Oh Very Young, What Will You Leave Us This Time?

Nearly All Great Rock and Pop Music is Made by (Very!) Young People

Back in 1989, I saw the Rolling Stones at Shea Stadium.

I was 23 years old and remember marveling at how spry these aging rockers were.  Look at Mick, running around that stage like a young man!  And Keith, giving us the full Guitar God treatment, despite surely suffering arthritic hips and failing eyesight.  I recall making snarky jokes about senility and dentures and retirement homes.

They were 46 years old.

In 2024, I saw the Rolling Stones at Met Life Stadium.  Mick could still run around the stage, though with more offstage breaks.  And Keith, well, he did have to sit down a few times, but still, they played a whole damn concert, and it was pretty good!

They were 81 years old.

More remarkably, they were touring to promote a new album, Hackney Diamonds, which topped the charts in 20 countries.

It’s all very impressive.  

But seeing these geriatric rockers putting out albums and touring the world got me thinking.  Even though Hackney Diamonds is a good album...and I hate to be ungracious here....but, see, here’s the thing…I would bet my CD collection that not a single song on that album will occupy a place in fans’ hearts the way their hits from the 60s and 70s did.  

In fact, I don’t think a single song they made in the 80s*, 90s, 00s, and 10s, will replace Satisfaction, Gimme Shelter, Angie, Sympathy for the Devil, and dozens more in their fans’ hearts.  The Rolling Stones produced an incredible body of work in their 20s and 30s and then…very little that connected with fans after that.

* Yes, Tattoo You came out in 1981, but most of those songs, including Start Me Up, were outtakes from the 70s.  

And it’s not just the Stones.  

The Beatles recorded Abbey Road, their 12th and final album, in 1969.  The oldest Beatle, Ringo Starr, was 29.  The youngest, George Harrison, was 26!  The Fab 4 would go on to record some memorable music as solo musicians in the 70s and 80s (their 30s and 40s), but you won’t meet many people who say they prefer their solo work (including Paul McCartney).  

With few exceptions, the most important, influential, and beloved music of the rock and pop era has been produced by artists in their 20s and 30s - and mostly their 20s.

One would think that artists in their 40s and 50s, with the benefit of experience and wisdom, would continue to produce great work – maybe even better work.  But that doesn’t seem to be the case.  

Before we get into theorizing the why, let’s first prove that assertion.

Hope I Die Before I Get Old

Is it true that most great music is made by people in their 20s?  I did a numerical analysis because, really, what’s more rock and roll than a numerical analysis? 

Here’s my methodology:

• I took the Top 100 albums from Rolling Stone magazine’s Top 500 Albums list
• This list isn’t perfect, but perfection is unattainable in a subjective ranking.  Most will agree RS is a pretty good arbiter
• It’s the most recent list (2023), which is much more diverse in genre, time span, race, and gender than previous lists.  I don’t think this had a significant impact on the age data

• I calculated the average age of the artist(s) primarily responsible for the creation of the album
• For solo artists, this was easy.  For example, Stevie Wonder was 23 when he made Innervisions.  
• For bands, I took some license.  I included all of the Beatles’ ages at the time of each one of their albums and averaged them.  But for the Beach Boys, I just used Brian Wilson.  This was partly laziness and partly rationalized by the fact that if I included all of the Beach Boys’ ages and divided by the number of Beach Boys, it would be pretty much the same number.  

• I eliminated 3 albums that were collections recorded over a long period of time, and difficult to pin down by age (James Brown’s Star Time; Chuck Berry’s The Great Twenty-Eight; and Bob Marley’s Legend).  I replaced them with albums 101-103 from the larger Top 500 list.

• I sorted by age

[full list at the bottom of this thread]

How many of the top 100 albums would you guess were released by people in their 20s?  I'll give you a hint.  It's about the same number as the years Mick and Keith have been alive.  Eighty of the top 100 albums were released by people in their 20s!

And released is a key word, because another half dozen (including Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours) were released by artists who were, or averaged, 30 years old.  Meaning they likely were still in their 20s when writing and recording.  So, 86% of the Top 100 albums were written and recorded by people in their 20s.

But it gets better.

45 were made by artists 25 and under!  Albums released by artists 25 and under include Are You Experienced, Thriller, Master of Puppets, Red, Nevermind, Straight Outta Compton, and Led Zeppelin IV*. The Beatles and Bob Dylan had two each on the list before they got to 25.  

* And therefore, though not on the list, Zep I, II, and III.  

