Pump Up The Volume
/A Curated Setlist…Of The Literary Kind!
It’s hard for me to find a rapt, or is it trapped, audience to whom I can extol the passion I have for books. Music however, what kind of monstrous being doesn’t like music? So books that have a musical backdrop? This could be my in people…unsuspecting music devotees are soon to be lured in by my book loving ways.
Music and literature, and the deep unshakable love they inspire, are connected in a myriad of ways. They both provide an endless bounty of ammunition for snooty fans to judge one another by. Don’t deny it, we have all judged and been judged. Neither fan can answer the question what is your favourite book or album without subjecting the questioner to a backstory worthy of a novelist. They always have recommendations for their friends, even if they aren’t being asked. And without question, they have meticulously curated playlists or reading lists for every possible occasion.
In the spirit of shared passion, I have gathered for you these masterful mashups. They offer the reader a story told in two languages, one formed in prose, the other in melody.
Enjoy!
The Deep Cuts…
The Vinyl Underground – Rob Rufus
During the tumultuous year of 1968, four outcasts find sanctuary in "The Vinyl Underground," a record club where they spin music, engage in deep conversation, and escape the stifling norms of their small southern town. Reality sets in as one of them nears their 18th Birthday and together they hatch a plan to keep him from being drafted. When a horrific act of racially charged violence rocks the gang to their core, they decide it's time for an epic act of rebellion.
This Song Will Save Your Life – Leila Sales
Making friends has never been Elise’s strong suit. Approaching her sophomore year of high school, she’s desperate to fit in. When a final attempt at popularity fails, she almost gives up. Then she stumbles upon a warehouse party where she meets Vicky, a girl in a band who accepts her as well as Char and Pippa who share her love for DJing, a love that Elise has long kept hidden. Wonderfully refreshing and funny!
The Music Shop – Rachel Joyce
It's 1988. The CD has arrived. Sales of the shiny new disks are soaring across England. Meanwhile, down a dead-end street, Frank's music shop stands small and brightly lit, jam-packed with records of every kind. It attracts the lonely, the sleepless, the adrift. There is room for everyone, and Frank has a gift for finding his customers the music they need. One day a curious woman shows up at his shop and it might be time for Frank to get what he needs.
Beautiful Music For Ugly Children – Kirstin Cronn-Mills
Gabe has always identified as a boy, but he was born with a girl’s body. With his new public access radio show gaining in popularity, Gabe struggles with romance, friendships, and parents, all while trying to come out as transgendered. An audition for a big city station looks like his ticket to a better life, but his entire future is threatened when several students find out Gabe the popular DJ is also Elizabeth from school. A wonderful portrayal delving into the soul of a music geek, no matter the skin they inhabit.
Destroy All Monsters – Jeff Jackson
An epidemic of violence is sweeping the country: musicians are being murdered onstage in the middle of their sets by members of their audience. Are these random copycat killings, or is something more sinister at work? Has music itself become corrupted in a culture where everything is available, everybody is a "creative," and attention spans have dwindled to nothing? With its cast of ambitious bands, yearning fans, and enigmatic killers, this book tells a haunted and romantic story that will resonate with anybody who’s ever loved rock and roll!
The Vinyl Detective – Andrew Cartmel (A Series)
He is a record collector, a connoisseur of vinyl, hunting out rare and elusive LPs. His business card describes him as the “Vinyl Detective” and some people take this more literally than others. Like the beautiful, mysterious woman who wants to pay him a large sum of money to find a priceless lost recording on behalf of an extremely wealthy, and rather sinister, client. Given that he’s just about to run out of cat food, this gets our hero’s full attention. So begins a painful and dangerous odyssey in search of one of the rarest records of them all…
A Song For A New Day – Sarah Pinsker
In the Before, when the government didn't prohibit large public gatherings, Luce was on top of the world. One of her songs had just taken off and she was on her way to becoming a star. Now, in the After, terror attacks and deadly viruses have led the government to ban concerts, and Luce's connection to the world, her music, her purpose, is closed off forever. She does what she must do: she performs in illegal concerts to a small but passionate community, always evading the law. What would you do for the love of music? What wouldn’t you do?
Guitar Notes – Mary Amato
On odd days, Tripp uses a school practice room to let loose on a borrowed guitar. Eyes closed, strumming that beat-up instrument, he escapes to a world where only the music matters. On even days, Lyla uses the same practice room. To Tripp, she's trying to become even more perfect, she's already a straight-A student and an award-winning cellist. But when Lyla begins leaving notes for him in between the strings of the guitar, his life intersects with hers in a way he never expected. What starts as a series of snippy notes quickly blossoms into the sharing of interests and secrets and dreams, and the forging of a very unlikely friendship.
Suzy, Led Zeppelin & Me – Martin Millar
Glasgow, 1972. All the coolest kids in town are lining up for Led Zeppelin tickets. Overhead, a Zeppelin approaches. Its passengers, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Hank Williams, think it’s worth leaving heaven to see the greatest rock band in the world. Meanwhile, nerdy Martin and his equally nerdy best friend Greg have overactive imaginations. When they aren’t fighting the monstrous hordes during game play they are competing for the attentions of a popular and unattainable girl named Suzy. With Led Zeppelin on the way, it feels like anything can happen.
