Liz Williams is one of my favorite writers. Her first novel, a faux-Jack Vance pastiche called The Poison Master, thrilled me. Williams’ latest book, Comet Weather, features four sisters from Somerset, England who have “powers” to talk to trees and stars.

Each sister has her own talents and they come into play when their mother, Alys, disappears and the police claim she’s dead (although no body has been found). The sisters think their mother is still alive and they follow clues to see if they can locate her.

Along the way shapeshifters, ghosts, parallel worlds, and time travel come into play. If you’re looking for an involving novel with strong women characters and plenty of plot surprises, I recommend Comet Weather. A sequel, Blackthorne Winter, is planned. I love the cover by Ian Whates! GRADE: A-

After watching Casablanca last week, I thought it might be fun to watch Woody Allen’s homage to that classic film, Play It Again, Sam. The 1969 play version of Play It Again, Sam lasted over a year on Broadway. In 1972, the movie version hit the theaters. The movie was directed by Herbert Ross.

Play It Again, Sam was the first movie with Woody Allan and Diane Keaton acting together. Woody plays Allan Felix, a neurotic film critic, who’s been dumped by his wife. Felix is inept at dating and his best friend, Dick (Tony Roberts, and his wife, Linda (Diane Keaton), attempt to help Felix navigate the dating scene.

The reason I’m fond of Play It Again, Sam is Felix’s reoccurring hallucination of Humphrey Bogart (Jerry Lacy) who gives Felix advice.

Sure, it’s a silly movie, but Play It Again, Sam does honor Casablanca in its treatment of romance and love. Have you seen Play It Again, Sam? Are you a Wood Allen fan? GRADE: B+

I’ve been listening to a lot of music during this Stay-At-Home phase. And some of the music comes directly or indirectly from Canadian musical prodigy, David Foster.

HITMAN is the memoir of David Foster who had a hand in producing dozens of hit songs. Foster has worked with many of the top singers. I enjoyed the story of a young kid from Canada who took risks and found himself in Los Angeles as a session player. But, a successful career as a musician wasn’t enough for Foster. He took the leap to producing records and after a shaky start, began to evolve into a hit song machine.

If you’re interested in the music industry and how hit songs are made, HITMAN will fascinate you. Check out the soundtrack to the book below. Do you see any songs you like?

TRACK LIST:

Disc: 1

  1. Love Theme from St. Elmo’s Fire (feat. Kenny G) [Live] – By David Foster
  2. Home (Live) – By Michael Bublé And Blake Shelton
  3. I Have Nothing / I Will Always Love You (Live) – By Charice
  4. Bridge over Troubled Water (Live) – By Josh Groban And Brian McKnight
  5. Because You Loved Me (Live) – By Celine Dion
  6. Wildflower (Live) – By Blake Shelton
  7. Somewhere (Live) – By Katharine McPhee
  8. Hard to Say I’m Sorry / You’re the Inspiration / Glory of Love (Live) – By Peter Cetera
  9. The Prayer (Live) – By Andrea Bocelli And Katharine McPhee

Disc: 2

 1. Andre Agassi Intro (Live)
  2. Love Theme from St. Elmo’s Fire (feat. Kenny G) [Live] – By David Foster
  3. Can’t Help Falling in Love (Live) – By David Foster
  4. She’s a Beauty / Man in Motion (Live) – By Michael Johns
  5. Mornin’ / After the Love Has Gone (Live) – By Brian McKnight
  6. Video – By Barbra Streisand
  7. Somewhere (Live) – By Katharine McPhee
  8. Through the Fire (Live) – By Renee Olstead
  9. Got to Be Real (Live) – By Cheryl Lynn
  10. Wildflower (Live) – By Blake Shelton
  11. Video – By Urban Cowboy
  12. Look What You’ve Done to Me (Live) – By Boz Scaggs
  13. Jo Jo (Live) – By Boz Scaggs
  14. Chocolate Legs (Live) – By Eric Benét
  15. Hard to Say I’m Sorry / You’re the Inspiration / Glory of Love (Live) – By Peter Cetera
  16. Amapola (Live) – By Andrea Bocelli
  17. Because We Believe (Live) – By Andrea Bocelli
  18. The Prayer (Live) – By Andrea Bocelli And Katharine McPhee
  19. Asturias (Live) – By William Joseph
  20. Video – “Because You Loved Me” – By Celine Dion & David Foster
  21. I Swear (Live) – By Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds And Kevon Edmonds
  22. Feeling Good (Live) – By Michael Bublé
  23. Home (Live) – By Michael Bublé And Blake Shelton
  24. Save the Last Dance for Me (Live) – By Michael Bublé
  25. Video – By Bodyguard w/ Kevin Costner
  26. I Have Nothing / I Will Always Love You (Live from David Foster & Friends) – By Charice
  27. Alla Luce del Sole (Live) – By Josh Groban
  28. Bridge over Troubled Water (Live) – By Josh Groban And Brian McKnight
  29. You Raise Me Up (Live) – By Josh Groban
  30. Got to Be Real (Live)

