Thursday, January 30, 2014

Greg Kihn's Rubber Soul


Last summer I had the delightful opportunity of meeting 1980's rocker, Greg Kihn at Chicago's Fest for Beatles Fans. He performed & chatted about his new book Rubber Soul, which is a fan-fiction Beatles thriller.
Greg agreed to be on my radio show in September & he was full of great stories about writing his latest book. I was instantly hooked when he said he was inspired to write Rubber Soul after wondering where the young Beatles got their records. He was fortunate to have conversations with Ringo, Paul, Pete Best, Yoko & Olivia and he blended all of that material into a refreshing story. 
Enjoy this book review by Jennifer Vanderslice at Beatles-Freak Reviews and THEN listen to Greg on my radio show (September 5, 2013,) where he announced a SEQUEL to Rubber Soul and his Liverpool accent-laced audio book performance. You can also read more of my comments about the book on my blog link below.

Book Review via Beatles-Freak Reviews:
Well boys and girls, it’s time once again for a couple disclaimers before I break into my review of this book:
1. This was the first full length book that I read entirely on a Kindle. I like real books with paper pages and page numbers, so this alone was a challenge when all the Kindle would tell me was a percentage of what I had already read. Is this going to be a factor in my review? I dunno!
2. I’ve said it before…I don’t like fan fiction. BUT…I had to catch myself because I realized that I do read fan fiction about Edgar Alan Poe. In fact, I’m kinda obsessed with it! So let me correct myself, I don’t like Beatles fan fiction. I like my Fab Four the way I like my soap and men…99 44/100% pure!
On to the review:
Rubber Soul is the latest in a series of novels by Greg Kihn. Yeah…THAT Greg Kihn…the man behind ‘The Breakup Song’ and ‘Jeopardy’. Apparently, he’s been keeping himself busy these past several years with a radio show and authoring books. Who’d a thunk it? This latest installment is a murder mystery featuring …you guessed it…The Beatles!
I must say that I love Greg’s writing style! What an easy and peaceful read this book was even as I struggled to get used to reading it on my Kindle (or KIHNdle). No flashbacks and not overloaded with too many characters. But I will admit, I almost didn’t make it past the 2nd or 3rd chapter when the main character becomes, what I consider, a little too involved with The Beatles. I understand that Mr. Kihn stayed true to the Beatles story during their early years, but there was a moment where I felt he crossed the line a bit with mixing his fiction with his fact.
*Note: I have it from a good source that Greg Kihn had never heard of ‘fan fiction’ up until 2 months ago even though he’s been writing it for years. Go figure…
I finally picked the book back up after a couple days of questioning why I had decided to read another Beatles fan fiction book (because he’s Greg ‘fu-kihn’ KIHN…that’s why!), I marched on through the digital pages and can say that it became a much better read with the Beatles taking a back seat to the main character up until the end when the plot thickens and draws our boys back into the story. At this point, I could no longer put the book down until finding out ‘Who done it?’
I must say, Greg did his homework on the Beatles for this book. I do believe there is one obvious error when he writes that Stu and Astrid were married…they never got that far before Stu passed away.


Posted by http://beatles-freak.com/

 
 
LISTEN TO GREG HERE:
Listen to Greg Kihn on my radio show! I was literally recovering from a crazy concussion & there were multiple radio technical difficulties...so I truly do not know how I made it through this. But Greg is brilliant in telling stories about his book & he also plants a bombshell --- a sequel to Rubber Soul! He told me that he loved talking about his book on the show & I was honored for the opportunity. Shout outs to authors Katy Brandes & Jude Southerland Kessler for calling in, too!

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/recipe-records-cookbook/2013/09/05/greg-kihn-rocks-part-ii



And check out my previous blog about Greg:

http://rockblocks3.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-hits-kihn-tinue.html

Buy Now!  Get your copy of Rubber Soul & read more about Greg here:

http://gregkihn.com/blog/rubber-soul-by-greg-kihn/



Happy Rock-kihn,

Lanea Stagg
Recipe Records Cookbooks
www.reciperecordscookbook.com
blog: www.rockblocks3.blogspot.com
radio:  www.blogtalkradio.com  search: recipe records
Facebook:  friend me at RecipeRecords Cookbook
Twitter:  @Recipe Records
 

2 comments:

Katy B said...

I'm glad to get a reminder of how much I want to read Greg's book. He seemed like such a cool guy on your radio show and was very entertaining! I can only imagine it was great to meet him in person.

So many books, so little time.

Lanea Stagg said...

You got that right Katy! So glad you were on the show!!!