Coming Soon:

Nina Simone's Gum
by Warren Ellis
Faber & Faber
Hardcover


From the publisher's website:

I hadn’t opened the towel that contained her gum since 2013. The last person to touch it was Nina Simone, her saliva and fingerprints unsullied. The idea that it was still in her towel was something I had drawn strength from. I thought each time I opened it some of Nina Simone’s spirit would vanish. In many ways that thought was more important than the gum itself.

On Thursday 1 July, 1999, Dr Nina Simone gave a rare performance as part of Nick Cave’s Meltdown Festival. After the show, in a state of awe, Warren Ellis crept onto the stage, took Dr Simone’s piece of chewed gum from the piano, wrapped it in her stage towel and put it in a Tower Records bag. The gum remained with him for twenty years; a sacred totem, his creative muse, a conduit that would eventually take Ellis back to his childhood and his relationship with found objects, growing in significance with every passing year.

Nina Simone’s Gum is about how something so small can form beautiful connections between people. It is a story about the meaning we place on things, on experiences, and how they become imbued with spirituality. It is a celebration of artistic process, friendship, understanding and love.

On My Radar:

Happiness: Ten Years of n+1
nplusone
Faber & Faber
Trade Paperback

From the publisher's website:

“Ten years in, I still find the most re-readable writing—Coleridge’s old test was rereading—in n+1. There are only two things wrong with this assemblage. One, it’s not big enough. . . . Two, after ten years, this magazine remains too much of a damn secret.”

—Mary Karr, Introduction

Happiness, released on the occasion of n+1's tenth anniversary, collects the best of the magazine as selected by its editors. Intended to revive the leftist social criticism that was the hallmark of Dissent and Partisan Review, n+1 began as a fierce rejoinder to the consumerism and complacency of the Bush years. It hasn't slowed down since. 

Featuring founding editors Chad Harbach, Keith Gessen, Benjamin Kunkel, Marco Roth, and Mark Greif, as well as the essays that launched some of the most electric young writers working today, such as Elif Batuman, Emily Witt, and Kristen Dombek. 

Selected by the editors of n+1 magazine. 
With an introduction by Mary Karr. 
Published by Faber and Faber, Inc. 

Forthcoming Book:

A book I'd like to read:

Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Story of Modern Pop
by Bob Stanley
Faber and Faber
Trade Paperback

Street date:  10/3/13

For fifty years, pop music was created and consumed like this: you heard a record on the radio, or read about it in a music paper; you bought it on Saturday; you lent it to, or taped it for, a friend; and they reciprocated with another record. It was a secret network. It was how you made friends, how you met girls, and how you soundtracked your world.

  

Bob Stanley's Yeah Yeah Yeah tells the chronological story of the modern pop era, from its beginnings in the fifties with the dawn of the charts, vinyl, and the music press, to pop's digital switchover in the year 2000, from 'Rock Around the Clock' to 'Crazy In Love'. There was constant change, constant development, a constant craving for newness. It was more than just music - it could be your whole life.

Yeah Yeah Yeah covers the birth of rock, soul, punk, disco, hip hop, indie, house and techno. It also includes the rise and fall of the home stereo, Top Of The Pops, Smash Hits, and "this week's highest new entry". Yeah Yeah Yeah is the first book to look back at the entire era: what we gained, what we lost, and the foundations we laid for future generations.

There have been many books on pop but none have attempted to bring the whole story to life, from Billy Fury and Roxy Music to TLC and Britney via Led Zeppelin and Donna Summer. Audacious and addictive, Yeah Yeah Yeah is essential reading for all music lovers. It will remind you why you fell in love with pop music in the first place.