Rick Robinson correctly characterized the 2020 NFL Draft coverage on ESPN as “lame.” Social distancing and lack of crowds of fans clearly sapped most of the excitement from this annual event. And, who knows if the NFL season will even happen this year!

The Buffalo Bills traded away their First Round Pick for Viking’s wide receiver Stefon Diggs. So the Bills Second Round Pick loomed large. And, large is what Iowa Defensive End A. J. Epenesa is: 6’5″ 275 pounds.

In the Third Round, the Bills went for offense: Utah running back Zack Moss.

In the Fourth Round, the Bills added a 6′ 3″ wide receiver, Gabriel Davis, from UCF.

The most surprising pick for the Bills the was Fifth Round selection of QB Jake Fromm, Georgia. Hard to believe a player this good would still be available in the Fifth Round!

The Bills had two Sixth Round Picks and chose a kicker, Tyler Bass, from Georgia Southern and wide receiver, Isaiah Dodgins, from Oregon State.

The Bills closed out their 2020 Draft with a Seventh Round selection of cornerback, Dane Jackson, from Pittsburgh. All in all, I think the Buffalo Bills 2020 Draft was a success. How did your favorite NFL team do in the Draft?

Noah Isenberg’s We’ll Aways Have Casablanca: The Life, Legend, and Afterlife of Hollywood’s Most Beloved Movie (2017) traces how the movie came to be, how the cast was selected, how the movie was shot, and how Casablanca became an iconic film.

Surprisingly, Diane had never seen Casablanca in toto, only some of the famous scenes. So, in preparation for reading We’ll Always Have Casablanca, we sat down and watched it–the first time for Diane, about the dozenth for me. Diane, of course, loved it.

I learned a lot about Casablanca that I didn’t know. I didn’t know that the role of the character of “Sam” (the piano player) was almost given Lena Horne. Instead, it went to Dooley Wilson–who didn’t know how to play the piano! Wilson sings “As Time Goes By” but a staff musician called Elliot Carpenter was the “ghost pianist.”

I didn’t know Humphrey Bogart sulked during the production because “he didn’t get the girl.” I didn’t know Ingrid Bergman was chosen to play Ilsa Lund (Bogart’s love interest) but only after an exhaustive battle. Decision makers at Warner Brothers thought Bergman was “too young” for Bogart.

What do you think of Casablanca? GRADE: A (for the movie and the book)

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Introduction xiii

Chapter 1 Everybody Comes To Rick’s 1

Chapter 2 Usual Suspects 43

Chapter 3 Stick My Neck Out For Nobody 85

Chapter 4 Such Much? 123

Chapter 5 We’ll Always Have Paris 163

Chapter 6 Play It Again 201

Chapter 7 A Beautiful Friendship 241

Acknowledgments 277

Notes 281

Illustration Credits 311

Index 313

Between Planets, The Rolling Stones, Starman Jones, The Star Beast by Robert A. Heinlein was a Science Fiction Book Club omnibus published in 2004. I had read all four Science Fiction juveniles in the late 1950s when I binged on every Heinlein book I could get my hands on.

These four novels illustrate the range of Heinlein’s interests. Between Planets is a political novel. The Rolling Stones (aka, Space Family Stone) features an unusual family touring the Solar System and getting involved in adventures that teenagers (the target audience for these books) would love.

Starman Jones is frequently considered the best of Heinlein’s juvenile novels (I mildly disagree because I love Citizen of the Galaxy). Heinlein’s themes of personal characteristics overcoming problems and motivation come to the fore in this novel. The Star Beast features a high school senior who discovers his extraterrestrial pet is way more than he thought it would be.

