Status
Available
Call number
Collections
Publication
Three Rivers Press (2007), Paperback, 240 pages
Description
"In the 1990s, "alternative" was suddenly mainstream, and bands like Pearl Jam and Pavement, Nirvana and R.E.M.--bands that a year before would have been too weird for MTV--were MTV. The boundaries of American culture were exploding, and music was leading the way. It was also the 1990s when a shy music geek named Rob Sheffield met a hell-raising Appalachian punk-rock girl named Renée, who was way too cool for him but fell in love with him anyway. He was tall. She was short. He was shy. She was a social butterfly. They had nothing in common except that they both loved music. Music brought them together and kept them together. And it was music that would help Rob through a sudden, unfathomable loss. Here, Rob, now a writer for Rolling Stone, uses the songs on fifteen mix tapes to tell the story of his brief time with Renée.--From publisher description."--From source other than the Library of Congress… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member madhatter22
If you've ever made a mix tape for someone or spent hours working on one to get it just right or remember taping your favorite songs off the radio, this book will make you smile. (Possible extra smiles if you were born around the late '60s and get a little giddy when anyone remembers bands like
I got this (BookMooched) book in the mail, and started flipping through it, just reading some of the track listings for his mix tapes that start each chapter. I had no intention of reading it right away, but I ended up not putting it down until it was done.
I thought the narrative was a little scattered and unfocused in places, but it's so engaging it doesn't really matter. It's a sweet, sad, funny, honest book, and such a lovely tribute to Rob Sheffield's wife Renee that you'll fall in love with her too. And you'll really, really want to make someone a mix tape.
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Scritti Politti.) But even if none of the above describes you, there's a lot to love in this true True Love story of an introverted music geek and a spitfire of a woman who likes all the right songs, and of his grief when he loses her.I got this (BookMooched) book in the mail, and started flipping through it, just reading some of the track listings for his mix tapes that start each chapter. I had no intention of reading it right away, but I ended up not putting it down until it was done.
I thought the narrative was a little scattered and unfocused in places, but it's so engaging it doesn't really matter. It's a sweet, sad, funny, honest book, and such a lovely tribute to Rob Sheffield's wife Renee that you'll fall in love with her too. And you'll really, really want to make someone a mix tape.
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LibraryThing member voracious
Love is a Mix Tape is a love story, told tape by tape. Rob Sheffield is a music writer for Rolling Stone and various other music mags. He has interviewed various stars throughout his career... indeed Rob knows his music. This book chronicles Rob's life with Renee through the early 90's... his first
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real love and young wife. Renee added color, excitement, love and flavor to Rob's life. She was the lead singer while he played back up. They married young and shared a torrid affair with music. Several years after their marriage, however, Renee died suddenly and Rob found himself alone, clinging to musical memories and trying to make sense of their limited time together. Rob's poetic and trademark writing style illuminates his great passions for Renee and music with words that surprise you with humor and despair. I thought this book was brilliant and it made me more fully appreciate my own experiences of love for my husband and our shared passion for music. Show Less
LibraryThing member Jenners26
You might expect a memoir about a young husband losing his young wife unexpectedly would require a few tissues. Perhaps even an entire box. Yet I remained oddly dry-eyed through this book. After all, Rob and his wife Renée seem to be passionately in love and destined to be together forever. Their
I think much of the problem has to do with the theme of the book that Sheffield chose: love is a mix tape. Each chapter starts with a play list from a mix tape taken from some part of his relationship with Renée or his coping with her loss. It makes sense that this is the “angle” on which the author has approached the book. Both Rob and Renée are passionate about music. (Rob is a contributing editor at Rolling Stone and has been working as a rock critic and pop culture journalist for 15 years. Renée also wrote for music magazines. It is obvious that music was one of the foundations of their lives.) Yet if you don’t share the knowledge of the songs and bands he is writing about, much of the book’s nuances and emotion are lost. For example, Rob writes several times about the band Pavement—a group with which I have no familiarity—and the band’s importance to him and Renée. Yet all these sections left me cold as I don’t have ANY relationship with Pavement with which to supplement my reading experience. About halfway through the book, it occurred to me that this book would be much more effective if it came packaged with the mix tapes to listen to when reading.
