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The House That Trane Built

satyr
“The music of a restive age is excited and fierce, and its government is perverted…”

This apt observation from ancient China via Hermann Hesse kicks off Ashley Kahn’s “The House that Trane Built,” an exhaustive history of Impulse!, one of jazz music’s premier record labels. The story is a curious one and it will no doubt surprise some readers to find that it includes not only artworks such as John Coltrane’s 1965 masterpiece “A Love Supreme” or Ray Charles’ hit single “One Mint Julep” (“just a little but of soul, yeah!”) but also the Mickey Mouse Club and Buddy Holly. Offered here is a classic tale of party-hard producers, innovative graphic artists, ever-clueless “bottom liners,” straight-shooting engineers and, of course, the stories of some of jazz music’s most important artists. Alongside Kahn’s fast-paced prose are numerous photographs which illustrate everything from the label’s iconic designs, behind the scenes views of live gigs and recording sessions, and even a note scribbled by Coltrane on Impulse! stationary to remind himself of an appointment with a competing label. Ashley Kahn leaves no stone unturned here (you’ll even read of the gatefold’s merits as “a deluxe rolling tray to manicure your marijuana”), and throughout the reader is continuously surprised and fortified by the cutting-edge achievements and far-reaching influence of this label. Indeed, after reading this book it is hard not to conclude that the real Jazz Age took place during the Impulse! years.

Kahn, Asheley. The House That Trane Built: The Story of Impulse Records. Norton. Cloth, octavo. List price: $29.95. Our in-store price: $6.95.

Derek works at Powell’s Lakeview and Powells University Village where he only plays the very best music for your browsing experience.

Staff Review of the Week highlights some of our favorite picks from the stacks. Come to any one of our three retail locations and talk to our interesting and knowledgeable staff about books!

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The Jaguar’s Shadow

jaguars shadow
The jaguar’s shadow, it turns out, is cast from as far south as Argentina to as far north as Arizona. Aside from its breadth, however, the shadow’s inky depths contain Mayan shaman, Brooklynite biologists ensconced deep in the jungles of Belize, American cowboys, Homeland Security, and ayahuasca rituals which are “often used as a tool for jaguar transformation”. The transformation of humans into jaguars, that is.

All of this, though, is secondary to the actual jaguar. The creature paws stealthily through the text, evading several cultures obsessed with it, not to mention Mahler himself. The author begins the book by showing us how little we know about the big cat and then quickly lets us in on the fact that nobody, really, knows much about the jaguar ( “…no one has ever filmed or videotaped au naturel a wild female with her cubs” is just one of many mystifying facts that consistently pepper the book).

And it’s difficult to separate this mystery from the animal. The jaguar earns a peerless respect among both ancient civilizations and modern scientists (not to mention legal and illegal hunters of game) because of it’s almost supernatural elusiveness and, yet, that elusiveness makes it extremely difficult for those who work so hard to protect it. Which makes those wanting to save it (and those wanting to kill it) all the more obsessed. And in the middle of that vicious circle rests the jaguar– eyeing you with the calm stare of an animal with “…the biggest brain-to-body mass of all the big cats”

Without a doubt, this book’s gripping power stems from the subject itself. However, Mahler’s ability to collect and then coalesce a huge amount of information and myriad perspectives on the jaguar into a relatively slim volume– and to do so in clear and readable prose– is a feat worthy of that subject. The fact that Mahler is a freelance journalist (as opposed to an activist, conservationist or scientist) is likely what enables him to bring so many views on, and aspects of, the animal into such a tight space. Also impressive is his ability to consistently keep the jaguar itself as the protagonist of the story, without turning the book into a story about some bad-ass writer, hot in pursuit of the world’s most elusive jungle cat.

Which, of course, only makes him look even more like a bad-ass writer, hot in pursuit of the world’s most elusive jungle cat. He’s not so divorced from the story, however, that he doesn’t let some personal information leak into the narrative; including the fact that his relentless search for panthera onca involved burning through a large amount of his personal finances.

It may be easy for me to say, but after finishing The Jaguar’s Shadow, it certainly seems like money well spent.

Mahler, Richard. Jaguar’s Shadow: Searching for a Mythic Cat. Yale. Cloth, octavo. List price: $27.00. Our in-store price: $4.95.

Marcus works in Sales for Powell’s Books Wholesale and, like any good rep, never shies away from using three words when only one may be necessary.

Staff Review of the Week highlights some of our favorite picks from the stacks. Come to any one of our three retail locations and talk to our interesting and knowledgeable staff about books!

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Against Love: A Polemic

AgainstLove
Laura Kipnis’s Against Love is a lively and cutting polemic against the inherently human emotion that makes the world go ‘round, love, and its shackled companion, marriage. Kipnis constructs an engaging and witty antidote to the desires of hopeless romantics and proponents of the traditional marriage, drawing from the critical theory of hard-hitters such as Nietzsche, Freud and Heidegger tempered with humorous, historical anecdotes of the philosophers’ personal infidelities for a good dose of perspective. She doesn’t hold any punches when attacking aspects of the modern life that encourage us to complacently accept the confines of the marital institution, railing against everything from Prozac to the capitalism-bred American work ethic. While she doesn’t offer any realistic alternatives to the current monogamous commitment construct, she seeks to help the reader ask the tough question that steadily increasing divorce rates and trips to the therapist’s office beg- is marital fidelity realistic, useful or even healthy? Like any good amorous rendezvous, Kipnis’s polemic employs intelligence, passion and humor to “shake things up” and reinvigorate our stagnant notions of love.

Kipnis, Laura. Against Love. Vintage Books. Paperback, octavo. List price: $14.00. Our in-store price: $5.95.

Mandy M. spends her days both at Powell’s University Village and Powell’s Lincoln Ave where she’s happy to talk your ear off about feminist poetry and strange Brazilian literature.

Staff Review of the Week highlights some of our favorite picks from the stacks. Come to any one of our three retail locations and talk to our interesting and knowledgeable staff about books!