Love is a Mix Tape

LOVE IS A MIX TAPE: LIFE AND LOSS, ONE SONG AT A TIME: Rob Sheffield: 2007: Biography: 219

This delightful book is as much a biography of 90's music culture as it is of one young widow's attempt to deal with loss. Rob Sheffield is a music critic for Rolling Stone Magazine and this biography of his marriage and the untimely death of his eccentric wife reads like the quirky vignettes you'd find in the pop culture magazine. Each chapter is prefaced with a mix tape play list that sets the tone for the particular sound byte to follow - and it truly feels like you can hear this book. (In fact, I downloaded a couple of songs from the play lists and that made it that much more enjoyable) There is an entire chapter dedicated to the death of Kurt Cobain and another to Sheffield's ultimate fantasy of being in a synth pop duo with the woman he loves. This book was at once heartbreaking and hilarious. It was endearingly sentimental without evoking any kind of pity. A very satisfying read. I'd recommend this book to anyone who loves pop culture and music especially.

BES