Only two albums on this were made by artists over 40 - and neither are over 45.  One is by jazz musician Miles Davis, so not really from the world of rock and pop (3 of the 14 albums by artists over 40 are jazz).  

And from the world of rock and pop only one of the albums is made by an artist over 40.  Care to guess who it was?

Paul Simon was 45 years old when he released Graceland.  

What About Other Art Forms?

Maybe this whole 20s thing isn’t exclusive to rock and pop music, but relative to all modern art forms. So, some more data analysis!

Film

Besides popular music, the other great 20th century art form is film.  The American Film Institute is famous for its AFI 100 – the greatest movies ever made.  How old were the artists – in this case the directors – behind these films?  Let’s dig into the data.

The average age of the directors of these masterpieces is 43.

Only 5 of them were directed by people in their 20s.

None were 25 or under.  In fact, four of them were in their late 20s.

And of the five in their 20s:

• Steven Spielberg was 29 when he directed Jaws; but he has four other films on the list, all directed between age 35 and 52

• George Lucas was 29 when he directed American Graffiti.  But I'm confident the movie he directed at 33 will be the lead on his obituary

Which leaves us Orson Welles’ (26) Citizen Kane, M. Night Shyamalan’s (29) The Sixth Sense, and Stanley Donen’s (28) Singin’ in the Rain, which he co-directed with 40-year-old Gene Kelly. 

Novels

What about fiction?  The novel, unlike rock music and film, isn’t a 20th century innovation.  But unlike painting, sculpture, playwriting, and poetry, it is an art form that doesn't have ancient roots. So, perhaps, a useful comp for rock and pop.  

In this case I used Modern Library’s list of the Best 100 Novels of the 20th Century.  

There are certainly more young people on this list than the film directors list. This makes sense, since a film is a large enterprise costing millions of dollars and involving dozens if not hundreds of people, while anyone with a laptop and imagination can write a novel. Heck, you don’t even need a laptop.

Still, the authors behind the Modern Library 100 are definitely older than our rock’n’rollers.

Fourteen are in their 20s, and nine of the fourteen are 29.  The only book by someone under 25 is The Heart is Lonely Hunter, written by 23-year-old Carson McCullers.

I know I’ve thrown a lot of numbers at you.  So let’s look at this handy chart comparing the ages of the creators behind the RS100 (music), ML100 (novels), and AFI100 (films).

 

When I'm 64

You might be thinking, well, okay, but that’s just 100 albums.  Surely, there are a bunch of great albums by rock and pop artists in their 40s, 50s, and 60s.

Really?  Can  you name any?  

Okay, I'll try.

As it happens, some of my favorite artists made some great music in their 40s.

Tom Petty’s Wildflowers is a beloved album, released at age 44, that does indeed seem to capture the wisdom gained through the years.  

Van Morrison had an extraordinary run between his 41st and 47th birthday. He released No Guru No Method No Teacher, Poetic Champions Compose, Irish Heartbeat, Avalon Sunset, Enlightenment*, and Hymns To the Silence .  Great stuff, but most would agree that his mid-20s run (from Brown Eyed Girl and Astral Weeks to Moondance and Tupelo Honey) was God-tier work.

* Hopefully someone will remember that I'd like Avalon of the Heart, off Enlightenment, played at my funeral

Billy Joel released River of Dreams, his last album, when he was 44.  I like that album, but I doubt many Joel fans can name a song besides the title track.

Bruce Springsteen was 52 when he made The Rising. It was a critical and commercial success but few fans of The Boss (and none of his casual fans) would rank it with Born to Run (26) or Darkness on the Edge of Town (29).

Bob Dylan continues to release critically acclaimed albums into his 80s, but except for the song Love Sick appearing in a Victoria’s Secret commercial, I’m not sure much of it reached the mainstream. 

You’ll notice all of these folks are solo artists, or close enough.  Its even harder for bands to continue to produce, since they a) have to stay together and b) have to be able to create together. 

U2 is an exception, perhaps, releasing All That You Can’t Leave Behind, mostly recorded while its members were 39.  It is difficult to think of any artist at that age opening an album with a 1-2-3 punch as good as Beautiful Day, Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of, and Elevation.  But again – would many rank this album over War, The Unforgettable Fire, The Joshua Tree, and Achtung Baby - all recorded before any of their members turned 30?  

What Does It All Mean?

See, here's where I'm stymied.  

The ideal FreeTime piece does 3 things:

• Make an (original, hopefully!) observation
• Prove the observation is true
• Explain the observation

But I don’t have an explanation that's truly satisfying.

