Love Is A Mix Tape: A Memoir

Se tornou meu "livro de conforto".Além da cultura pop de uma década pela qual eu sou apaixonada, trata do amor e do luto da forma mais doce que já vi.Tocante, de verdade. Muito emocionante.Achei a capa bem bonitinha e, apesar de ser uma capa comum (não é dura), a qualidade é boa.O papel é mais fininho do que na maioria dos livros, mas eu gostei mesmo assim.

somebody recommended this to me because of its content. it's pretty much tailor made for me: it's not too long of a read, it's a first person account, it's heavily based around making mix tapes in the 90s/of 90s music, and it mentions both sebadoh and sleater-kinney. brilliant! it kept me company on a couple of long, exhausting train journeys and i'm definitely glad i read it. i'd say for anybody that loves music being closely twined with irreplaceable, interpersonal relationships, they should give this a go at least once.the themes touched on (mortality, loss, living) are all things i gravitate towards by default. it's the sort of thing i write about and the sort of thing i love to read about. the recollections are vivid at times and the blurry sort of memories you remember on nights you can't sleep at others and it's a beautiful tribute to love, renee, and music in general.

Rob Sheffield's Love is a Mix Tape is a heart-breaking, uplifting, funny, sad and entirely human memoir about love and loss unified by Sheffield's love of music and his life-long penchant for crafting the mix tape. Music fans born in the 60's will recognize most of the music (and understand why, for example, the eighth grade dance mix tape had to have Free Bird and Stairway to Heaven to end the sides), but I don't think you have to know much about the music he mentions to enjoy this wonderful book because the book simply uses music as a way into his story about Renee. Renee was his wife with whom he shared an intense love and they found love through love of music as well. Renee died suddenly, tragically at a young age, but somehow Sheffield's engaging personality comes through so well in his writing that he makes this memoir overall an uplifting read, despite the undertones of intense sadness and loss. The love he has for Renee (and she for him) and the love of music, Sheffield's charming, self-deprecating humor makes this a wonderful read. I recommend this one to all, music-obsessed or not. Enjoy.

I was looking forward to reading this book, and while working a night shift succumbed to boredom and a pocketful of cash and decided it was finally time to purchase it. This is the sort of book that can be read in a weekend, and that, trust me is a blessing. Its an excellent personal account, but I found it very difficult to relate to the author's situation. Half the book is dedicated to his upbringing and meeting his wife and the second half rambling on about how he cant get his life together after she passes. This might come across as unsympathetic, I'm not, its just its almost too personal to be placed in the form of a book. The theme of music that runs throughout provides more of a backdrop to what is happening than having any meaning beyond 'hey I was listening to this when this happened'. If you want a quick read, an insight into two ordinary lives in an average relationship by all means purchase it. If, however the idea of rambling pages about Jackie Kennedy and the idea that Kurt Cobain was the best thing to happen to music since the iPod then best to keep away. 3 out of 5 a solid but not life changing read.

I sat in Lulu's Beehive this morning with my coffee and banana bundt amongst a sea of laptops, a painting of ducks that looked suspiciously like a picture in my own flickr photostream, and a friend's ex-boyfriend with another girl I knew but couldn't place. While I wasn't the only one with white buds in my ears, I was the only person cracking the spine of a book. The women that kept walking into the cafe were all cleavage and caffeine and cigarettes and a welcome distraction from the chapters about grief in this love letter to music and marriage and life. I kept catching myself staring too long at these ladies and thought, either I need to get laid or get loved.Probably both.I kind of hate Rob Sheffield for making me feel like all the relationships I've had in the past have been inadequate. I have never loved anyone like he loved his Renee. He doesn't even hide the feelings he had for her in ebullient metaphor or shlocky hyperbole. He just tells it like it is and it is wonderful and amazing and way shorter than it had any right to be. While I did blow through the chapters focused on his loss and his dealing (or not dealing) because I don't quite have the emotional armor right now to handle more mourning, it's a beautiful love story all explained in terms I totally get--song lyrics and beats and all the feelings and emotions that we associate with music.There's probably a mix tape of my own that will come out of this that includes "Symptom Finger" by the Faint, "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)" by The Arcade Fire, "Mushaboom (Postal Service Remix)" by Feist, "One More Hour" by Sleater-Kinney, "Keeping You Alive" by The Gossip, "Misread" by Kings of Convenience, and "Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime" by Beck, almost all of which acted as my soundtrack this morning. Somehow, I don't own nor don't think I have ever even heard "One More Hour" by Sleater-Kinney and it is the one song he goes into detail about in the book that I want to know everything about. I can imagine the track in my head by his description. I can hear Carrie and Corin going back and forth. I've already attached an emotional response to it. I will love it. Even if I was deaf, I would love it.Sheffield goes into great detail about the significance of Nirvana on his life and, in particular, "Heart-Shaped Box". I decided while reading that I'd add Joe Hill's (Stephen King's son) recent debut novel of the same name to my queue. While reading, I aped a line of his that he stole from some outfit a member of Pavement was wearing for a twitter message. I took down quotes, one for me that's a truth I'm going to keep for myself about love and loss and fear and the real agreement that people make to each other when they go into a commitment like marriage and one for you:"Most mix tapes are CDs now, yet people still call them mix tapes."There's a reason for that. I leave it to you to figure out why.