these are a few of my favorite things

It's a books and music post!

Hopefully you've noticed my fancy new sidebar. I love talking about books and music, recommending things to people, and getting recommendations, but this isn't a books-and-music-blog* so I don't want to bore you all by constantly gushing about this really cool book on migratory birds which would bore most of you to tears. I'm aware of my eclectic (and sometimes questionable) tastes, so for your sake, I keep that sort of thing to a minimum.

So my new sidebar is a way of letting you know what I'm currently into, and you can feel free to comment on it, or ignore it, or criticize it, or whatever. I'm mostly mentioning it because I feel pretty proud of myself for managing to figure out the HTML to post those pretty little linked pictures.

I don't have anything important to say about the things I'm reading or listening to -- the books are still in progress, but are obviously interesting enough to keep me reading, and the CDs are all my style, which may not be your style, so maybe you'd like them and maybe you wouldn't. I have to say that my favorite of the 3 CDs at right is the Scissor Sisters, who are poppy and funky and fun, though I can recognize that they are certainly not for everyone**. If you think you can handle Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb" set to a synthesized, BeeGee-esque beat, then check them out. If that idea abhors you, then maybe you should not listen to my musical recommendations.

Wait, I do have one important thing to say: John Lennon is magic. The CD I'm listening to is a collection of covers of John Lennon songs, made by Amnesty International to raise money for the Darfur crisis. I noticed when looking at the track list that there are two covers of "Imagine" -- one by Jack Johnson and one by Avril Lavigne. Seeing Avril's name made me roll my eyes. Obviously Jack Johnson would do a better "Imagine". I'm not a fan of Avril's music, and I've loathed her on priciple ever since I heard that she mispronounced David Bowie's name at an awards ceremony. DAVID BOWIE, people. Come on! But "Imagine" came on and... I like it. Avril can actually sound good when she has good music to work with. In fact, I prefer her simple piano arrangement to Jack Johnson's version. That, my friends, is the magic of John Lennon.

On to books, in general. A bookworm like me is always looking for good new books, or to talk about books, and now that my once-infrequent book club is officially disbanded, I'm desperate for book talk. But I've found a really cool site that is helping me out in that regard. A few months ago, Dawn invited me to GoodReads, and I've finally gotten around to checking it out. And I immediately joined and then invited some friends who are just as bookish as I am. You can rate books, see what other people are reading and see what your friends think of the books they've read. My profile is here; if you're interested, sign up and add me. We can talk books!

So what are you reading and listening to?

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*So what kind of blog is this then? I'm not sure, but I think I just don't want to give in to having a label.

**Update: I forgot to add that the Scissor Sisters can be kind of dirty, and this is probably not a good disc to play around the kiddos (if you have kiddos). Just so you know.