Maybe rock and pop music is as much athletic as artistic.  Just as great athletes have their prime in their 20s and 30s, maybe great rock music does.  But the issue seems to be the intellectual act of songwriting, not the physical act of performing, which the Stones and Bruce, among others, have continued to do at a high level even beyond their 50s.

Maybe it's Freudian. I'm not sure how many rock and roll songs are about sex, but I think the answer is...all of them?  

Maybe I'm asking the wrong question.  Maybe the question isn't, why do musicians in their 40s and 50s release so little; but rather, why are 20-something artists routinely creating masterpieces?

I don't know.  

But I think perhaps the answer lies somewhere in the song "Against the Wind".  

Bob Seger was lamenting his lost youth and the burdens of adulthood.  He's got so much more to think about, deadlines and commitments.  He spoke of how he's older now, but still running against the wind*.

* When he wrote these world-weary lyrics, he was 35

And in the very first verse, he may have put his finger on why rock and roll is created by the young, with his now-immortal line:

"I wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then."

Maybe experience and wisdom are the worst things for creating great rock music. 

Bob Seger had a few more hits in him.  In fact he had a #1 hit at the age of 42 with the song Shakedown from the Beverly Hills Cop II soundtrack.  

But Against the Wind was his last great album.  

Is Clapton God?*

More like an Evangelist

When music fans hear the name Eric Clapton, their first thought would likely be “guitar virtuoso”.

Or perhaps they’ll think of the guy who was in a bunch of bands before finally accepting that he was a solo artist.+

Maybe they’ll just start singing “Layla”.

But I suspect that Eric Clapton’s most lasting musical legacy will be as a fan.  In fact, Eric Clapton might be the most influential evangelist of music in modern history.

Blues Power

In 1962, the American Folk Blues Festival brought legendary blues artists like Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, and Howlin’ Wolf to European audiences.  The crowd at the first venue in Britain included the unknown teenagers Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Jimmy Page.  If you were to scan the audience at later shows in London you’d see future stars like Eric Burdon, Steve Winwood – and a 17-year-old Eric Clapton.

A lot of British musicians played a role in re-introducing the great American bluesmen to the wider world.  But none had the combination of prominence and dedication as Clapton.

He was in three of the most prominent – maybe the three most prominent - blues-based English bands: The Yardbirds, John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, and Cream. These bands covered landmark blues songs like “I’m A Man” and “Crossroads”.  The Yardbirds toured with Sonny Boy Williamson.  Clapton joined Winwood and the Stones’ rhythm section to record The London Howlin’ Wolf Sessions.  

In 1995 he released From the Cradle, a blues cover album, which was Grammy-nominated for Album of the Year, and hit #1 on the U.S. charts.   To this day, he runs the Crossroads Festival that he founded.

Clapton, Muddy Waters, & Johnny Winter (1979)

But perhaps more than anything else, he never stopped talking about the power of the blues.  When Robert Johnson’s The Complete Recordings was released in 1990 – an epic moment in that glorious period of box sets – he wrote the liner notes, which included this quote, one imbued with religious awe: 

“Up until I heard his music, everything I had ever heard seemed as if it was dressed up for a shop window somewhere.  So that when I heard him for the first time, it was like he was singing only for himself, and now and then, maybe God.”

That box set, 41 songs recorded in 1936-37 by an artist that had almost never received any radio play, sold more than a million copies, and won a Grammy.  This is hard to imagine without the enthusiasm and evangelism of Eric Clapton.  

I Hope You Like Jammin’ Too

Did you know the term reggae wasn’t coined until 1968 – 6 albums into Eric Clapton’s recording career with various bands?

The 1968 single “Do the Reggay” by Toots and the Maytals was the first popular song to use the word, effectively naming the genre.  It has roots in earlier Jamaican genres like ska, but even ska only evolved in the 1950s.  One might say ska is to doo-wop what reggae is to rock and roll.

Within a few years, a bunch of newly rich white musicians started vacationing in the Caribbean, where they heard this funky music.  And they loved it.  

Paul Simon, always attuned to global sounds, recorded "Mother and Child Reunion" with Jamaican artists in Kingston in 1972.  The Stones recorded Goats Head Soup in Jamaica.  Led Zeppelin’s "D’yer Mak’er" – a double entendre pun that sounds like ‘Jamaica’ and ‘Did You Make Her’ - is reggae-inspired.

