Fun and quick, but I'm ready for more books about sports and business, Mr. Lewis please.

I sort of wonder what's going on with me that I felt compelled to pick it up while I was watching Mad Men Season 2 and Revolutionary Road had arrived from Netflix. Something Happened's themes fit right in with the workplace, family and social realist dystopias depicted in those more recent entertainments. Interesting, though that they each take place in different decades. How much changes, how much stayed the same.

As a stream of consciousness work, it was sometimes tough going. A lot of it seemed non-crucial. There's a feeling of descent into madness and depression, but it probably could have been relayed more...compactly. (It does rely on they same narrative 'peeling the onion' that makes Catch-22 so effective). With a 10+ year gap after Heller's previous novel, one wonders if the editors left him to his own devices - possibly at the expense of a tighter, more effective work.

Overall, I'd call it interesting, distressing, but only for those who are really intrigued about what else Joseph Heller could do. I would not recommend this to someone coming to it simply via Mad Men.

Reading this as part of the Infinite Summer project
http://www.infinitesummer.o...

A great read, well organized, well researched, and deeply empathetic to the people affected by the tragedy. By having the story move in parallel tracks - towards the massacre and away from it - Cullen does an incredible job of getting to the Why that everyone wonders about. The answer, sadly, turns out to be banal and frightening at the same time. Everything you think you know about Columbine will be turned on its head.

This is beautifully written and well researched. It's a great example of how a highly researched book can be compelling and complete without feeling the need to exhaustively go through every single piece of information the author unearthed on the subject matter.

Harris does a fantastic job of depicting what working in film was like in the 60s: the commercial pressures, the mechanics of how projects were put together, the cultural milieu and the personalities driving the industry. The book is at its best when it talks about the development of each of the movies addressed and much weaker on the reception and the aftermath. I think this is because the development was really where the action was for Harris's thesis: that the contenders for the 1967 Best Picture Oscar led directly to mammoth change in the way films were conceived, made and received. While the stories behind each the movies addressed are fascinating, I'm not sure Harris does enough to prove out his point. The final chapter and the epilogue feel much less considered than the first half of the book and should have had a more complete critical summary - and it's the reason that I rate this four stars instead of five.

Nevertheless, I would call this a must-read for anyone who cares about film history and about this period in particular.

A melancholy, beautifully written quickie - and readers might see some irony in using that word to describe this.

This fills a big hole in the music book library. Until now, I haven't been aware of a truly scholarly book on James Brown, an important artist who bridges several generations of African-American music and philosophy while sounding and looking like none of them. There is absolutely nothing that sounds like Brown's amazing late 60s run of hits before or since, and I would only place Aretha Franklin as anywhere near in terms of his music's importance to the community that at which it was pitched and became a proxy for (as so much does when we discuss race).

So how does Sullivan do with this fertile bit of Americana? Quite well. He centers on the famous Boston concert in '68, but really the action of the book is about proving the moment's significance, including (for example) the history of race relations in Boston and the artist's ability to rise to the occasion. For the most part, Sullivan successfully makes this argument without stretching the case too far, as so many overwrought cultural historians can do. (Not a quote, thankfully: "In his screams were felt the pain of a generation.")

A great pick-up for someone interested in James Brown and his music, but if you're looking for a civil rights primer, this is not the spot.