Tuesday, June 7, 2016

Paul McCartney the Life; Killing Reagan; Can You Survive the Zombie Apocalypse; Murder Never Knocks

I'm a big Beatles fan, and yes, Paul was always my favorite. I have a Beatles poster in my room that has followed me for over 20 years now. As a teenager I had a friend named Tom who asked me EVERY SINGLE TIME he saw it if the signatures on the bottom were real. Alas, they are not. Tom was very cute, so I didn't mind the repetitive question. You know who else was cute? Paul McCartney in his prime. Sigh...
It was a fun biography, nicely written. I wish Philip Norman would have left a few bits out in the very beginning (teenage boys are vile creatures) but other than that I learned a lot about him, how much he really did contribute to the song writing team known as Lennon/McCartney, and not just all the fluff bits. He's led an interesting life, that's for sure.

 I read O'Reilly's "Killing Kennedy" and enjoyed it, so I figured I'd give "Killing Reagan" a chance. It was pretty good, he's got such a brisk way of telling the story that it goes by very fast. The footnotes can be a bit much (early on, the text said something about Reagan's black hair, and then the footnote mentioned his hair was actually dark brown but the cream he used on it made it appear black. I was like why even say it like that? Why not just say in the actual text that it was brown? That was a little weird to me). The book looked at Reagan's entire life, not in depth, but enough of an overview to make it interesting, and seemed to posit the theory that the assassination attempt in 1981 may have hastened his decline into Alzheimer's.

 I have zero recollection of buying this book, but I must have at some point. I was putting away other books that I'll probably never get around to reading, and saw this one on my shelf. It looked interesting, so I pulled it off the shelf and read it. It was quite fun, it's a choose your own adventure type of book about the zombie apocalypse. Every decision you make has consequences, most of which ended in painful and gruesome death, but some endings were fun.
And finally, a great Mickey Spillane & Max Allan Collins collaboration, "Murder Never Knocks". Mike Hammer is minding his own business in his office when a man walks in with a gun. He tells Hammer he was paid to bump him off. Hammer throws an ashtray at him and fires off a round from his big .45 before the would be assassin knows what hit him.
As the week goes on, Mike survives two more assassination attempts, and one of his friends is nearly killed. So he's got to figure out who wants him dead and why, and also how to keep Velda safe while doing it. It was great fun, I do so love Mickey Spillane.
I wonder if anyone will ever pick up the Ed McBain 87th Precinct series? Maybe McBain didn't leave behind material like Spillane did. It's a damn shame, because it was such a good series, I'd love to see more of them. Oh well.

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