In addition to losing a reader’s interest and emotional investment by repeated references to song and artists that the reader may be unfamiliar with, I think the “love is a mix tape” theme kept the author from really exploring the emotions he was experiencing. Rather than paint a picture with words that communicates the depth of loss he was feeling, he mentions songs that he played. This tends to break down when the reader either doesn’t know the song or has different associations with it. When he mentions listening to Missy Elliott’s “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)” when brooding late at night, I immediately flashed to the first time I heard it when driving in my car on a sunny day while doing to the mall and that freaky video of Missy wearing that big garbage bag-like outfit. By bringing my own mental associations to the song (which is very hard not to do), I was immediately taken out of Rob’s story and into my own.
The one real emotional moment I had while reading the book came when I read this passage:
The coroner later told me that she died instantly, that pulmonary embolisms kill in less than a minute, that even if it had happened in a hospital, the doctors would have been powerless to save her.
The reason this passage resonated so much with me was that a pulmonary embolism is what caused my mom’s death in December. Reading that line—which echoed exactly what the doctors told my brothers and I—was comforting in an odd way. It told me that both Renée and my mom died quickly and probably without any pain. They most likely never knew what happened.
Finally, a word about mix tapes. If you are of a certain age, you probably had some experience making mix tapes. I know I spent many laborious hours constructing mix tapes using a variety of methods: recording records, attempting to catch songs when they played on the radio, and doing tape to tape transfers. Creating a mix tape really is an act of love as it requires a considerable amount of time and energy on the part of the creator. (It isn’t like today’s “click a few buttons and you have an iPod play list” method. It required some serious dedication and patience.) Back in college, I made a mix tape that was so good, several people asked me to duplicate it for them. I used to have mix tapes for almost every occasion, with titles such as “Mellow Mix,” “Happy Day Songs,” “Break-Up Help,” and “Cleaning.”
Of course, mix tapes were often a way of communicating with someone you liked without being overt about it. I remember agonizing over a mix tape I was making for a boy that I wanted to simultaneously impress and “seduce.” (It didn’t work… except he said I had “good taste” in music.) And I remember being on the receiving end of mix tapes and listening to each track to find out how the boy who gave it to me really felt about me. (All too often, I came to the conclusion that the boy was just sharing some good jams and wasn’t really all that into me. On the plus side, I discovered quite a few of my favorite artists via mix tapes. I’m quite sure I would have never become a fan of Tom Waits or Prefab Sprout if I’d not been exposed to their music on a mix tape.)
As I’ve written these last two paragraphs, I realize that the power of mix tapes lies in listening to the music and the relationship between the giver and the recipient. I’m sure that the mix tapes that defined Rob and Renée’s relationship were excellent, but they lost their power when relegated to the page. And that ends up being the fatal flaw of this book.
My Final Recommendation
Unless you are a die-hard music buff who would seriously get off on seeing the various mix tape play lists that begin each chapter, I’m not sure I would recommend this book. Although there is nothing really wrong with it, I just didn’t connect emotionally with it and I think that this type of story should evoke some sort of emotional reaction. A memoir of a man losing his beloved wife at a young age is tragic. I needed to feel that tragedy when reading and, sadly, I didn’t.
