- Paperback: 240 pages
- Publisher: Portrait (8 Mar 2007)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0749951427
- ISBN-13: 978-0749951429
- Product Dimensions: 13.6 x 21.2 x 2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 362,396 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Review
Remarkable...it is a book to have you manfully fighting the tears back, but you ll leave feeling uplifted. --xxx
[An] astonishingly heartfelt yet frequently funny memoir… A wonderful book to read and read again. --xxx
When you stick a song on a tape, you set it free,' writes Rob Sheffield. There is something being set free, too, in this spare, touching memoir about death, love and music. Love Is A Mix Tape is not just a brilliant book about how songs can help us through our darkest times, it is also a book that has, with relatively little hindsight to work with, done a brilliant job of nailing down the character of the indie-rock Nineties. It will tell you more about what it was like to live through Generation X than a dozen Nirvana biographies (or, quite possibly, Generation X itself). --Tom Cox
[An] astonishingly heartfelt yet frequently funny memoir… A wonderful book to read and read again. --xxx
When you stick a song on a tape, you set it free,' writes Rob Sheffield. There is something being set free, too, in this spare, touching memoir about death, love and music. Love Is A Mix Tape is not just a brilliant book about how songs can help us through our darkest times, it is also a book that has, with relatively little hindsight to work with, done a brilliant job of nailing down the character of the indie-rock Nineties. It will tell you more about what it was like to live through Generation X than a dozen Nirvana biographies (or, quite possibly, Generation X itself). --Tom Cox
Product Description
In this stunning memoir, Rob Sheffield, a veteran rock and pop culture critic and staff writer for Rolling Stone magazine, tells the story of how rock music, the first love of his life, led him to his second, a girl named Renee. Rob and Renee's life together - they wed after graduate school, both became music journalists, and they were married only five years when Renee died suddenly on Mother's Day, 1997 - is shared through the window of the mix tapes they obsessively compiled. There are mixes to court each other, mixes for road trips, mixes for doing the dishes, mixes for sleeping - and, eventually, mixes to mourn Rob's greatest loss. The tunes were among the great musical output of the early 1990s - Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Pavement, Yo La Tengo, REM, Weezer - as well as classics by The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Aretha Franklin and more. Mixing the skilful, tragic punch of Dave Eggers and the romantic honesty of Nick Hornby, Love Is a Mix Tape is a story of lost love and the kick-you-in-the-gut energy of great pop music. It's a deeply moving love story, and a testament to music's unique ability to guide us through the most important moments of our lives.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
The playback: late night, Brooklyn, a pot of coffee, and a chair by the window. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
The playback: late night, Brooklyn, a pot of coffee, and a chair by the window. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Paperback
The idea of combining writing on the most personal of musical forms and gifts, the mix tape, deserves a 'personal' piece of work, by which I mean one that has that subject at it's heart and core. Rob Sheffield, clearly a talented writer and journo, has done an admirable job, and there's no doubting his sincerity and knowledege of music. I do feel however this would make for a rather better feature length magazine article than a book. This book is as much about love and loss as it is music - I agree with the reviewer who claims that occasionally the music gets a little lost, and the mix tape track listings at the start of each chapter are sometimes only touched on in the text itself, which essentially tells the story of the author's loves. I think my problem was assuming this book would be mainly about the music, which it actually doesn't even pretend to be, and what it does it does very well is recount his life with his wife with music happening to be an integral part of that, and there are some lovely moments in with the sad and humorous accounts of Rob and Renee. It's hard as mix tapes are such personal things- that is the very point of them, how one compiler who can be any normal person, not just someone in the business, and that everyone can relate to songs and different songs are special to different people for different reasons.
The perfect book on mix tapes has yet to be written, but to be honest I don't think it is a subject you can dedicate a whole book too, unless it was written with each chapter by a different person. This book, though lovingly written, confirms what most people who pick it up will know, that music has a great healing power and is a force that brings people together, and if you don't mind memoirs on people you know little about, then this book is one of the best. For those looking for a book purely about music, maybe try before you buy.
The perfect book on mix tapes has yet to be written, but to be honest I don't think it is a subject you can dedicate a whole book too, unless it was written with each chapter by a different person. This book, though lovingly written, confirms what most people who pick it up will know, that music has a great healing power and is a force that brings people together, and if you don't mind memoirs on people you know little about, then this book is one of the best. For those looking for a book purely about music, maybe try before you buy.
