I’ve listened to a number of AM GOLD compilations (you can read my review of 1967 here, 1968 here, 1976 here, and 1977 here. AM GOLD 1965 from 1994 features plenty of hits from the mid-1960s but dodges most of the British Invasion groups from that era: no Beatles, Stones, Kinks, Who, etc.

The first James Bond film I ever saw was Goldfinger. When the soundtrack to Goldfinger came out in 1965, I bought it and wore out the groves!

“Movie producers Albert Broccoli and Harry Saltzman allowed him [John Barry] to write the theme song for Goldfinger in addition to the soundtrack.^[1] Barry created the melody of the song before drafting the lyrics with the help of Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse.^[2] The theme was first sung by Newley at a demo session on 14 May 1964. At the behest of Barry, Shirley Bassey was chosen to sing the track. On Bassey, Barry was quoted saying ‘Nobody could have sung it like her; she had that great dramatic sense.’ The theme was recorded on 20 August 1964 after an all-night session in the recording studio.^[3] The session was produced by EMI in-house producer George Martin, who also was the Beatles‘ producer at the time. Guitarist Vic Flick, who played on the track, recalled at a 2012 Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences salute to the music of James Bond that Bassey was having difficulty getting a proper take. Martin spoke to her and then over the recording baffle her brassiere came flying. She nailed it on the next take.” (Wikipedia]

Peter and Gordon don’t show up on many of the compilation CDs but they’re here with “I Go To Pieces.”

“Do You Believe in Magic” by The Lovin’ Spoonful still gets regular airplay on our local Oldies radio station, as does The Seekers’ “I’ll Never Find Another You.” I remember the Smothers Brothers singing this song as”I’ll Never Find Another Ewe.”

Mix in some Motown classics like The Temptations’ “My Girl” and Smoky Robinson and The Miracles’ “Track of My Tears” and overall this may be the best of the AM GOLD series. Do you remember these songs? Any favorites here? GRADE: A-

TRACK LIST:

1	Sonny And Cher*–	I Got You Babe Music By, Lyrics By – Sonny Bono	3:12
2	Petula Clark–	Downtown Music By, Lyrics By – Tony Hatch	3:05
3	Jackie DeShannon–	What The World Needs Now Is Love Lyrics By – Hal David Music By – Burt Bacharach	3:11
4	The Temptations–	My Girl Music By, Lyrics By – Ronald White, William Robinson*	2:43
5	Peter And Gordon*–	I Go To Pieces Music By, Lyrics By – Del Shannon	2:22
6	Wayne Fontana And The Mindbenders*–	Game Of Love Music By, Lyrics By – Clint Ballard Jr.	2:08
7	Tom Jones–	What’s New Pussycat? Lyrics By – Hal David Music By – Burt Bacharach	2:06
8	The Lovin’ Spoonful–	Do You Believe In Magic Music By, Lyrics By – John Sebastian	2:05
9	The Beach Boys–	California Girls Music By, Lyrics By – Brian Wilson	2:34
10	Barbara Lewis–	Make Me Your Baby Music By, Lyrics By – Helen Miller, Roger Arkins	2:32
11	The Righteous Brothers–	You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ Music By, Lyrics By – Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil, Phil Spector	3:44
12	The Miracles–	The Tracks Of My Tears Music By, Lyrics By – Marv Tarplin*, William Robinson*, Warren Moore	2:55
13	Gary Lewis And The Playboys*–	This Diamond Ring Music By, Lyrics By – Al Kooper, Bob Brass (2), Irwin Levine	2:14
14	The Fortunes–	You’ve Got Your Troubles Music By, Lyrics By – Roger Cook, Roger Greenaway	3:23
15	The Seekers–	I’ll Never Find Another You Music By, Lyrics By – Dion O’Brien	2:45
16	The Vogues–	You’re The One Music By, Lyrics By – Petula Clark, Tony Hatch	2:22
17	Shirley Bassey–	Goldfinger Lyrics By – Anthony Newley, Leslie BricusseMusic By – John Barry	2:50
18	The Ramsey Lewis Trio–	The “In” Crowd Music By – Billy Page	3:14
19	The Supremes–	Back In My Arms Again Music By, Lyrics By – Brian Holland, Edward Holland, Jr., Lamont Dozier	2:52
20	We Five–	You Were On My MindMusic By, Lyrics By – Sylvia Fricker	2:37
21	Bobby Goldsboro–	Little Things Music By, Lyrics By – Bobby Goldsboro	2:28
22	Roger Miller–	King Of The Road Music By, Lyrics By – Roger Miller	2:27

One of my delights as a kid was reading ACE Doubles. I couldn’t wait until new ACE Doubles showed up on spinner racks each month!