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shared love of music and his devotion and love for her is evident and obvious. This memoir—Rob’s tribute to Renée and his account of their marriage, her sudden death at age 31, and his subsequent struggle as a widower—should be incredibly moving and a tearjerker … and yet it isn’t.I think much of the problem has to do with the theme of the book that Sheffield chose: love is a mix tape. Each chapter starts with a play list from a mix tape taken from some part of his relationship with Renée or his coping with her loss. It makes sense that this is the “angle” on which the author has approached the book. Both Rob and Renée are passionate about music. (Rob is a contributing editor at Rolling Stone and has been working as a rock critic and pop culture journalist for 15 years. Renée also wrote for music magazines. It is obvious that music was one of the foundations of their lives.) Yet if you don’t share the knowledge of the songs and bands he is writing about, much of the book’s nuances and emotion are lost. For example, Rob writes several times about the band Pavement—a group with which I have no familiarity—and the band’s importance to him and Renée. Yet all these sections left me cold as I don’t have ANY relationship with Pavement with which to supplement my reading experience. About halfway through the book, it occurred to me that this book would be much more effective if it came packaged with the mix tapes to listen to when reading.
In addition to losing a reader’s interest and emotional investment by repeated references to song and artists that the reader may be unfamiliar with, I think the “love is a mix tape” theme kept the author from really exploring the emotions he was experiencing. Rather than paint a picture with words that communicates the depth of loss he was feeling, he mentions songs that he played. This tends to break down when the reader either doesn’t know the song or has different associations with it. When he mentions listening to Missy Elliott’s “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)” when brooding late at night, I immediately flashed to the first time I heard it when driving in my car on a sunny day while doing to the mall and that freaky video of Missy wearing that big garbage bag-like outfit. By bringing my own mental associations to the song (which is very hard not to do), I was immediately taken out of Rob’s story and into my own.
The one real emotional moment I had while reading the book came when I read this passage:
The coroner later told me that she died instantly, that pulmonary embolisms kill in less than a minute, that even if it had happened in a hospital, the doctors would have been powerless to save her.
The reason this passage resonated so much with me was that a pulmonary embolism is what caused my mom’s death in December. Reading that line—which echoed exactly what the doctors told my brothers and I—was comforting in an odd way. It told me that both Renée and my mom died quickly and probably without any pain. They most likely never knew what happened.
Finally, a word about mix tapes. If you are of a certain age, you probably had some experience making mix tapes. I know I spent many laborious hours constructing mix tapes using a variety of methods: recording records, attempting to catch songs when they played on the radio, and doing tape to tape transfers. Creating a mix tape really is an act of love as it requires a considerable amount of time and energy on the part of the creator. (It isn’t like today’s “click a few buttons and you have an iPod play list” method. It required some serious dedication and patience.) Back in college, I made a mix tape that was so good, several people asked me to duplicate it for them. I used to have mix tapes for almost every occasion, with titles such as “Mellow Mix,” “Happy Day Songs,” “Break-Up Help,” and “Cleaning.”
Of course, mix tapes were often a way of communicating with someone you liked without being overt about it. I remember agonizing over a mix tape I was making for a boy that I wanted to simultaneously impress and “seduce.” (It didn’t work… except he said I had “good taste” in music.) And I remember being on the receiving end of mix tapes and listening to each track to find out how the boy who gave it to me really felt about me. (All too often, I came to the conclusion that the boy was just sharing some good jams and wasn’t really all that into me. On the plus side, I discovered quite a few of my favorite artists via mix tapes. I’m quite sure I would have never become a fan of Tom Waits or Prefab Sprout if I’d not been exposed to their music on a mix tape.)
As I’ve written these last two paragraphs, I realize that the power of mix tapes lies in listening to the music and the relationship between the giver and the recipient. I’m sure that the mix tapes that defined Rob and Renée’s relationship were excellent, but they lost their power when relegated to the page. And that ends up being the fatal flaw of this book.
My Final Recommendation
Unless you are a die-hard music buff who would seriously get off on seeing the various mix tape play lists that begin each chapter, I’m not sure I would recommend this book. Although there is nothing really wrong with it, I just didn’t connect emotionally with it and I think that this type of story should evoke some sort of emotional reaction. A memoir of a man losing his beloved wife at a young age is tragic. I needed to feel that tragedy when reading and, sadly, I didn’t.