Some people mock Science Fiction Book Club editions as cheap knockoffs, but I find the SFBC omnibus editions well worth collecting and reading. Are you a Heinlein fan? GRADE: A

Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novel from 1989 is more about Love than it is about a plague. Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza fall in love early in they lives, but Fermina decides to marry a wealthy doctor. Florentino never gets over the loss of his True Love and waits patiently for Fermina. Meanwhile, he has 622 love affairs.

Marquez has to fill in the fifty-one years, nine months, and four days until Florentino can profess his love to Fermina again. The story swings from Florentino and his many women to Fermina and her husband.

I’m a big fan of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude with its magical realism. I confess I was underwhelmed by Love in the Time of Cholera. Do you read many books in translation? GRADE: C+

Nat, a 47 year-old veteran of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, is nearing retirement. He’s assigned to The Haven, a minor substation in British Intelligence.

Nat is not only a spy, he’s a passionate badminton player. One day, a young man named Ed challenges Nat to a match. Nat wins, but the much younger Ed pushes him to the limit. The two men play every week or two. Ed hates Trump and lashes out at Brexit.

Then Ed commits an act that involves Nat’s agency. Nat has to decide how to juggle national security and friendship.

I listened to the audiobook version of Agent Running in the Field because I’ve listened to John Le Carre narrate some of his other novels. Le Carre brilliantly carries off the story telling and makes it easy to listen to 8 CDs. Are you a fan of John Le Carre and spy novels? GRADE: B+

Long ago in 1965, I saw Bob Dylan and The Band perform at Kleinhans Music Hall in Buffalo. It was my first rock concert and I loved it. I was a Dylan fan, but later I bought Music From Big Pink and became a fan of The Band, too.

Once Were Brothers is a documentary about The Band. Based on Robbie Robertson’s Testimony this film tells the story of how The Band got together, toured with Bob Dylan, recorded their first album, became successful…and completely fell apart.

In addition to telling the story of the rise and fall of The Band, Once We Were Brothers features a lot of music. If you’re a fan of the band, you’ll enjoy the insights provided in this documentary. If you enjoy The Band’s music, there’s plenty of it here, too. Are you a fan of The Band? GRADE: A-

TRACK LIST FOR THE LAST WALTZ:

DISC ONE:

Disc two:

Disc three:

Disc four:

“The Last Waltz Suite”

Concert rehearsal[edit]

Studio ideas[edit]

Do you believe any of the numbers given during the daily press briefing at the White House? I don’t. I’m skeptical of the reported number of cases of the coronavirus. I believe the Government is deliberately slowing the distribution of test kits (so the numbers stay low to please Trump). And I suspect America will go the way of Italy in terms of the number of cases…and deaths. In that vein, I thought I’d share a related book about the Fake Research in management studies.

Dennis Tourish shows that most research in management studies is crap. By extension, research in the Arts, Sciences, and Medicine fall prey to the same problems Tourish confronts in his enlightening book. In the early chapters, Tourish shows that “classic” studies are flawed and their results suspect. Yet decades of students and researchers cite these studies and use their results to build their own flawed cases and research results.

Tourish also confronts corruption in academic research. Just a week ago a Harvard professor was arrested for “sharing” his research into nanotechnology with Chinese universities (for tons of money, of course). Chinese universities will pay Big Bucks for articles that will appear in top research journals like Science and Nature in order to increase the prestige of their programs. And then there’s plagiarism, dodgy statistics, and cryptic writing.

After exposing the weaknesses of current academic research, Dennis Tourish proposes some possible solutions to get back to doing real research that yield valid results. Yes, just as there’s Fake News, there’s also a lot of Fake Research. It has to be rooted out. We see this Fake Research all the time. Remember when coffee was supposed to bad for you? Now, it’s a healthy drink. It’s the same with claims that foods prevent (or generate) cancer. This is an important book. How trusting are you of Government statistics? GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
List of Tables ix
Acknowledgements x
Introduction: the crisis in management studies; 1
1. Flawed from the get go: the early misadventures of management research; 8
2. How audit damages research and academic freedom; 34
3. ‘When the levee breaks’: academic life on the brink; 60
4. The corruption of academic integrity; 80
5. Paradise lost but not yet regained: retractions and management studies; 106
6. The triumph of nonsense in management studies; 133
7. Flawed theorising, dodgy statistics and (in) authentic leadership theory; 161
8. The promises, problems and paradoxes of evidence based management; 189
9. Reclaiming meaningful research in management studies; 212
10. Putting zest and purpose back into academic life; 234
Notes 252
Index 299