in which the author discusses five books he'd read, if time permitted.

1. Death Comes to Pemberley, by P.D. James.
This isn't a Jane Austen novel, or a Jane Austen-plus-zombies novel, but a murder-mystery sequel to a Jane Austen novel. In other words, it's fan fiction. When is "Stone Cold" Steve Austen gonna write a WWF-meets-Pride and [...]

The new Foo Fighters album is all right. There’s muscular, churning riffs; two-to-three pantheon jams destined to be nestled forever alongside “Monkey Wrench” and “All My Life” in setlists; a searing guitar solo on “Rope”; and anthems about nothing.
That part is intentional: “My songwriting is like extending a hand to the listener,” Dave Grohl told The [...]

Growing Up Foo: WaPo's Chris Richards profiles Dave Grohl on the occasion of a new Foo Fighters album and documentary. You'll have to see the doc to learn about the Foos' "falling-outs, betrayals, drug overdoses, quittings, firings — the works," but the WaPo piece has lots of goodies from Grohl's early years in Northern Virginia. [...]

I cheated on Washington City Paper this week. Last night Sir Paul McCartney performed in the East Room of the White House and collected the Library of Congress' Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, and I filed this report for Rolling Stone.
Based on the lineup—McCartney performed, as did Stevie Wonder, the Jonas Brothers, Emmylou Harris, Jack [...]

Good morning, kids. It’s Wednesday, and the day looks kind of gorgeous on the other side of my curtains.
What a wonderful day to skip work, run to the nearest pool with headphones, a book you actually want to read, and live away. You never know. You might run into Dave Grohl, Sir Paul McCartney or [...]

By all rights, Dave Grohl should have faded from public view once Nirvana ended in a final, irreversible decision by Kurt Cobain 15 years ago.
At most, he should have either squeezed out a brief, increasingly irrelevant solo career or found another group where he could pound away in the background while someone else claimed the [...]