Fiction, Essays, and Other Things

 As customary as it may be to speak of the early deaths of artists as untimely, the case of Sam Cooke is indeed the story of a career cut short at the height of its powers. Cooke had already built a prolific career in R&B and pop by the time he was shot dead under mysterious circumstances in Los Angeles in 1964. But his posthumous release, the hauntingly beautiful “A Change is Gonna Come” hinted at the direction his musical career was headed as the Civil Rights Movement picked up steam.  Music had been in Cooke’s blood almost from an early age. Born to a Baptist minister in the Delta town of Clarksdale, Mississippi in 1931, the young Cooke was singing in the choir of his father’s church since he was six.  Before Cooke was twenty he joined the gospel group The Soul Stirrers. It was with the Soul Stirrers that Cooke’s remarkable vocal talent became recognized in such recordings as “Jesus Gave Me Water” and “End of My Journey”. Church music never fully left Cooke’s soul ...

If you think book antiquarians have no use for the digital world, consider my anecdote this morning. Among the most valuable books in my library is a first edition of Winston Churchill’s autobiographical My Early Life: A Roving Commission , published in 1930 by Butterworth, London Ltd. I bought it from an antiquarian over a decade ago when I was compiling Churchill’s written works. I inspect old books, especially scarce ones, extensively. Oversights do happen, however, both on my end and on the sellers’. Usually, these blights that slip by are discovered upon reading the volume. This morning, however, I had quite a shock. I happened to pull out My Early Life in preparation as it is one of the upcoming volumes on my to-read list. To explain my alarm, which evolved into panic and then dismay, it is necessary to describe the book. Inserted sporadically throughout the pages of the text are several matte sheets containing illustrations, mostly of Churchill in his younger years. These illus...