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LibraryThing member bnbooklady
When author Rob Sheffield met his wife Renee, they had nothing in common, except they both loved music. A certain song came on, and each noticed the other perk up to listen; and they were the only two people in that bar who were excited to hear the song. Boy meets girl. Boy and girl talk about
Love Is a Mix Tape is part memoir, part music history, and part love letter from a heartsick man to his late wife.
Sheffield's love for his wife and his struggle to accept a future without her are powerfully palpable and ever-present. His grasp of the ways in which love and music change us and shape our lives is quite beautiful, and though you feel Sheffield's sorrow and sadness, you also feel the joy and comfort and sense of place and permanence he has found in music. If you took the perfection that is Joan Didion's [The Year of Magical Thinking] and replaced all of the place memories with music memories, you'd get [Love Is a Mix Tape].
It's virtually impossible not to be affected by this book.
Read my full review at The Book Lady's Blog .
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music. Boy offers to make girl a mix tape. And so it begins.Love Is a Mix Tape is part memoir, part music history, and part love letter from a heartsick man to his late wife.
Sheffield's love for his wife and his struggle to accept a future without her are powerfully palpable and ever-present. His grasp of the ways in which love and music change us and shape our lives is quite beautiful, and though you feel Sheffield's sorrow and sadness, you also feel the joy and comfort and sense of place and permanence he has found in music. If you took the perfection that is Joan Didion's [The Year of Magical Thinking] and replaced all of the place memories with music memories, you'd get [Love Is a Mix Tape].
It's virtually impossible not to be affected by this book.
Read my full review at The Book Lady's Blog .
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LibraryThing member subbobmail
I read Love Is A Mix Tape on the recommendation of the Bookstore Goddess. She doesn't know that.
This book is rock journalist Rob Sheffield's memoir of meeting, courting, marrying and losing the young love of his life. Because music is his life (and because nothing is more evocative than music),
Oh, how precious and insufferable this book could have been -- a long, self-absorbed catalogue of hipster postures. But Sheffield is not a typical bedroom-entrapped, socially palsied nerd because his wife got him out into the world -- his ebullient southern rock chick of a wife -- and Sheffield's gratitude for having known her is the force that illuminates the book. Also, when he's not breaking your heart, he's very funny. That never hurts.
Love Is A Mix Tape makes me want to fall in love with somebody who makes me scared to feel so alive. It also makes me want to assemble a bunch of mix tapes. Highly recommended.
This book is rock journalist Rob Sheffield's memoir of meeting, courting, marrying and losing the young love of his life. Because music is his life (and because nothing is more evocative than music),
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Sheffield's book is suffused with tunes and the moods they capture. If you're old enough to remember the days of mix tapes, this one's for you.Oh, how precious and insufferable this book could have been -- a long, self-absorbed catalogue of hipster postures. But Sheffield is not a typical bedroom-entrapped, socially palsied nerd because his wife got him out into the world -- his ebullient southern rock chick of a wife -- and Sheffield's gratitude for having known her is the force that illuminates the book. Also, when he's not breaking your heart, he's very funny. That never hurts.
Love Is A Mix Tape makes me want to fall in love with somebody who makes me scared to feel so alive. It also makes me want to assemble a bunch of mix tapes. Highly recommended.
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LibraryThing member dele2451
At the risk of being summarily dismissed by the literary snobs amongst you (you know who you are), I'm giving this my rare 5 star rating. Discount this little gem of a pop culture romance/tragedy if you must, but know this: It will be YOUR loss. Sheffield's written a beautiful testimony to the
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timeless power of true love as well as great American music and I recommend it to anybody who has ever experienced (or longed for) either one. Isn't that just about everyone? The only real question is how long you'll be able to resist looking for his playlists after you're done with the book. A DEFINITE recommend. Show Less
LibraryThing member susanbevans
Rob Sheffield's Love is a Mix Tape is a memoir of the short span of time he spent with his wife Renee, before she passed away suddenly and unexpectedly from a pulmonary embolism. A music critic and contributing editor at Rolling Stone Magazine, Rob tells his story through a selection of 22 of the
I'm having a hard time with this review - nothing I am writing seems to do justice to the book. As a teen in the 90's, I was a girl of many mix tapes. I remember most of the music with a great deal of nostalgic fondness - even if I didn't appreciate certain songs at the time.