But it was Eric Clapton’s “I Shot the Sheriff” that went to #1 on the Billboard charts and introduced reggae to a much larger audience.  In fact, it was his only #1 hit.

Today, the world is much more likely to play Bob Marley’s version – as they should! – but I’m not sure they would have if Eric Clapton had not fell in love with reggae.

Going Acoustic

Last year, movie audiences everywhere saw the legendary story of Bob Dylan going electric in the film “A Complete Unknown”.  Twenty years after Dylan plugged in, MTV Unplugged invited artists to unplug the electric instruments that made them famous.

The list of artists who appeared on Unplugged is long and illustrious.  Metal (Alice in Chains) and grunge bands (Nirvana) unplugged.  The show featured crooners (Tony Bennett) and divas (Mariah Carey), hip-hop artists (Lauryn Hill) and legends (Paul McCartney).  Heck, even Page & Plant did a few tunes together.  

But the unchallenged king of this latest music ‘innovation’ was Eric Clapton.  

It may not surprise you to learn that Eric Clapton Unplugged was the top selling MTV Unplugged album.  But perhaps it may surprise you to hear that, with 26 million albums sold, it is the best-selling live rock album of all time? 

Further On Up Some Other Roads

Clapton’s career as a music chameleon has other, albeit shorter, chapters.  

In 1968, Cream played some famous shows at The Fillmore, and some of that Haight-Ashbury influence arguably filtered into Cream’s sound.  

In the mid-80’s, he had a slew of hits like “She’s Waiting”, “Pretending”, and “It’s In the Way That You Use It”, that captures the over-produced power-pop sound of the era.  

And in my favorite “Eric Clapton is the greatest music fan of all time” story…when he first heard the music of The Band (arguably a genre unto themselves) he told Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker he needed to quit Cream, because he was planning to join this other band.  He drove to Woodstock where The Band was hanging and…well, he never quite got the courage to ask if he can join, but he wanted to!**

Slowhand’s Masterpiece

There is a downside to all this idolatry.  

It seems to me that Eric Clapton’s music was, at times, derivative.  He was a highly skilled guitarist, became a competent vocalist, and had enough songwriting chops to create a bunch of hits.

But, alas, some of his music feels like an homage to the people he idolized.  He was worshipping the blues artists and reggae artists and even the 80s hitmakers.  It was good music, but arguably music that was, well, dressed up for a shop window somewhere.

The one great exception to this “Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs”, with his final band, Derek & The Dominos.  That album is an absolute masterpiece.  And I suspect it is because for that moment, driven by his star-crossed love for Pattie Boyd, he wrote, sang, and played from the heart.  

It wasn’t a blues album, it wasn’t a reggae song, it wasn’t trying to be the Grateful Dead or The Band or Phil Collins.  It is a great work of art by a highly skilled musician singing for himself, and maybe God.

* “Clapton is God” is an early rock and roll meme.  A graffiti artist painted it on a wall in London in the early 1960s, and soon it was appearing all over town, and even crossed the ocean to New York.

+ I wrote about how the greatest bands are British (Beatles/Stones/Zep/Who/U2) and the greatest solo artists are American (Elvis/Dylan/Bruce/Billy Joel) here.  Clapton, the Englishman, recorded with 6 bands in the first decade of his career, before committing to a solo career

** Clapton told the story himself when he inducted The Band into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (here)

The Johnny Bingo Awards - 2024

 My Favorite Books of this Reading Year

Once again, it is time for the least-anticipated literary awards of the year…The Johnny Bingo Awards!

These prestigious awards are awarded annually in a variety of categories that change constantly.  There is only one constant, one rule, which I've been using for nearly 20 years:

Eligible books are those I read this year (see below for full list). It could’ve been written by a blind Greek poet in the 8th century BCE or be an unpublished galley hacked from an MFA candidate’s MacBook in a Brooklyn cafe.  As long as I read the last paragraph before the ball drops in Times Square, it can be a winner.

The literarily literate among you understand that “the blind Greek poet in the 8th century BCE” refers to Homer, author of The Iliad and The Odyssey.  This week it was announced that the acclaimed director Christopher Nolan’s next project will be a movie version of The Odyssey, starring Tom Holland and Zendaya.  The social media reaction to this was filled with so much literary ignorance it made me want to strap myself to the mast…

On to this year’s awards!

