Tag / Michelle McNamara

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Top 200 Albums: #188 – 196

itunes_imageWe last counted down the Top 200 albums in my iTunes library four years ago. Since that time, the world has literally changed, and my commute has decreased from 1+ hours each way to 25 steps. So, despite the decrease in potential listening time, I figured it was time to take another look, based on number of plays from late 2007 through the morning of January 1, 2022.

We kick things off with the first batch of ten albums that I have listened to the most over the last 15 years, including six released in the 1990s, one comedy albums, and two greatest hits collections.

#196: Ice Cube – The Predator
iTunes stats: 66 plays
Previous Ranking: NR

Ice Cube makes his chart debut thanks to two tracks from his third studio album, released in 1992, which added 37 new listens.

#196: The Presidents of the United States of America – The Presidents of the United States of America
iTunes stats: 66 plays
Previous Ranking: 192

The band’s debut album, released in 1995, drops 4 spots despite a nearly 61% increase in listens over the past 4 years.

#196: Patton Oswalt – Annihilation
iTunes stats: 66 plays
Previous Ranking: NR

The comic’s 2017 special, dealing with the tragic death of his wife, Michelle McNamara, debuts with a strong showing, thanks to the 20 tracks from the album.

#196: Tegan and Sara – If It Was You
iTunes stats: 66 plays
Previous Ranking: 171

The album that introduced me to Tegan and Sara, thanks to radio play for I Hear Noises, drops 25 spots thanks to a small 40% increase in its number of plays in the past four years.

#196: Beastie Boys – Licensed to Ill
iTunes stats: 66 plays
Previous Ranking: NR

The group’s 1986 debut album makes its first appearance on the charts after nearly doubling its listens to four of the album’s thirteen tracks.

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2018: The Year In Books

Another year has come to an end and it is time to take a look back at the 22 books I read over the past year, 6 less than last year.  Of those 22, 7 were non-fiction and, of the 15 novels, only 1 was a TV show tie-in.  Only one of the books came out of my dwindling “to-read” drawer, and 12 were e-books.  I read over 7,000 pages, my lowest total since at least 2013.

Once again, a majority of the books I read this year were by authors I’ve never read before. The 15 authors that I read for the first this year were:
Mamrie Hart
Dan Harris
Ginger Zee
Krysten Ritter
Karin Slaughter
Michelle West
Paul Ruditis
Michelle McNamara
David Ross
Don Yaeger
Araminta Hall
Amber Tamblyn
Laura Lippman
Lauren Graham
Drew Magary

There was not a single author that I read multiple titles from during 2018.

6 of the books I read were released this year, while 1 of them was released last century, exactly 60 years ago

Finally, the breakdown by month.  My vacation in September certainly helped pad its totals a tad bit.

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Book 12 (of 52) – I’ll Be Gone In The Dark

I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search For The Golden State Killer – Michelle McNamara

Writer Michelle McNamara became interested in a serial killer she would dub the Golden State Killer, writing an article for Los Angeles magazine in 2013.  She was working on turning that article into a full fledged book when she died unexpectedly in 2016.  McNamara’s widower, comedian Patton Oswalt, hired crime writer Paul Haynes and investigative journalist Billy Jensen to help finish the book, and I’ll Be Gone In The Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search For The Golden State Killer was finally released earlier this year.  In the book, McNamara lays out her case that numerous unsolved cases throughout California, attributed to the Original Night Stalker, the East Area Rapist, and the Diamond Knot Killer, were all the work of the same person.

In an interesting twist, Oswalt, Haynes, and Jensen did an appearance through Anderson’s Bookshop on April 23, which I attended to get an autographed copy of the book.  At the end of the talk, Oswalt seemed confident that the identity of the Golden State Killer would be uncovered one day.  Little did he know that the next day, Sacramento police would announce that they had made an arrest and that 72-year-old Joseph James DeAngelo, a former police officer, had been identified as the Golden State Killer.