Staff Picks

Tom Breihan is my favorite music writer, and his online series at Stereogum covering every Billboard #1 Pop Hit is essential reading. This book covers twenty of those hits from Chubby Checker through BTS, going into detail about the artists, songs, and cultural background from a storyteller who clearly loves music and research. Highly recommended!

 

Publisher description:

When Tom Breihan launched his Stereogum column in early 2018, “The Number Ones” -- a space in which he has been writing about every #1 hit in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, in chronological order—he figured he’d post capsule-size reviews for each song. But there was so much more to uncover. The column has taken on a life of its own, sparking online debate and occasional death threats. The Billboard Hot 100 began in 1958, and after four years of posting the column, Breihan is still in the early aughts. But readers no longer have to wait for his brilliant synthesis of what the history of #1s has meant to music and our culture. In The Number Ones, Breihan writes about twenty pivotal #1s throughout chart history, revealing a remarkably fluid and connected story of music that is as entertaining as it is enlightening. The Numbers Ones features the greatest pop artists of all time, from the Brill Building songwriters to the Beatles and the Beach Boys; from Motown to Michael Jackson, Prince, and Mariah Carey; and from the digital revolution to the K-pop system. Breihan also ponders great artists who have never hit the top spot, like Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and James Brown. Breihan illuminates what makes indelible ear candy across the decades -- including dance crazes, recording innovations, television phenomena, disco, AOR, MTV, rap, compact discs, mp3s, social media, memes, and much more -- leaving readers to wonder what could possibly happen next.

 

Rememberings is a nice quick memoir of the powerful singer, songwriter, and activist Sinead O'Connor. While it covers her childhood, music, family, and controversies, it also shows how sincere and deep her talent and convictions were. She is an artist that I'll miss.

 

Publisher description:

Blessed with a singular voice and a fiery temperament, Sinéad O’Connor rose to massive fame in the late 1980s and 1990s with a string of gold records. By the time she was twenty, she was world famous—living a rock star life out loud. From her trademark shaved head to her 1992 appearance on Saturday Night Live when she tore up Pope John Paul II’s photograph, Sinéad has fascinated and outraged millions. In Rememberings, O’Connor recounts her painful tale of growing up in Dublin in a dysfunctional, abusive household. Inspired by a brother’s Bob Dylan records, she escaped into music. She relates her early forays with local Irish bands; we see Sinéad completing her first album while eight months pregnant, hanging with Rastas in the East Village, and soaring to unimaginable popularity with her cover of Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2U.” Intimate, replete with candid anecdotes and told in a singular form true to her unconventional career, Sinéad’s memoir is a remarkable chronicle of an enduring and influential artist.

 

I'm really glad I picked up this poetry book. These poems about all types of love for friends, family, and community are accessible, funny, and vulnerable. Bonus points for being in English and Spanish.

 

Publisher's description: 

A groundbreaking collection of poems addressing how every kind of love--self, brotherly, romantic, familial, cultural--is birthed, shaped, and complicated by the invisible forces of gender, capitalism, religion, migration, and so on. Written in English and combined with a Spanish translation by poet David Ruano, Promises of Gold explores many forms of love and how "a promise made isn't always a promise kept," as Olivarez grapples with the contradictions of the American Dream laying bare the ways in which "love is complicated by forces larger than our hearts.

En esta innovadora colección de poemas, José Olivarez explora cada tipo de amor - el propio, fraternal, romántico, familiar, cultural. Lidiando con las contradicciones del sueño americano, con una humanidad inquebrantable, deja al descubierto las maneras en que "el amor se va complicando por fuerzas más grandes que nuestros corazones". Ya sea que los lectores entren a esta colección en inglés o a partir de la traducción al español del poeta David Ruano González, estos extraordinarios poemas serán atesorados seguramente por sus iluminaciones sobre el amor y la vida.
 

Find Promises of Gold/Promesas de Oro in our online catalog. 

With the Fire on High is a beautiful, warm-hearted story of teen mom and aspiring cook Emoni Santiago during her final year of high school. With hints of magical realism and every chapter beginning with a recipe, this book will leave you smiling. As a bonus, the cover art is gorgeous!

 

Publisher description:

The one place she can let all that go is in the kitchen, where she adds a little something magical to everything she cooks, turning her food into straight-up goodness.Even though she dreams of working as a chef after she graduates, Emoni knows that it's not worth her time to pursue the impossible. Yet despite the rules she thinks she has to play by, once Emoni starts cooking, her only choice is to let her talent break free.

 

While not shying away from interpersonal band drama in the Talking Heads, especially between David Byrne and Tina Weymouth, Chris Frantz wrote a wonderful memoir sharing his love of making music with Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club and his deep connection with his wife Tina Weymouth.

 

Publisher's description:

Two iconic bands. An unforgettable life. One of the most dynamic groups of the '70s and '80s, Talking Heads, founded by drummer Chris Frantz, his girlfriend Tina Weymouth, and lead singer David Byrne, burst onto the music scene, playing at CBGBs, touring Europe with the Ramones, and creating hits like "Psycho Killer" and "Burning Down the House" that captured the post-baby boom generation's intense, affectless style. In Remain in Love, Frantz writes about the beginnings of Talking Heads-their days as art students in Providence, moving to the sparse Chrystie Street loft Frantz, Weymouth, and Byrne shared where the music that defined an era was written. With never-before-seen photos and immersive vivid detail, Frantz describes life on tour, down to the meals eaten and the clothes worn-and reveals the mechanics of a long and complicated working relationship with a mercurial frontman. At the heart of Remain in Love is Frantz's love for Weymouth: their once-in-a-lifetime connection as lovers, musicians, and bandmates, and how their creativity surged with the creation of their own band Tom Tom Club, bringing a fresh Afro-Caribbean beat to hits like "Genius of Love." Studded with memorable place and names from the era-Grace Jones, Andy Warhol, Stephen Sprouse, Lou Reed, Brian Eno, and Debbie Harry among them-Remain in Love is a frank and open memoir of an emblematic life in music and in love.