Best Historian at Capturing BIG Subjects in a Single Volume

Andrew Roberts 

When it was announced that Ridley Scott would be making a film about Napoleon Bonaparte, I was nervously excited.  I knew from Gladiator that historical accuracy wasn’t exactly Scott’s strong suit, but still – the chance to see a master filmmaker put things like Austerlitz and the invasion of Russia on screen…

The film was awful but its release inspired me to brush up on my Napoleon and that’s how I came across Andrew Roberts.  His Napolean: A Life is a masterpiece.  Scott couldn’t skillfully fit 22 action-packed years into 3 hours of celluloid, but Roberts splendidly tells the entire story of Napoleon’s life and era in fewer than a thousand pages.  

It was so good I read his single-volume history of WWII, The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War, and I can say with confidence it is the best single-volume history of this enormous subject I’d ever read.  It might be subtitled “Hitler Could Have Won the War if He Wasn’t Such an Ideological Idiot.”

I intend to work my way through Baron Roberts’ (yes, he is a Baron) entire bibliography over the next few years.  

Best Book by Someone I Hadn’t Read Yet

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

Gabrielle Zevin

It seems much of the book-loving world has read Zevin’s Tommorow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow – but I went back a few years and sampled one of her earlier works.  An absolutely charming book written by, about, and for book lovers.  

Best Old-Fashioned Novel by an Underrated Novelist

The Ocean and the Stars: A Sea Story, A War Story, A Love Story

Mark Helprin

Mark Helprin has had a curious literary career.  Early on, he took the expected steps of the Next Great Writer: acclaimed short story collections, regularly published in The New Yorker, the breathlessly reviewed debut novel (A Winter’s Tale), and the breakthrough novel (A Soldier of a Great War).

Then he seemed to fade from cultural view.  Partly it’s because he had politics well out of step with the literary gatekeepers – he is a passionate supporter of Israel’s right to existence (even served in the IDF) and was revealed to be a speechwriter for Bob Dole.  But it’s also because the next few novels didn’t live up to the promise of his earlier works. Often it seemed like a powerful literary gift was being wielded in the service of unworthy plots.

The Ocean and The Stars was, for me, a return to form.  It is  an old-fashioned novel about honor and courage and love, and a welcome respite from the cynical solipsism of the modern literary novel.

Best History Book About a Subject of Which I was Shockingly Ignorant

Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia

Michael Korda

Current historical events often influence my history reading.  For example, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 inspired me to finally pluck that unread biography of Peter the Great from the shelf (and it won a Johnny Bingo that year!).

The Israel-Hamas war had me brushing up on the origins of the Middle East’s manufactured map, and made my realize how little I knew of T.E. Lawrence, aka Lawrence of Arabia.

I don’t know if Korda’s 2011 work is the best biography, but it is thorough, well-written, and has the advantage of being written late enough to capture some recent history.  (and, unlike earlier biographies, late enough to be frank about Lawrence's, oh what's the right word, unusual sex life).

There is so much to Lawrence's life.  He was a critical figure - for better and worse - in the making of the modern Middle East.  And you'll learn much about the unique situation the passing of the Ottoman Empire created, and how it led to the creation of problems that plague the world today.

But it is also one of the great adventure stories of all time, and perhaps a story about the first truly global celebrity.  At the heart of it is the endlessly fascinating figure of T.E. Lawrence.  If I ever get to host one of those ‘if you could invite anyone’ dinner parties, I’d be hard-pressed to not offer a seat to Lawrence of Arabia.

Best Book by the Best Writer

The Passenger

Cormac McCarthy

As I age, and my heroes pass, this blog runs the risk of turning into an Obituaries pages.  Two of my last three posts have been tributes to Pete Rose and Dickey Betts.  And yet, I never quite got around to writing an homage to my favorite writer, Cormac McCarthy, who passed in June of 2023.

In some ways, his career arc was the opposite of Helprin’s.  His first 5 novels were praised in obscure literary journals, but found no readers.  His fifth novel, the much-acclaimed Blood Meridian, had a small press run of 5000 copies.  

But then he went on a run.  His Border trilogy found a much larger audience, and the first book (All the Pretty Horses) was turned into a Matt Damon movie.  In 2005, No Country for Old Men became an Oscar-winning Coen Brothers movie, and 2006 The Road was picked for Oprah’s book club and won The Pulitzer.  This notoriously difficult writer had, against all literary odds, become a mainstream success story.

And that was it.  Or so it seemed.  For the next decade and a half Cormac fans waited.  And then, in late 2022, McCarthy published not one, but two linked novels, The Passenger and Stella Maris.  Six months later he was dead.

