Eight Miles High by Richie Unterberger is a history of the folk-rock movement from the mid-60's to 1970. The author repeats himself quite a bit, but the subject is interesting and he has done some good research in presenting this portrait of a musical movement in full flower. He defines "folk-rock" quite loosely, so that practically any pop-rock musician of repute, including Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin, can be at least mentioned here. The best chapters are on the mellow singer-songwriters (Joni Mitchell, Donovan, Tim Buckley) and the British folk groups like Fairport Convention. There is a lot of Dylan here but surprisingly nothing about Joan Baez, who was certainly performing and recording during the era. This is a sequel to an earlier book, Turn Turn Turn, which covered the first half of the 60's, and I liked this enough that I'll be checking the first book out of the library soon.
Our Gods Wear Spandex by Christopher Knowles is subtitled "The Secret History of Comic Book Heroes," but the text doesn't quite live up to that nice title or fun cover art of a superhero Last Supper. Given that it's published by Weiser, a leading occult/New Age press, it's not surprising that this is a decidedly occultish take on super heroes. Knowles starts with the Greek and Norse gods, then delves into the eras of Madame Blavatsky, Aleister Crowley, and pulp fiction before making his sometimes tenuous ties to comic books. There are interesting tidbits here and there, but the book is more like a checklist or a collection of trivia, with most subjects getting little more a couple of pages each. The accompanying illustrations by Joseph Michael Linsner are great, but unfortunately they are of generic superhero figures; maybe it cost too much to get the rights to picture the actual heroes? A fun breezy read but very disappointing if you want more than that, as the subtitle leads you to expect.
The Myth Hunters by Christopher Golden is a fantasy novel, the first in a series. The fact that practically every fantasy novel published these days is part of a series is one of the reasons I read so little in the genre these days. On the eve of his wedding, Oliver Bascombe winds up snatched out of our world and plunked down behind The Veil in the middle of an multi-dimensional battle between mythical creatures (like Jack Frost and a were-fox named Kitsune) and the Hunters who want to destroy them. The exposition is a bit rushed and perfunctory, and the rules and conventions of the Veil world are rather weak in conception. But I do like the atmosphere (set at Christmas in a snow-blanketed Maine), the characters, and the fact that we get two solid story lines: Oliver's adventures mostly on the other side, and the consequences to his family and townsfolk when the battles spill over into Maine. I haven't quite finished it yet, and I can't imagine I'll be interested enough to read the sequel, but it's an enjoyable way to dip my toes back in the fantasy stream for a bit.
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