The demand for coffeetable volumes is pretty darned steady. Here I pitch one such volume that ought to be on a number of wish lists.
I thought it apropos, if not timely, to offer an inspired coffeetable concept: writers reviewing music. Recently, a similarly conceived opus gave writers an opportunity to talk about films of their choosing. But I have in mind a more forced enterprise in the sense that the editor (for now, me) gives the writers their task explicitly. That is, I choose the record and send it to the writer, the writer sends the review of not more than 2,500 words back to me by November 15, and through the magic of desktop publishing I get this thing in Target, Urban Outfitters, Pottery Barn, Home Depot, and Amazon.com by the first week in December. Without further hemming and hawing, the (alphabetized) chapters.
Sherman Alexie: Pixies/Surfer Rosa (1988)Russell Banks: Magnetic Fields/Holiday (1994)Saul Bellow: Jim O’Rourke/Terminal Pharmacy (1995)J.M. Coetzee: Butthole Surfers/Rembrandt Pussyhorse (1986)Don Delillo: John Prine/John Prine (1971)Joan Didion: Nico/Marble Index (1969)Milan Kundera: The Ex/Spanish Anarchists (1986)Gabriel Garcia Marquez: U.N.K.L.E. et al. /Psyence Fiction (1998)Larry McMurty: Lyle Lovett/Lyle Lovett (1986)Rick Moody: Royal Trux/Thank You (1995)Lorrie Moore: Bruce Springsteen/Nebraska (1982)Toni Morrison: Public Enemy/It Takes A Nation of Millions (1988)Joyce Carol Oates: Blondie/Parallel Lines (1978)Thomas Pynchon: John Cale/Paris, 1919 (1973)Philip Roth: X-Ray Spex/Obsessed With You (1991)Salman Rushdie: Rolling Stones/Flowers (1967)JD Salinger: Serge Gainsbourg/Historie de Melody (1971)Jose Saromoga: Astrud Gilberto/Look to the Rainbow (1965)WG Sebald: The Soft Boys/Underwater Moonlight (1980)David Foster Wallace: Sonic Youth/Daydream Nation (1988)
Tags: coffeetable volumes, music
