Brown, Chet Baker, Solomon Burke, Aretha Franklin, Ann Sofie Mutter, Brodsky Quartet, Bob Dylan, Levon Helm, Rick Danko, Burt Bacharach ,Bill Frizzell, Allen Toussaint, George Jones, James Burton, Jerry Scheff, T-Bone Burnett, Paul McCartney, Jerry Lee Lewis, Robert Wyatt, London Symphony Orchestra, The Roots - do you appreciate the breadth of his music and the impact he has had on the musical landscape of the last 40 years.

In ‘Unfaithful Music and Disappearing Ink’, written without ghostwriters and narrated in the audiobook version by the author himself, Elvis Costello tells of this perhaps unlikely journey and his experiences along the way. It is not a traditional chronological autobiography - “I was born in Paddington in 1954….” - rather a series of themed chapters dealing with particular aspects of his love of music. Costello is candid about his personal life but these stories are told in context and always framed by the music. The music is the most important character in this book. We learn about his grandfather, a White Star Line trumpet player, and his father, the big-band singer, Ross McManus, through Costello’s reflections on the life of a musician on the road. His chapters on, for instance, Allen Toussaint and Burt Bacharach concentrate on these collaborations across several years.

Costello, as anyone who has listened to his lyrics will know, is a natural storyteller and his stories here are frank and honest, as when he talks of his drinking and his marriage failures, but also comical like the unlikely sounding story of how he and Solomon Burke stood in a corridor outside Aretha Franklin’s dressing room hoping to speak with her only to have the Queen of Soul fling the door open and snap their picture with a disposable camera, or he and Bob Dylan accidentally locking themselves out of a concert hall and having to make their way back through queuing fans.

This is a big book but it rattles along. It is almost liking sitting with Costello as he relates a series of “Did I ever tell you about the time…” stories, illustrating points by quoting song lyrics, both illuminating their meaning and sending you back to the recordings. I began this book as an Elvis Costello fan, albeit intermittently over the last 10 or 15 years. I finished it with an increased admiration for, and appreciation of, one of the most singular talents of the last 40.
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Link to Costello speaking about the book on November 3, 2015 as part of the 26th annual Chicago Humanities Festival - https://youtu.be/_wVjxAN8j-8

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