Join Amazon Prime and get unlimited Free One-Day Delivery. Already a member? Sign in.

 

or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
 
   
More Buying Choices
21 used & new from £2.55

Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
   
Love Is a Mix Tape
 
 

Love Is a Mix Tape (Paperback)

by Rob Sheffield (Author) "The playback: late night, Brooklyn, a pot of coffee, and a chair by the window ..." (more)
3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
RRP: £9.99
Price: £6.49 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
You Save: £3.50 (35%)
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
In stock.
Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk. Gift-wrap available.

Want guaranteed delivery by Tuesday, July 21? Choose Express delivery at checkout. See Details
17 new from £4.16 4 used from £2.55
Other Editions: RRP: Our Price: Other Offers:
Paperback £7.99 £7.99
Perfect Paperback 6 used & new from £7.21

Frequently Bought Together

Customers buy this book with Mix Tape: The Art of Cassette Culture by Thurston Moore

Love Is a Mix Tape + Mix Tape: The Art of Cassette Culture
Price For Both: £17.98

Show availability and shipping details


Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Mix Tape: The Art of Cassette Culture

Mix Tape: The Art of Cassette Culture

by Thurston Moore
3.5 out of 5 stars (2)  £11.49
Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas

Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas

by Chuck Klosterman
£9.09
High Fidelity

High Fidelity

by Nick Hornby
4.3 out of 5 stars (61)  £4.99
Killing Yourself to Live

Killing Yourself to Live

by Chuck Klosterman
2.0 out of 5 stars (1)  £6.99
Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto

Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto

by Chuck Klosterman
4.0 out of 5 stars (4)  £6.99
Explore similar items

Product details

  • Paperback: 226 pages
  • Publisher: Piatkus Books (8 Mar 2007)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0749951427
  • ISBN-13: 978-0749951429
  • Product Dimensions: 21.2 x 13.6 x 2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 240,792 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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

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 his musical coming of age, and 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 Homby, "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.

See all Product Description

Inside This Book (Learn More)
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
Search inside this book:

Suggested Tags from Similar Products

 (What's this?)
Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
Check a corresponding box or enter your own tags in the field below
(1)
(1)

Your tags: Add your first tag
 

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

Love Is a Mix Tape
95% buy the item featured on this page:
Love Is a Mix Tape 3.7 out of 5 stars (6)
£6.49
Mix Tape: The Art of Cassette Culture
5% buy
Mix Tape: The Art of Cassette Culture 3.5 out of 5 stars (2)
£11.49

 

Customer Reviews

6 Reviews
5 star:
 (2)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:
 (2)
2 star:
 (1)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.7 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Great idea for a book that did,nt quite click with this reader , 29 Mar 2007
By russell clarke "stipesdoppleganger" (halifax, west yorks) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)      
I must admit it's a great idea. Writing a book about the art of compiling mix tapes for girls you fancy . Any bloke who was into music throughout the seventies and eighties must surely have used that particular device to try to wrangle their way into a girls affections. I have done it myself on several occasions and it actually works. As well being a thoroughly enjoyable thing to do the fact that you have in truth spent a great deal of time cogitating and then going through the psychical act of taping music seems to impress no end. I will never forget the time a girl who I had compiled a tape for heard "Send My Heart" by The Adventures for the first time. Her jaw literally dropped -"I never knew music like this existed " she said. I felt insufferably smug , less so when nothing came of the brief friendship we shared, but the point is that moment has stayed with me years down the line.
So "Rolling Stone contributor Rob Sheffield's book about how his collection of mix tapes mapped out the relationship with the love of his life -eventual wife Renee should be right up my street. However the book didn't quite click with me as much as I'd hoped it would. While the music talk is engaging , his relationship with Renee is so screamingly pretentious and bohemian that I longed for someone grounded in cold implacable reality to crash their tedious discussions on "catachresis" and his sonnet eulogies. I guess it's a cultural thing- an emotionally repressed clump from West Yorkshire England is unlikely to be on the same wavelength as an effusive English grad student in Virginia . Neither am I likely to empathise with someone who considers Kiss and Aerosmith worthy tape mix candidates.
To be fair to Sheffield once he cottons on to 80,s indie the book becomes far more interesting and Sheffield eventually reveals a winningly eclectic taste. And once Renne tragically dies of a pulmonary embolism the tone of the book turns into a cry of despair and grief and reveals a narrative and emotions only the stoniest of hearts could fail to empathise with. He concludes that some of the music they listened to together is music he will never be able to listen to again. A resolutely downbeat ending to a book that has a love of music as well of one woman at it,s heart.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
4.0 out of 5 stars A sweet eulogy., 18 Jan 2008
Music brought the author and his wife together and shaped their life together until her sudden and unexpected death. I believe it was written as a tribute to the authors' young wife Renee, a larger than life, funny, quirky individual who got the most out of her too short life. Each chapter begins with a mix tape list of eclectic songs that meant a great deal to each or both of them. I don't think it is meant to be a pretentious presentation of the author's catholic tastes in music - merely an illustration of how music wound through their lives and bound them together. The music snobs may sniff, but read as a eulogy, I found this book to be both tender and funny.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
5.0 out of 5 stars All you need is love..., 29 April 2007
By Ms. C. Travers Smith - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
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. I will never fall in love the same way again.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)


Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Most Recent Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars Hipster Grief Memoir Never Transcends the Genre
I don't generally care for memoirs, but several things drew me to this one and convinced me to try it out. Read more
Published 18 months ago by A. Ross

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting idea, but a bit too personal
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. Read more
Published 22 months ago by alimarcam

5.0 out of 5 stars 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

Only search this product's reviews



Customer Discussions

 Beta (What's this?)
This product's forum (0 discussions)
  Discussion Replies Latest Post
  No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
  [Cancel]


   
Related forums


Listmania!


Look for similar items by category


Feedback


Fun for Everyone

Christmas Gifts
Achieve over 15,000 RPM with our great range of Powerballs.

Shop the Powerball store

 

Let Olay Amaze You

Olay Total Effects Day Moisturiser SPF15 50ml
Amazon.co.uk sells all your favourite ranges from Olay, including Regenerist and Total Effects.

Discover Olay at Amazon.co.uk

 

Up to 53% off Braun Series Shavers

Braun Series 3 390cc Clean & Renew System Rechargeable Foil Electric Shaver
Get in touch with your smooth side with Braun Series shavers, now with Gillette blade technology.

Discover Braun Series at Amazon.co.uk

 

Treat Someone

Amazon.co.uk Gift Certificates--available in any amount from £5 to £500 With an Amazon.co.uk Gift Certificate, you can get them what they want (even if you don't know what that is).

Learn more about Gift Certificates

 
Ad

Where's My Stuff?

Delivery and Returns

Need Help?

Your Recent History

  (What's this?)
You have no recently viewed items or searches.

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.

Look to the right column to find helpful suggestions for your shopping session.

Continue Shopping: Top Sellers

amazon.co.uk Amazon Home
International Sites:  United States  |  Germany  |  France  |  Japan  |  Canada  |  China
Business Programs: Sell on Amazon  |  Fulfilment by Amazon  |  Join Associates  |  Join Advantage
Customer Service  |  Help  |  View Basket  |  Your Account
About Amazon.co.uk  |  Careers at Amazon
Conditions of Use & Sale |  Privacy Notice  © 1996-2009, Amazon.com, Inc. and its affiliates