Tag: book review
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Witches and historical “bad girls”
Bad Girls From History: Wicked Or Misunderstood? By Dee Gordon Now, this would make a great present, and in our current climate this book is very relevant. Among others, this book covers the lives of La Voisin, the 17th Century Queen of All Witches (a great title, she sounds like she comes straight out of…
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The Race To Save The Romanovs by Helen Rappaport
I really enjoyed reading and reviewing Helen Rappaport’s previous book Caught in the Revolution: Petrograd 1917. As I wrote in my review of that book at the time, as well as being an informative and entertaining read, Caught in the Revolution is an historically important book, collecting as it does many valuable viewpoints and insights…
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27: The Legend and Mythology of the 27 Club by Gene Simmons
Most people reading this review will have heard of the legend of the 27 Club, basically a group of talented musicians all having in common the fact that they died aged 27. The myth began in the 60s with the death of Brian Jones. Over the years membership of the club increased with the likes…
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Iron Maiden: Album By Album by Martin Popoff
This is the best book ever published about Iron Maiden! For the following reasons: First, Martin Popoff is a great music writer, especially for our beloved genre of HEAVY METAL (say it loud we should be proud!), combining true knowledge and insight with an ability to tell a story and write genuinely engaging text. Secondly,…
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Space Sirens, Scientists and Princesses by Dean Conrad
Nowadays, women are rightly a central part of science fiction films, but it was not always so. In early science fiction films women were usually assistants, eye candy, or there to give the square-jawed male hero someone to save from the flying killer bots from the planet Zog! Compare, for example, Forbidden Planet (entertaining though…
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Heavy Duty: Days and Nights in Judas Priest
by K.K. Downing with Mark Eglinton When a band member leaves an iconic band it’s then you’ll get the true story on the said band. Such a book is the splendidly named Heavy Duty – the autobiography of K.K Downing, formerly guitarist in Judas Priest. And it is unputdownable! K.K. comes across as a very nice…
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I’VE GOT SOMETHING TO SAY: 10 YEARS OF ROCK AND ROLL RAMBLINGS
Danko Jones (Feral House, 2018) Danko Jones requires little introduction. Whether you are a fan of his incredibly hard-rockin’ band, his hilarious podcast, or his articles on all things rock for myriad magazines, the guy is an undeniably-prolific veteran of rock and roll. And it is because of his lifer dedication to rock that his…
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Book reviews by Steve Earles: The Great War Illustrated 1918
Archive and Colour Photographs of WW1 By William Langford and Jack Holroyd This is the final book in this series, the last of five titles, which have to stand as one of the very best series that Pen and Sword has published – which is no mean feat. The photos and images in this book…
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Myth and Magic in Heavy Metal Music
This book scores major kudos by having Cronos of the mighty and highly influential Venom on the cover. It’s a fine idea to explore the influences on the themes of heavy metal and Robert McParland does this with great aplomb. It’s nice to read such well-written work. It would have been nice if a well-known metal…
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Megaliths, dinosaurs and flying boats (book reviews by Steve Earles)
Spirits in Stone: The Secrets of Megalithic America Written by Glenn Kreisberg Forward by Graham Hancock We traditionally associate megalithic stone structures with places like Ireland (Newgrange). France (Carnac), and England (Stonehenge), yet there are in actuality hundreds of megalithic stone structures in North America. That they exist is in no doubt, but what is their…