Young Person's Guide to King Crimson

I bought this as a double LP when I was 17 and although it was a compilation, it was one of my all-time favourites.

It is a great regret to me that it was simply deleted when CDs came along (although I believe it was available for a short time on tape cassette).

If I wanted to, I could recreate the album myself from other sources, but without the gatefold sleeve and accompanying booklet. It wouldn't be the same.

I regret too, having got rid of the LP along with the bulk of my vinyl.

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.

Getting over the hump

I think I may have over reached my reading ambitions.

I have just read the first two Shardlake books, “Dissolution” and “Dark Fire” back to back and enjoyed them – particularly the second, which clips along at a rather faster pace than the first. Now I have launched into the third, “Sovereign” and about three chapters in I find myself slowing down. The book isn’t written badly or anything, I think I may just need a break from morose hunchback detectives¹.

Prior to this series, I have been churning through history books and before that I tried to read “The Forsyte Saga”, but it appears to be one of those strange books that is entertaining while it is in front of you, but which does not call you to pick it up again.

I think I may not read anything at all beyond the odd website and newspapers for a couple of days in the hope that my enthusiasm rekindles². Or I could plough on regardless, though this has the pitfall sometimes of coaxing the stubborn bit or my brain – the monkey bit at the base - to start resenting the book. I know there’s no logic to that, but hey, that’s a monkey stem response for you.

I worry about this largely because I have all five Shardlakes on my Kindle and after I’ve finished them I have the full current run of George RR Martin’s “Game of Thrones” sequence waiting. If my literary stamina is at a low ebb, this does not bode well. And there are other books sitting on the device, too, awaiting my attention.

I never used to have this problem; I would just devour books – occasionally I would find something I couldn’t be bothered with and I’d ditch it part read, but by and large, I’d just go through them. The acquisition of my Kindle got me out of a reading slump (me and books on crowded trains are not a happy combination, so my reading tailed off), but it seems that I may be heading for another one.

My fiction reading buds are atrophying! Help meeeee!!!






¹I never thought I’d write a sentence like that.

²Pun or no, as I am reading all these on a Kindle, it is the mot juste.