One Book Leads to Another

In a previous post, I mentioned I'd been reading Alex Ross's The Rest is Noise. The same friend who gave me the Ross for Christmas has now given me a copy of Elizabeth Wilson's Shostakovich: A Life Remembered. Perhaps this posting should have been entitled 'One Kind Deed Leads to Another'. When I told my friend how much I'd enjoyed the Ross, I remarked in passing that I wanted to follow it up by reading the Wilson, which has been on one of my unwritten reading lists since it was first published in 1994. The gift ensued. (Utterly undeliberate on my part, I hasten to stress.)

One good thing about waiting so long to read the Shostakovich book is that in the meantime (2006) a second, expanded edition has been published. And I've also bought more Shostakovich CDS. So -- even if Elizabeth Wilson, unlike Alex Ross, doesn't have a snazzy website -- I can still listen to the music and try to work out what she's talking about.

Blogs I Read (2)

Slugger O'Toole, mentioned in a previous posting, is one of several Irish and Northern Irish sites I read regularly. Another is Will Crawley's blog, 'Will and Testament' (http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ni/) which is ethics- and culture-based and links to a weekly programme Crawley presents on Radio Ulster. I get the podcast of the programme as well.

The other blogs I'm reading regularly at the moment (and have now added to my Google Reader) are Alex Ross's (http://www.therestisnoise.com/) and a foodie site, http://eattherightstuff.squarespace.com/blog/. The Alex Ross site connects with a book of the same name on twentieth-century classical music. I was given the book as a Christmas present, read it in January, but didn't discover the blog until afterwards. This is a pity, since the site includes a number of soundfiles (of out-of-copyright recordings) intended to be listened to in conjunction with Ross's descriptions in the book. I wish I'd known this in time to take advantage.

As for eattherightstuff, I discovered it by accident last week when I googled for a recipe for butternut squash risotto. I must be getting more used to this blogging business, for I even posted a comment on the site, asking the blogger, Abby, about possible substitutes for double cream in another of her recipes. And she wrote back! It's a start, at least.

By their blogs, you shall know them.