But ACE was not the only publisher to offer Doubles. In the late 1960s, Belmont Books published a series of “Belmont Doubles” but with only one cover, not two like ACE Doubles. Sadly, the quality of those Belmont Doubles was inferior to the ACE Doubles…but I bought them anyway.

John Brunner is one of my favorite SF writers. He started out writing mediocre SF novels but with STAND ON ZANZIBAR and THE JAGGED ORBIT in the mid-to-late Sixties, Brunner became a top notch SF writer.

Clearly, “Father of Lies” was a story Brunner salvaged from his desk drawer and Belmont dutifully published it in 1968 with Bruce Duncan’s “Mirror Image.” “Father of Lies” was initially published in the British SF magazine, Science Fantasy #52, 1962.

“Father of Lies” begins with a dragon and then an ogre. The story concerns a different plane of Reality. Today we would refer to this as The Multiverse. “Father of Lies” has more in common with Brunner’s stories from the 1950s than his more mature work of the late 1960s. GRADE: C

I’ve never head off Bruce Duncan and his “Mirror Image” is poorly written and shows why Belmont Books was considered at the “low end” of the paperback publishing spectrum. A dead stripper, an android sailor, and a New York detective investigating the dead bodies of the real stripper and the real sailor basically goes nowhere. GRADE: F

This 8-episode Star Wars animated series features some exotic adventures, action, and fun characters. The Ninth Jedi is set in the distant Future when the Jedi and the Sith have “all but disappeared.” 

All that remains of the ancient Jedi Order is a handful of masterless Jedi, including Margrave Juro, Lah Kara, Homen, and Ethan, all intent on protecting the galaxy from the fearsome masked conquering general known only as Nawaam.

The first episode starts with a chase scene that sets up the plot for the rest of the story. The animation is wonderful and the characters are compelling. If you’re a Star Wars fan, you’ll really enjoy this new series. If you’re looking for Entertainment you’ll find it here. GRADE: Incomplete but trending towards a B+

Joseph S. Moore, a college professor and an enthusiastic investor, shares what he has learned from years of trying to get Rich. In essence, Moore believes this is a perfect time to get Rich. So many options! Step by step, Moore discusses your investment choices. Real Estate has been a popular option for years, but now with flooding and wild fires, maybe not a great choice.

In the Past, people were encouraged to get into debt. Mortgages, car payments, home equity loans were all popular ways of feeling Rich by pushing off payments into the Future. At one time–the 1950s and 1960s, owning a GM or Ford franchise and selling cars and trucks was a certain way to wealth. That’s when people used to buy a new vehicle every two or three years. Today, with cars and trucks costing $50,000+, that doesn’t seem to be a great way to get wealthy.

Moore points out timing is a key variable in getting Rich. Sure, if you bought Microsoft 40 years ago, you’d be Rich today. But look at all the people who lost their shirts owning stock in Enron.

The people investing in canals in the U.S. lost money, but the people who actually built the canals made lots of money. Moore presents plenty of stories of winners and losers throughout U.S. history with lessons to be learned in the ways of wealth.

I found How to Get Rich in American History a fun, entertaining, and educational book. Are you Rich yet? GRADE: B+

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Introduction: Go Ahead! — 1
Part I: Your Money and American HistoryGetting Ahead is Easier Than Ever — 9
Fast Time, Slow Time — 11
Crypto Isn’t the Future, It’s the Past — 25
Financial Advice: Inflation’s Oops Baby — 34
Gurus are Selling Something, You Should Buy — 43
Your Net Worth is Wrong (So I Made Myself a Billionaire) — 53
Part II: Investing Then and Now— 61

The next big thing is a bad idea –63

;Compound interest and passive income are overrated — 73

Diversification won’t make you rich — 82

You can beat the market, you probably shouldn’t — 89

Women were always active investors — 103

Stocks used to be bad for the long run — 112

Part. II: Financial freedom the American way — 127

Financial independence isn’t what you think — 129

Real estate is a terrible way to make money — 140

House hacks and side hustles before Uber and Airbnb — 150

Yes, people retired before social security — 160

Immigrants make the best capitalists — 171

Scams: the Nigerian prince is actually from Spain — 180

Part IV: The Feds and the family— 191

Budgets are new, hating them isn’t — 193

Debt isn’t (necessarily) dumb — 202

The government was always involved — 213

Going broke is better than ever — 224

Marriage (and dual incomes) mattered… a lot — 235

Generational wealth doesn’t last long — 249

Part V: It’s getting better, much, much better — 261

People really did get ahead, and you can, too — 263

Conclusion: the real lessons of financial history — 277

Acknowledgements — 297
Notes — 299
Index — 331

Jerry House recommended this massive graphic novel (you can read Jerry’s terrific review here). More Weight: A Salem Story gets its title from the purported last words of Giles Corey. Corey, who was pressed to death in Salem, Massachusetts, in September 1692, refused to answer charges of witchcraft,. Corey was tortured to death in an attempt to convince him to admit his “sins.”