From Love is a Mix Tape: "There's a lot I miss about the nineties. It was an open, free time of possibilities, changes we thought were permanent. It seemed inconceivable that things would ever go back to the way they were in the eighties, when monsters were running the country and women were only allowed to play bass in indie-rock bands. The nineties moment has been stomped over so completely, it's hard to imagine it ever happened, much less lasted five, six, seven years. Remember Brittany Murphy, the funny, frizzy-haired, Mentos-loving dork in Clueless? By 2002, she was the hood ornament in 8 Mile, just another skinny starlet, an index of everything we've lost in that time."
Rob Sheffield is an amazing writer, deftly blending pop culture references into his story with each new page, leaving the reader breathlessly trying to keep up. His writing is fresh and witty, his journey of healing through music, extremely personal. I really enjoyed following the soundtrack of his life, and I'd like to share a few of the MANY excellent quotes that had me laughing-out-loud:
"Renee was my hero. Have you ever had a hero? Someone who says, I think it would be a good idea for you to steal a car and set it on fire then drive it off a cliff, and you say, Automatic or standard? That's what Renee was. A lion-hearted take-charge southern gal. It didn't take long for us to get all tangled up in each other's hair."
"I realize it's frowned on to choose a mate based on something superficial like the music they love. But superficiality has been good to me."
"We were looking forward to drawing up a prenuptial agreement, but unfortunately, we found out you can't get one unless you own something."
Read this book: if you've ever been in love. Read this book: if you've ever given or received a mix tape. Read this book: for fun and nostalgia or for a wonderful story of love and devotion. Just read this book.
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many mix tapes he and Renee made together and for each other during the decade of Nirvana. Sheffield builds a beautiful love story line-by-line and song-by-song, between a "shy, skinny, Irish Catholic geek from Boston" and a "real cool hell-raising Appalachian punk-rock girl." I'm having a hard time with this review - nothing I am writing seems to do justice to the book. As a teen in the 90's, I was a girl of many mix tapes. I remember most of the music with a great deal of nostalgic fondness - even if I didn't appreciate certain songs at the time.
From Love is a Mix Tape: "There's a lot I miss about the nineties. It was an open, free time of possibilities, changes we thought were permanent. It seemed inconceivable that things would ever go back to the way they were in the eighties, when monsters were running the country and women were only allowed to play bass in indie-rock bands. The nineties moment has been stomped over so completely, it's hard to imagine it ever happened, much less lasted five, six, seven years. Remember Brittany Murphy, the funny, frizzy-haired, Mentos-loving dork in Clueless? By 2002, she was the hood ornament in 8 Mile, just another skinny starlet, an index of everything we've lost in that time."
Rob Sheffield is an amazing writer, deftly blending pop culture references into his story with each new page, leaving the reader breathlessly trying to keep up. His writing is fresh and witty, his journey of healing through music, extremely personal. I really enjoyed following the soundtrack of his life, and I'd like to share a few of the MANY excellent quotes that had me laughing-out-loud:
"Renee was my hero. Have you ever had a hero? Someone who says, I think it would be a good idea for you to steal a car and set it on fire then drive it off a cliff, and you say, Automatic or standard? That's what Renee was. A lion-hearted take-charge southern gal. It didn't take long for us to get all tangled up in each other's hair."
"I realize it's frowned on to choose a mate based on something superficial like the music they love. But superficiality has been good to me."
