Max Décharné

I'm still not 100% sure of the delineation point between rockabilly and rock 'n' roll after reading Rocket in my Pocket but it probably doesn't matter too much.

The author gives us the history of rockabilly, from the time Elvis and Carl started to make music to the twenty first century, and while there are some big names noted, from the aforementioned Carl and Elvis, to the Killer himself, Jerry Lee Lewis, Wanda Jackson, Johnny Cash and Billy Lee Riley, there were many so obscure that their neighbours probably weren't aware they had been musicians.

In the final pages, Decherne poignantly notes that so few of the 1950s rockabilly stars were still going, and which was magnified for me as the news of the Killer's passing occurred during my read. At least Wanda Jackson still lives.

And finally, any book that mentions Alberto Zoppe's Midgets is a must-read as far as I'm concerned.… (plus d'informations)

Slang is everywhere, but may be on its last legs, this book says. That's but a side argument in a look at the development of slang in the English language.

This seemed like a fun topic, and I was looking forward to learning more history about slang, but the book ultimately wasn't what I was hoping for.

For one thing, I was disappointed that almost half the book was about sex, body parts or intoxicants. I guess that's where a lot of slang comes from, but it felt like those sections went on a bit too long.

The other disappointment is that this was really written from a British point of view, so some of the words and references were, in a word, foreign to Americans. Luckily, I'm an Anglophile so I did get some of the references, but if you aren't familiar with, say, Cockney rhyming slang, you'll be lost. Some American slang is folded in, but not as much as compared with the rest of the book.

The one thing that stuck with me was a conclusion made at the end of the book, on the offensiveness of the best slang. Yes, slang does offend, that's a given. But in our touchy times, that may be the unpardonable sin:

"Ultimately, slang will have no place in this world, because the best of it is almost guaranteed to offend someone, somewhere."

Let's hope that conclusion is wrong, because slang is and should remain part of language, offensive or not.

I received this book through a Goodreads giveaway.

For more of my reviews, go to Ralphsbooks.… (plus d'informations)

I have read at least a dozen books on the history of crime and punishment in London. Some were seriously academic, some were wildy populist. It seems that the memory of Jack the Ripper and Tyburn exerts a lasting fascination for writers and readers alike. In such a crowded genre, it would be easy to end up repeating what has been covered so many times before. However, Decharne has done a great job of searching out obscure stories, some of which are likely never to have been published before. He avoids the temptation to include the obvious, there is no mention of the Ripper, or Crippen, or Christie or any of those staples. Beginning in the 14th century and continuing up until the 1950s, he presents a variety of cases, all of which have only one thing in common, they were capital crimes and someone ended up taking the short final walk to the stake, the block or the gallows at Smithfield, Tower Hill, Tyburn or Newgate. There are revolutionaries, heretics, highwaymen, cold-blooded killers and those who were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. He captures the flavour of the times by making heavy use of contemporary broadsheet and newspaper accounts, and also is at pains to locate the scenes of the crimes in the context of London's modern geography. This is an excellent read, well thought-out, extremely well-researched and exceptionally well-written. For those true crime buffs who might be jaded by reading the same old stories over and over again, or anyone just interested in yet another thread in London's enormous history, I thoroughly recommend this book… (plus d'informations)