One night, not long after McCarthy's death, I sat on my deck with a bottle of Basil Hayden, a Montecristo cigar, and Van Morrison’s Veedon Fleece album - and contemplated the career of Cormac McCarthy.  As the bottle emptied and the ashtray filled, my thoughts got more profound, and I was struck with an epiphany about the role of the artist, and how The Passenger and Veedon Fleece were sister works of art that encapsulated both of the careers of these Great Artists, and perhaps even explained Art.   I jotted a bunch of notes down in my phone, stream-of-consciousness style,  bursting with intellectual energy.

Apparently I didn’t save it.  Oh well.  

Hopefully my kids will remember that I have a first edition of Blood Meridian, and while I hope they pass it down through the generations, if they ever get in a tight financial bind, it might be worth something some day.

 Honorable Mention

Here’s the full list of books I read this year, along with some quick comments on other favorites…

Napoleon: A Life, Andrew Roberts

The Passenger, Cormac McCarthy

Two Nights in Lisbon, Chris Pavone

The 39 Steps, John Buchan

Running Blind (Jack Reacher #4), Lee Child

The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle,Stuart Turton

Without Fail (Jack Reacher #6), Lee Child

Stella Maris, Cormac McCarthy

Dave Barry Turns 50, Dave Barry

The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, & Happiness, Morgan Housel

Sometimes I give out an award titled "The Book Most Likely to Make My Wife Kick My Shin Under the Table", because I go on and on about lessons learned.  This is one of those books.

The Power of the Dog: Power of the Dog Book 1, Don Winslow

The only reason I didn't honor Winslow again this year is that I gave his book The Force an award last year, and wrote about him with some length.  But this is even better than The Force.

The Man Who Was Thursday, G.K. Chesterton

Red Sparrow: Book 1 of Red Sparrow Trilogy, Jason Matthews

The Summer Game, Roger Angell

The Return of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Adventures in the Screen Trade: A Personal View of Hollywood and Screenwriting, William Goldman

A great read about screenwriting and moviemaking - or at least, screenwriting and moviemaking in the 70s and 80s.  Particularly recommended if you loved Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War, Malcolm Gladwell

The 6:20 Man (6:20 Man #1), David Baldacci

The Innocence of Father Brown, G.K. Chesterton

The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War, Andrew Roberts

Dress Her in Indigo: (Travis McGee #12), John D. MacDonald

The It Girl, Ruth Ware

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, Gabrielle Zevin

Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophies of Agnes Nutter, Witch, Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman

Daisy Jones & The Six, Taylor Jenkins Reid

A fictional oral history of a Fleetwood Mac-like band.  Excellent book, I should have given it a JB!

Swordpoint: The WWII Collection, Max Hennessey

Samuel Adams: The Revolutionary, Stacy Schiff

Adams is on the short list of Underrated Americans, and Schiff is on the short list of underrated historians.  For more on Schiff, see my previous post about the Benjamin Franklin series on Apple TV.

A Discovery of Witches (All Souls #1), Deborah Harkness

I'm two books into this series and I haven't experienced this kind of thrill around vampires since Anne Rice's heyday.

The Edge (6:20 Man #2), David Baldacci

The Thin Man, Dashiell Hammett

Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging, Sebastian Junger

The Maltese Falcon, Dashiell Hammett

The Resurrection Walk (Lincoln Lawyer #7), Michael Connelly

The Ocean and the Stars: A Sea Story, A War Story, A Love Story, Mark Helprin

Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth, Noa Tishby

The Inside Game: Bad Calls, Strange Moves, and What Baseball Behavior Teaches Us About Ourselves, Keith Law

Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia, Michael Korda

Flashman (The Flashman Papers 1), George MacDonald Fraser

A Wizard of Earthsea (The Earthsea Cycle #1), Ursula K. Le Guin

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, Stephen King

Case Histories: Jackson Brodie 1, Kate Atkinson

In Sunlight and in Shadow, Mark Helprin

Think Twice: Myron Bolintar #12, Harlan Coben

The Lion's Game: John Corey #2 , Nelson DeMille

Not DeMille's best - it should be a few hundred pages shorter and perhaps have a more wrapped up ending.  But DeMille passed this year, and he gave me many hours of reading pleasure.  The outpouring of support on social media from the giants of thriller writers suggest he was also a beloved and generous man.  Long Island really produces some winners.

Shadow of Night (All Souls #2), Debora Harkness

The Collector (Gabriel Allon #23), Daniel Silva