New at GMR

I have two reviews up this week at GMR this week. The first is for a book about one man’s journey through beer culture in America, titled, appropriately enough, Travels with Barley: A Journey Through Beer Culture in America. (I referenced this one last week when I wrote about beer.) I enjoy off-kilter travel books, wherein writers undertake journeys for unusual reasons, and this one’s quite a bit of fun.

Also up is my review of Beyond the Sunset: The Romantic Collection, a compilation CD by the band Blackmore’s Night. I’m not sure what category Blackmore’s Night would fall into — they’re not quite Celtic, and they’re not really rock, and I’m not sure I’d call them “folk”, although that might be the best word for it. They seem, so far as I can tell, to exist in some interstitial realm of their own, producing romantic music without a trace of irony. Sometimes it’s nice to leave the ironic stance of contemporary America behind. (You can probably tell that I loved this CD, but go read the review for confirmation of your suspicions.)