"We were looking forward to drawing up a prenuptial agreement, but unfortunately, we found out you can't get one unless you own something."
Read this book: if you've ever been in love. Read this book: if you've ever given or received a mix tape. Read this book: for fun and nostalgia or for a wonderful story of love and devotion. Just read this book.
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LibraryThing member kates
An amazing memoir about music, love, and loss by Rolling Stone writer Rob Sheffield. Each chapter is headed by a mix tape, beginning with a disastrous tape he made for an 8th grade dance. He writes briefly about growing up but the focus of the memoir is about falling in love with and marrying his
One of my favorites of 2007.
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sassy Appalachian punk-rock girl, Renee. They forge a life together and he confronts the terror of being a young and unprepared husband to a woman with a giant heart and personality. After five years of marriage, Rob slips into the kitchen to make Renee a snack one day and he comes back to see her stand up, then collapse and die almost instantly, the victim of a pulmonary aneurism. He is even more unprepared to become a widower and struggles to make sense of the loss. An amazing portait of love from a man's point of view.One of my favorites of 2007.
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LibraryThing member vfranklyn
This book was well written and I could sympathize with the narrator. His grief was palpable and his love of music endearing, even though I'm not a big fan of 90s music. I read almost the entire book in one sitting.
LibraryThing member Djupstrom
I loved this book. It was cleverly presented...is it a memoir...is it a biography...is it a commentary on music? I think it is a bit of all the best parts of all of those genres! The "characters" were outrageous and believable at the same time.
LibraryThing member tmamone
I've been a fan of Rob Sheffield's work in Rolling Stone magazine for years, and Love is a Mix Tape did not disappoint me. It's funny, sad, and will make you think of the memories we associate with certain songs.
It's the true story of Sheffield's first wife, Renee. Although the two are total
The book reminds me of a scene in the movie The Crow where Brandon Lee's character, Eric Draven, reflects on his fiancee. "Little things," Draven says, "used to mean so much to Shelly. I thought that they were quite trivial, myself. Believe me, nothing is trivial." And that's what I think Sheffield is saying in this book. The reader might think that the little annecdotes about Renee's love for making her own clothes, for example, might seem trivial at first. But after her death, when Rob finds unused pieces of fabric in their house, nothing is trivial.
Love is a Mix Tape is a great book about love and music, two things that never die
It's the true story of Sheffield's first wife, Renee. Although the two are total
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opposites--she's an outgoing, free-spirited Southern girl, while he's a nebbish, socially-awkward Irish-Catholic--the two share the same passion for music (specifically Big Star and Pavement). The book uses mix tapes to tell the story of their five-year marriage, which ends tragically when Renee dies of pulmonary embolism. The book reminds me of a scene in the movie The Crow where Brandon Lee's character, Eric Draven, reflects on his fiancee. "Little things," Draven says, "used to mean so much to Shelly. I thought that they were quite trivial, myself. Believe me, nothing is trivial." And that's what I think Sheffield is saying in this book. The reader might think that the little annecdotes about Renee's love for making her own clothes, for example, might seem trivial at first. But after her death, when Rob finds unused pieces of fabric in their house, nothing is trivial.
Love is a Mix Tape is a great book about love and music, two things that never die
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LibraryThing member r0ckcandy
I loved this book. It was funny, poignant - a love story without being too mushy or sappy.
LibraryThing member traciolsen
I cried at the Co Op while reading this book.
LibraryThing member glade1
Finished this one just now. It is a wonderful read. Sheffield is so sweet and geeky and romantic, it's hard not to end up with a crush on him! My favorite chapters were actually the ones about his teen years - they were very funny. He has another book out that focuses more on that part of his life;
Another favorite section for me was his discussion of the kindness he experienced after his wife's death: You lose a certain kind of innocence when you experience this type of kindness. You lose your right to be a jaded cynic. You can no longer go back through the looking glass and pretend not to know what you know about kindness...Human benevolence is totally unfair. We don't live in a kind or generous world, yet we are kind and generous. We know the universe is out to burn us, and it gets us all the way it got Renee, but we don't burn each other, not always. We are kind people in an unkind world...How do you pretend you don't know about it, after you see it? How do you go back to acting like you don't need it? How do you even the score and walk off a free man? You can't.
