Book review

Starting at Zero: His Own Story by Jimi Hendrix

I read this book.  It was interesting.  It was about Jimi Hendrix and actually written by Jimi Hendrix . . .  sort of.  It is a chronological compilation of writings, including letters sent home, song lyrics, journal entries, etc.  Hendrix had a pretty sketchy life growing up in Seattle.  His mom died, he dropped out of high school, joined the army, and somewhere along the line learned to play the guitar.  He was pretty well a vagabond for most of his life.  He never had any money and just went from odd music job to odd music job, including playing back up in the Little Richard band.

He eventually moved to England and lived there for a time.  He honed his skills, formed "The Experience," and basically turned himself into a legend.

The writings are pretty introspective about his style of music and why he did what he did.  He doesn't talk much about drug use, which I thought either means he didn't think that it was important to read about or perhaps all we know about him is wrong and he didn't really use much.  The other interesting thing worth noting was his desire to eventually record an album with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.  The statement comprised one whole sentence in the book, but certainly stood out as a strange fact.  He died shortly after that was written and it obviously never happened.

Paper Towns by John Green

I decided to crack open another book in the John Green collection.  I liked it.

This is a story of a boy Q, who has a major crush on his next door neighbor and former childhood friend, Margo.  Q is pretty boring and stable.  Margo is pretty, popular, but a little irrational.  The story takes off when Margo kidnaps Q for a crazy night of pranks on her snobby friends and ex-boyfriend.  She ends up disappearing a leaving Q a weird trail of clues.  The highlight of the book was a crazy road trip with Q and his friends involving peeing in bottles and confederate t-shirts.  I can't really say much more than that without giving it away, but I liked it.

There is also a movie of it being made.  I'm not sure when it come out.