Just Don't Call it Bubblegum

First generation immigrants from India fall in love with Catholics and Americans in Sujatha Hampton's debut novel As it was Written. It's a book of a curse about dying for love, and trying to survive it. Hampton possesses a gift of touching your core with the line, "He leapt up and stood in front of her and when he pointed the camera she was looking at him with so much love he had to lower it to check if it was real, but when he raised it back to his eye, it was still there." It was a bit tough for me to follow the lengthy Indian names, but I managed to muddle through the cultural divisions and have my heart broken, a little, at its end.



While I'm not a huge fan of Tommy James' music, you cannot dispute his popularity. He's written a book about his rise in the music business and his connections with organized crime. The character Hesh Rabkin on the Sopranos is based on Morris Levy, who signed James on to his record label, Roulette Records. Me, the Mob, and the Music, is a fast paced and entertaining look at the music industry by someone who started out as a wide eyed eighteen year old from Michigan who became a rock star, and saw things that few have seen.