The illustrations in More Weight are moody and intense. Yes, at 543 pages, More Weight is a challenge for readers. Some might argue that the book is too long, too detailed. But Ben Wichey wanted to get to the bottom of Giles Corey story and to expose the Salem Witch Trials for what they were.

If you’re up for a long, arduous journey into human depravity and haunting atrocities in the Past, More Weight is your ticket! GRADE: A

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Intro: the witch city

Saints & devils

Boon-companions

The first stone

The temptations of Giles Corey

A gospel woman

The invisible world

The arrest

The examination of Martha Corey

Soap-bubbles

Some sport

The boy

The wizard

Liberties

The examination of Giles Corey

A city upon a hill

Civil wars

Oyer & terminer

Blood to drink

Angels of light

By God & my country

The better life

More weight

Seven gables

Inheritors of eternity

Outro: more wonders of the invisible world.

Diane and I enjoyed the previous three Season Ted Lasso series.  Ted Lasso (Jason Sudeikis), is an American college football coach who is hired to coach an English soccer team, A.F.C. Richmond. The owner (Hannah Waddingham) secretly hopes Ted Lasso’s inexperience will lead to the team’s failure. Instead, Lasso’s folksy, optimistic leadership proves unexpectedly successful and turns the team into a winner.

When Ted Lasso ended its Third Season in 2023, that was supposed to be the finale of the series. But, money always changes things and with the show’s popularity and critical acclaim we now have a 10 episode Season Four.

In Episode One, Ted Lasso is a cashier at a grocery store in Kansas City.  Rebecca Welton, the owner of AFC Richmond lands in her private jet and offers Ted the job of coaching her new women’s soccer team. Guess what he says to that!

Apple TV+ drops a new episode every Wednesday so Season Four will end on October 7. Diane and I love the cast of Ted Lasso so we’re happy this fine series is back for another round of fun and frivolity. GRADE: Incomplete but trending towards an A

Anthony Horowitz has written over 50 books and 22 scripts for Foyle’s War. I’m a fan of Horowitz’s Young Adult spy novel series featuring teenager Alex Rider. I’ve had The Word is Murder on my shelves since 2017 and I finally got around to reading it.

Early in the book, Horowitz (who makes himself the narrator) mentions he just wrote a Sherlock Holmes pastiche, The House of Silk. This is a hint that the lead character in The Word is Murder–a crusty, cantankerous ex-police detective named Daniel Hawthorne–is really Sherlock Holmes in disguise. Hawthorne rubs everyone the wrong way, but he has Holmes-level observation skills and a canny sense of detection.

The Word is Murder starts out with a wealthy woman–Diana Cowper–who plans her own funeral in London and is found strangled in her home just six hours later. Acting as Watson to Hawthorne’s Holmes, Horowitz follows Hawthorne around the crime scenes with the intention to write up the murder as a True Crime book while Hawthorne pursues clues as a Police Consultant.

The Word is Murder is perfect Summer Reading. The plot is clever with plenty of twists. Horowitz and Hawthorne clash throughout the novel, but it takes both of them to solve this crime. I can’t wait to read the other mysteries in this series! GRADE: A

Hawthorne and Horowitz Mysteries:

1 The Word is Murder (2017)
2 The Sentence is Death (2018)
3 A Line to Kill (2021)
4 The Twist of a Knife (2022)
5 Close to Death (2024)
6 A Deadly Episode (2026)

I was in the mood to listen to some of the dozens of GREATEST HITS CDs on my shelves. I picked two of the most successful groups of the 1980s: Hall & Oates and Huey Lewis and The News.

