The Audiophile's Book Nook

 Simone Biles is easily the most decorated gymnast on both the World and Olympic level. And NBC made sure that the average viewer wouldn't forget it. NBC's talking points on Simone Biles ranged from assuredness to cockiness to downright ludicrous: There's really only three spots on the team left; With Simone on the team, a gold medal is almost guaranteed; Simone could walk away with the most golds ever earned by any female athlete. Even running commercials with Simone standing next to a goat, emphasizing the claim that NBC would too often repeat: Simone was the greatest of all time and anything less than perfect was just not good enough for Simone. So when Biles announced she was pulling out of the team competition after losing herself in the air on her vault, it was both shocking and not so shocking at all. The pressure for Simone to be perfect night in and night out, heaped on by a network whose only duty is to show the event, had finally caught up and left a young woman ...

 The Beatles are one of my favorite bands and I've listened to all of their albums a few times. I've taken to listening to The Beatles discography when I take a walk. So I thought I would give my own ranking of the thirteen main Beatles albums (so not including their singles collection). This may be controversial, we all have our favorite Beatles album. But these are subjective and fun. So here we go! 13. Yellow Submarine (1969) This felt a little too easy. This album came out in conjunction with the Beatles movie of the same name and only featured four new Beatles songs. The second half is completely taken up by George Martin's score for the movie. It's not bad necessarily but it's not a Beatles album. Not to mention, all of the new songs on this album were pretty forgettable. I've probably listened to this album all of two times and don't usually go back to it. Not much else to say. 12. Beatles for Sale (1964) Putting The Beatles early albums so low on thi...

  I've just recently finished Sense and Sensibility  for the first time for my Jane Austen seminar (which was a great decision by the way.) It's the third Jane Austen novel that I've read and I feel like I finally have a great sense of who Jane Austen is as a writer and a storyteller. So I thought I'd write my little review on Sense and Sensibility. Jane Austen is known for her books about high society of England in the early 19th century. This book is no different. While the main characters of Elinor and Marianne are not rich by any stretch, they are consistently in the company of friends and family who own great estates and participate in the society of London. The action of the book mostly revolves around Elinor and Marianne going from one house to another to speak of goings-on among their acquaintances. It doesn't sound interesting at the surface but Austen has an amazing ability to make society feel interesting and breathe life into ordinary conversations. The ...

  This is one of the many pages from the original manuscript of "The Canterbury Tales" As most of you know, I'm an English major. Because of this, I often read a lot of books a semester; anywhere between 5 and 15 is normal for an average student. This semester, I have a few less than normal, as one of my classes focuses entirely on only one book. Because of this, I've found I'm appreciating the books I'm reading a bit more than usual. So I decided I'd write reviews on the books I'm reading this semester mostly for my own enjoyment. Since I'll be reading The Canterbury Tales  throughout the entire semester, I thought I'd review it in parts. This will be about the first two parts of the book. The Canterbury Tales  was written at the end of the 14th century (between 1387 and 1400) by Geoffrey Chaucer. During his life, Chaucer was a part of high society and worked for King Richard II in the court. He was fluent in four languages but chose to write ...

                         Summer is coming to a close and sports have started up again. The thought of college basketball is keeping me going through these times and with scientists working hard on a vaccine, I'm feeling cautiously optimistic about having a season this year. With that said, the NBA draft deadline has finally come and gone, leaving us with firm rosters for next year's teams. I have a vested interest in Rutgers basketball and so I will be previewing their conference. With a lot of surprises from NBA draft decisions, as well as some changes since my last preview, I thought it would be fun to give a solidified preview. So here goes! Note: All stats from last season are from Kenpom, all recruiting rankings are from 247Sports. 1. Wisconsin (Previous Rank: 1) Positives: The Big Ten Champs bring all but one player back to Madison next year. With Micah Potter playing a full season, this team could start clicking imm...

                                   Oftentimes, the best way to compare two ice dance couples is by watching compulsory dances. Compulsory dances required couples to dance to the same steps in the same rhythm as all other couples competing. Because of that, the proficiency of skaters from across different eras can be pretty easily compared when watching a compulsory dance. The great news is that Torvill & Dean and Virtue & Moir both competed compulsories for four years and so there is a plethora of videos of them both doing compulsories. The only downside is that Virtue & Moir were quite young in most of them and so their full capabilities are not as accurately represented as Torvill & Dean's. Even still, the ability to compare apples to apples in any way is really appreciated when talking about two of the best couples to grace the ice. I'll be putting the videos to each m...