Every Anxious Wave – Mo Daviau
Karl is a thirty-something bar owner whose life lacks love and meaning. When he stumbles upon a time-travelling worm hole in his closet, Karl and his best friend Wayne develop a side business selling access to people who want to travel back in time to listen to their favorite bands. It's an ingenious plan, until Karl, intending to send Wayne to 1980, transports him back to 980 instead. What could possibly go wrong? You have no idea…
If I Ever Get Out Of Here – Eric Gansworth
Lewis is used to the joys and difficulties of life on the Tuscarora Indian reservation in 1975. What he's not used to is white people being nice to him, people like George, whose family recently moved to town with the Air Force. As the boys connect through their mutual passion for music, especially the Beatles, they develop an unexpected friendship born of their shared love of rock and roll.
Spin – Colleen Nelson
Fifteen-year-old Delilah “Dizzy” Doucette lives with her dad and brother above their vintage record store, The Vinyl Trap. She’s learning how to spin records from her brother’s best friend, and she’s getting pretty good. But behind her bohemian life, Dizzy and her family have a secret: her mom is a mega famous singer. When this secret is revealed to the world, Dizzy’s life spins out of control. She must decide what is most important to her, the family she has or the family she wants.
Impossible Music – Sean Williams
Music is Simon’s life, which is why he is devastated when a stroke destroys his hearing. He resists attempts to help him adjust to his new state, refusing to be counseled, refusing to learn sign-language, refusing to have anything to do with Deaf culture. Refusing, that is, until he meets G, a tough-as-nails girl dealing with her own newly experienced deafness. Together they explore an entirely new form of music.
The Essentials…
High Fidelity – Nick Hornby
Rob is a pop music junkie who runs his own semi-failing record store. His girlfriend, Laura, has just left him for the guy upstairs, and Rob is both miserable and relieved. After all, could he have spent his life with someone who has a bad record collection? Rob seeks refuge in the company of the offbeat clerks at his store, who endlessly review their top fives of pretty much everything. A must read for any music lover!
Reservation Blues – Sherman Alexie
One day legendary bluesman Robert Johnson appears on the Spokane Indian reservation, in flight from the devil and long presumed dead. When he passes his enchanted instrument to Thomas-Builds-the-Fire; storyteller, misfit, and musician, a magical odyssey begins that will take them from reservation bars to small-town taverns, from the trails of Seattle to the concrete of Manhattan. An odyssey that is a must read!
We Sold Our Souls – Grady Hendrix
Every morning, Kris wakes up in hell. In the 1990s she was lead guitarist of a heavy-metal band on the brink of breakout success until Terry, the lead singer , embarked on a solo career and rocketed to stardom, leaving his bandmates to rot in obscurity. Now Kris works as night manager of a Best Western; she’s tired, broke, and unhappy. Then one day everything changes, a shocking act of violence turns her life upside down, and she begins to suspect that Terry sabotaged more than just the band.
Solo – Kwame Alexander
Blade never asked for a life of the rich and famous. In fact, he’d give anything not to be the son of Rutherford Morrison, a washed-up rock star and drug addict with delusions of a comeback. Or to no longer be part of a family known most for lost potential, failure, and tragedy. The one true light is his girlfriend, Chapel, but her parents have forbidden their relationship, assuming Blade will become just like his father. Will the music that connects them all be ripped away in the wake of the exposure of long kept secrets?
Girl – Blake Nelson
Meet Andrea, straight-A high school student, thrift-store addict, and princess of the downtown music scene. In the midst of the 90’s, where the music scene was experiencing the deep impact of the grunge movement, Andrea’s passion for music merges together with first love to lead her down a unique, yet universally relatable coming-of-age road.
Signal To Noise – Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Mexico City, 1988. Long before iTunes or MP3s, you said "I love you" with a mix tape. Meche, awkward and fifteen, has two equally unhip friends, Sebastian and Daniela, and a whole lot of vinyl records to keep her company. When she discovers how to cast spells using music, the future looks brighter for the trio. The three friends will piece together their broken families, change their status as non-entities, and maybe even find love...
Hour Of The Innocents – Robert Paston
Set against a fleeting age when music seemed about to change the world, this book tells the story of the band known as The Innocents and captures the true drama of the late 1960s. Not the glitter of famous names and celebrity, but the yearning of the guitarists and drummers from the heartland who believed in hope…and the lovers, friends, and lives crushed along the way.
How to Kill A Rock Star – Tiffanie DeBartolo
Eliza, a young music journalist, is finally getting her footing in New York when she meets the talented songwriter and lead singer of the band Bananafish. They soon realize they share more than a reverence for rock music and plunge headlong into love. When Bananafish is signed by a big corporate label, and her paramour is on his way to becoming a major rock star, Eliza's past forces her to make a heartbreaking decision that might be the key to his sudden disappearance.
Stone Arabia – Dana Spiotta
Nik and Denise grew up in Los Angeles in the late seventies and early eighties. Nik was always the artist, always wrote music, always had a band. Now he makes his art in private, obsessively documenting the work but never testing it in the world. Denise remains Nik’s most passionate and acute audience; she is also crucial support for Nik and for their aging mother, whose dementia seems to threaten her every memory. When Denise’s daughter, Ada, decides to make a film about Nik, everyone’s vulnerabilities escalate.
Sometime After Midnight – L. Philips
Late one night in a dingy Los Angeles club, Nate and Cameron meet and discover they have much more in common than their love of an obscure Indie band. But when Nate learns that Cameron is the heir to a soul-sucking record label, the very one that destroyed his father’s life, he runs away as fast as he can. The only evidence of their brief but intense connection is the blurry photo Cameron snaps of Nate’s sharpied Chuck Taylors. When Cameron’s sister Tess, a famous model, posts the photo on Instagram for her legions of fans, the internet just about breaks with the news of this modern fairy tale. “Anyone know the owner of these shoes?”
