Sunday Open Thread (and Book review)

A weekend of uninterrupted domesticity (read:  youth activities, cleaning and shopping) left me with neither time nor energy to blog.  I’m still rocking and rolling with family stuff, but anticipate that I’ll be back at my computer tonight.

I did read something very enjoyable this past week, though, that I’ll share with the Irving Berlin fans among you:  Philip Furia’s Irving Berlin: A Life in Song. Although Furia is an academic, this was an extremely readable book, that used Irving Berlin’s life as a backdrop to a study of his music. Other books, most notably Laurence Bergreen’s excellent As Thousands Cheer: The Life Of Irving Berlin, focus on Berlin’s life, and note which songs he wrote at a given time.  Furia, however, really examines the music itself:  it’s structure, and the extraordinary way in which Berlin melded the music and the poetry, both of which he wrote entirely by himself.  Despite having a busy week, I gobbled up the book in a few days, and highly recommend it.  (I recommend Bergreen’s book, too, if you’re a Berlin fan.)