Author: Randy Rydberg

A fairly mellow fellow who likes to read history books.

100921 • Thrift Store Finds

Only went to one thrift this week, Colfax ARC. I had to put back a few that were not sale tag items, but at least their regular price is down a buck from $3. Considering how these are treated and displayed, and the way customers treat them, $3 is way too much. Unbelievable how much is stolen from that location; sometimes they even have security there to keep watch!

• The Leonard Bernstein Brahms is a five-disc set re-issue, in a nice box case. There was actually a Lang Lang disc in there as well (so, I accidentally stole it?).

• Christian Zacharias is someone I haven’t heard of before, but it’s nice to find an artist-specific disk like this.

• An older Bernstein recording. No problem choosing that!

• Tchaikovsky. So much of his work is undiscoverd by me, and I always like it. I need more symphonies to listen to!

• Abbado playing Mozart has me comparing to Hélène Grimaud’s recording, but it is nice to have a different rendition of it.

• Schonberg. Something new.

100221 • Thrift Store Finds

The Ernie Pyle book below was made in 1944… and it is like brand new. White pages, no issues whatsoever! Almost as unbelievable is that I don’t have it already!

America 1908 is interesting as it shows what the USA was like right before the war, which is important to know.

Images Of War • Artwork from the war. There is a lot of this in books, but I have few books about it.

Warrior is one of those books I see every once in a while, and wanted when it was new. Finally found one at a cheap price! A nice romp of photos and text, not heavy reading but very interesting, visually.

300 • Finally, I get to experience the book that one of my favorite movies was based on. I read Frank Miller’s take on Batman back in high school, so I’m familiar with the visual style. What I didn’t understand about the movie for years, is that it is from the point of view of the narrator, telling the story. It isn’t actually supposed to be historically accurate.

Not much to say here, although the Songs Of WWI is a nice two-disc volume that has the original recordings… I read about these songs all the time so it will be a nice reference.

Voices of Time is a nice disc, and the Living Stereo of Van Cliburn is of course something I won’t turn down, especially with the Prokofiev 3.

092521 • Thrift Store Finds

History of Western Europe • This is a great find, being in good shape and printed in 1903. Always interesting to read out-of-date history!

Thunderbolt • Memoirs are never a bad buy (unless it is someone who is unscrupulous, such as this book by a mobster I read a long time ago… by the second chapter it was obvious he was just making everything up. It was crazy.)

Why The Germans Lose At War • Interesting analysis of the skilled people in the German military/political scene, and the wildly unskilled people in the German military/political scene.

Mathew B. Brady’s Civil War • Amazing how old these photographs are, and we are very lucky to have them. Sure would be interesting if photography had developed earlier and we could have seen the War of 1812 or Revolutionary War. This is a great book though.

Three Movies

Nobody • From the writer of John Wick. Has to be good then, right? It was! Bob Odenkirk does a great job, the action scenes are great, and it’s a nice start to a good movie franchise! I did read that this is set in the John Wick universe, and they’ll have hints to that in the next movie.

Unhinged • Look at how similar the movie poster is to Nobody! Doesn’t matter, this is still a good movie. There are a few moments in this that really caught me off guard. The first ten minutes or so is very slow, but once it gets going, the movie runs at full speed for the rest of the film. Russell Crowe does great as a road rage instigator… one should watch this movie simply to add to the reasons never to honk one’s horn!

To Hell and Gone • This was one of those low-budget movies that I picked just for the fun of it. I have a lot of these that I never get to because so many turn out to be a waste of time. But this one wasn’t. Even with a low budget, it looks great and kept my interest. I’m always thinking “what would I do, could I do that?” when watching movies like this.