Format:Paperback
I don't generally care for memoirs, but several things drew me to this one and convinced me to try it out. I'm almost the same age as the author, and like him I grew up with indie music, made a gazillion mix tapes, and even lived in Charlottesville, Virginia for a few years, patronizing many of the establishments, and driving the same roads mentioned in his book. And I have to admit that when I saw that each chapter opened with a mix tape track listing, I was pretty sure this was my kind of book. Unfortunately, despite these positive indicators, it never overcame my distaste for the genre.
It's a pretty straightforward book: a paean to the author's dead wife, which basically boils down to "she was awesome" and "it hurts." Which is fine, and no doubt very therapeutic for Sheffield to express, but ultimately not that interesting. Theirs was a case of opposites attracting over mutual love of music -- he a shy Boston Irish-Catholic music nerd, and she an outgoing Southern quasi-punk chick. Sheffield outlines his life prior to meeting Renee, his eight years with her, and the aftermath of her sudden death.
This is all more or less done through the lens of the music they voraciously consumed. The mix tape track listings follow the chronology of their relationship, but don't serve any larger function, which was a bit disappointing. And even when Sheffield does write about the music, he never really captures it that well -- partly because he's wildly enthusiastic about pretty much every piece of music mentioned. This indiscriminate cheerleading for all pop music, ranging from his true loves, to so-bad-its-good stuff, to flip flopping on Pearl Jam (that's probably the moment he really lost me) make his love of music seem almost manic. Of course, to be fair, writing about music is really really really hard, and very few people are able to do it with any style and conviction.
In any event, I never really connected with Sheffield or his sad story -- which probably has more to do with me and my dislike of memoirs than it does of the book. If you like memoirs, this may well hit the right spot. It's not all doom and gloom, there are some funny parts, and when the book moves away from all the pretentious hipster-cool stuff, it can be quite charming and moving. In this sense, I was greatly reminded of Joan Didion's awful, overrated, self-indulgent grief memoir, The Year of Magical Thinking, which was at its worst when she lapsed into name and place-dropping.
It's a pretty straightforward book: a paean to the author's dead wife, which basically boils down to "she was awesome" and "it hurts." Which is fine, and no doubt very therapeutic for Sheffield to express, but ultimately not that interesting. Theirs was a case of opposites attracting over mutual love of music -- he a shy Boston Irish-Catholic music nerd, and she an outgoing Southern quasi-punk chick. Sheffield outlines his life prior to meeting Renee, his eight years with her, and the aftermath of her sudden death.
This is all more or less done through the lens of the music they voraciously consumed. The mix tape track listings follow the chronology of their relationship, but don't serve any larger function, which was a bit disappointing. And even when Sheffield does write about the music, he never really captures it that well -- partly because he's wildly enthusiastic about pretty much every piece of music mentioned. This indiscriminate cheerleading for all pop music, ranging from his true loves, to so-bad-its-good stuff, to flip flopping on Pearl Jam (that's probably the moment he really lost me) make his love of music seem almost manic. Of course, to be fair, writing about music is really really really hard, and very few people are able to do it with any style and conviction.
In any event, I never really connected with Sheffield or his sad story -- which probably has more to do with me and my dislike of memoirs than it does of the book. If you like memoirs, this may well hit the right spot. It's not all doom and gloom, there are some funny parts, and when the book moves away from all the pretentious hipster-cool stuff, it can be quite charming and moving. In this sense, I was greatly reminded of Joan Didion's awful, overrated, self-indulgent grief memoir, The Year of Magical Thinking, which was at its worst when she lapsed into name and place-dropping.
Format:Paperback
Although I have a wide and eclectic taste in music, as I was unfamiliar with a number of the tracks mentioned, I found it difficult to get into this book. At the same time, when I realised why Sheffield is writing this memoir, I found it quite painful to read.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
All you need is love...
This is a stunningly beautiful, gut-wrenchingly sad and awesomely uplifting memoir. If you love rock 'n' roll and love rocks your world, this book is for you. Read more
Published on 29 April 2007 by Ms. C. Travers Smith
there is a light that never goes out
This is one of the most powerful and beautiful books I've read in a long time. Sheffield writes effortlessly about pop music, and whether or not you share his taste (and I happen... Read more
Published on 22 April 2007 by The Quiet American
Great idea for a book that did,nt quite click with this reader
I must admit it's a great idea. Writing a book about the art of compiling mix tapes for girls you fancy . Read more
Published on 29 Mar 2007 by russell clarke
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