Hall & Oates sold 40 million records during the 1980s. However: “Despite generating what would amount to nearly $100 million across the decade, the duo famously saw much of their wealth disappear during this time due to high-flying lifestyles, lavish spending, and costly management and legal structures.” (Wikipedia)

During the Eighties, Hall & Oates had FIVE Number One hits:

“Rich Girl” (1977) – Their first single to top the chart.
“Kiss on My List” (1981) – A major pop-rock smash from the Voices album.
“Private Eyes” (1981) – The title-track chart-topper from 1981.
“I Can’t Go for That (No Can Do)” (1982) – A crossover R&B and pop phenomenon.
“Maneater” (1982) – Their longest-running number-one hit, staying at the top for four weeks.
“Out of Touch” (1984) – Their final career chart-topper, released from the album Big Bam Boom. 

Huey Lewis and The News were also making money during the Eighties with their touring and album sales. Their number-one singles were:

• “The Power of Love” (1985)
• “Stuck with You” (1986)
• “Jacob’s Ladder” (1987) 

Additionally, the band achieved 12 top-ten hits on the Billboard Hot 100 during the 1980s and early 90s, with their album Sports (1983) reaching number one on the Billboard 200 albums chart. 

Are you a fan of Hall & Oates and/or Huey Lewis and The News? GRADE: B+ (for both)

TRACK LIST:

Sara Smile	3:07
		Rich Girl	2:24
		Back Together Again	3:25
		Don’t Change (45 Version)	3:31
		I Don’t Wanna Lose You (45 Version)	3:38
		Kiss On My List (45 Version)	3:48
		Private Eyes	3:36
		I Can’t Go For That (No Can Do) (45 Version)	3:56
		Your Imagination (45 Version)	3:32
		One On One (45 Version)	3:55
		Family Man	3:26
		Adult Education (45 Version)	3:58
		Out Of Touch (Video Mix)	4:29
		Everything Your Heart Desires (45 Version)	4:21

TRACK LIST:

		The Heart Of Rock & Roll	5:05
		Heart And Soul	4:12
		Doing It All For My Baby	3:38
		Do You Believe In Love	3:29
		Trouble In Paradise	4:33
		The Power Of Love	3:55
		If This Is It	3:53
		Bad Is Bad	3:47
		Workin’ For A Livin’	2:40
		It’s Alright	3:04
		Stuck With You	4:27
		I Want A New Drug	4:45
		100 Years From Now	3:47
		So Little Kindness	4:15
		‘Til The Day After	3:28
		When The Time Has Come	4:27

Jerry House mentioned The Space Force Chronicles (2914) that somehow escaped my notice. I have dozens of Fred Saberhagen’s books and have read a couple dozen of them. I first read Saberhagen’s Berserkers series in the 1960s. Then I moved on to Saberhagen’s fantasy novels and vampire novels. All recommended!

The first story in The Space Force Chronicles is Planeteer, a First Contact story Boris Brazil and his team have to contend with two warring groups on an Earth-type planet. Brazil and his team are attacked but their superior technology saves them. The solution Brazil and his team arrive at will grate on readers who support women’s rights (like me) but the challenges of solving ending a war–as Trump discovered–is never easy. GRADE: B

I read The Golden People back in 1964 when it was half of an ACE Double. Saberhagen revised and expanded it for BAEN Books in 1984. I own both editions but have not read the BAEN edition yet.

The same for The Water of Thought which I read in 1965, but have not read the 1981 edition. I’ll be reading The Golden People and The Water of Thought in The Space Force Chronicles later this week. If you like Fred Saberhagen’s work, The Space Force Chronicles is a must-buy!

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Planeteer” (novelette) Galaxy April 1961 –1

1. The Golden People (Ace Double 1964) / revised & expanded: (Baen September 1984) –71
2. The Water of Thought (Ace Double 1965) / text restored and/or revised: (Pinnacle/Tor May 1981 : First Complete Edition. Illustrated by Janet Aulisio — 309

Diane and I started watching The Chelsea Detective on our local PBS station. Then, for no apparent reason, our local PBS station stopped showing it. What to do?

I checked the North Tonawanda Public Library and sure enough, they had The Chelsea Detective on DVD. Now we’re watching the episodes where we left off.

Detective Inspector Max Arnold (played by Adrian Scarborough) is a dyslexic police detective working with DS Priya Shamsie (played by Sonita Henry). Together, Arnold and Shamsie solve difficult murder cases.

Arnold lives in a houseboat (just like Travis McGee) on the river because he’s separated from his wife, Astrid (Anamaria Marinca).

If you are in the mood for some intelligent and challenging mysteries, I recommend The Chelsea Detective. If your PBS station isn’t offering it, it’s available on AMAZON PRIME video…or your local Library. GRADE: B+