Of course, the love of music pervades the story, and I appreciate the author's eclectic taste in music. We are the same age and I have to admit to being totally ignorant of a large number of the bands he mentions, but even if I had not heard of any of them this would still have been a good book, because music does bring people together and it doesn't really matter which music - I can still identify with that excitement over finding someone with similar tastes, the thrill of discovering a new song or performer. Some might say shared music is a shallow thing on which to build a relationship, but I say it probably works better than a lot of other types of attraction. It is easy to mistake lust for love, sexual compatibility with more general compatibility. At least if you enjoy the same music, there is another dimension to your attraction...
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I've added it to my wish list, of course :)Another favorite section for me was his discussion of the kindness he experienced after his wife's death: You lose a certain kind of innocence when you experience this type of kindness. You lose your right to be a jaded cynic. You can no longer go back through the looking glass and pretend not to know what you know about kindness...Human benevolence is totally unfair. We don't live in a kind or generous world, yet we are kind and generous. We know the universe is out to burn us, and it gets us all the way it got Renee, but we don't burn each other, not always. We are kind people in an unkind world...How do you pretend you don't know about it, after you see it? How do you go back to acting like you don't need it? How do you even the score and walk off a free man? You can't.
Of course, the love of music pervades the story, and I appreciate the author's eclectic taste in music. We are the same age and I have to admit to being totally ignorant of a large number of the bands he mentions, but even if I had not heard of any of them this would still have been a good book, because music does bring people together and it doesn't really matter which music - I can still identify with that excitement over finding someone with similar tastes, the thrill of discovering a new song or performer. Some might say shared music is a shallow thing on which to build a relationship, but I say it probably works better than a lot of other types of attraction. It is easy to mistake lust for love, sexual compatibility with more general compatibility. At least if you enjoy the same music, there is another dimension to your attraction...
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LibraryThing member GaylDasherSmith
The greiving process is in the spotlight here but this is also an encyclopedia of rock of the last 50 years.
LibraryThing member MariaKhristina
Nicely written novel about how music brings people together and how certain songs or albums will make you recall a certain person or time in your life. The part that almost had me in tears was when he explains how Sleater Kinney's "One More Hour" perfectly described the pain he was going through at
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one pinnacle moment in the novel. He also had a nostalgic description about how woman centered the early and mind 90's music and culture were and how it's sad that we probably won't see that for a while ""The nineties fad for indie rock overlapped precisely with the nineties fad for feminism. The idea of a pop culture that was pro-girl, or even just not anti-girl- that was a 1990s mainstream dream, rather than a 1980s or 2000s one, and it was real for a while. Music was not just part of it but leading the way- hard to believe, hard even to remember. But some of us do." I remember and miss those days. Show Less
LibraryThing member librarymeg
I was blown away by the tone and style of this book. It's all about the author's love for his wife, his love for music, his grief at losing his wife, and the way her death has affected the music they both loved. It sounds like a heart-wrenching horror of a story, and it is. But this is where it
He writes very frankly and openly about the music he loves (and his affection is intoxicating), and writes about how awesome his wife was. It's almost like he's a new friend who's telling you about this song you've just got to hear, and this girl he knows who you should meet because she's just that cool. And how she died, and it wrecked his life for awhile, but she's still the coolest person he ever knew. And that the biggest suck of all is that he can't introduce you, because you would have really liked each other. And she would have really dug that song.
It's a sad story, but it isn't self-indulgent which makes it all the more affecting, I think. Really beautiful.
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gets interesting: the book isn't depressing, and the author never once tries to manipulate your emotions.He writes very frankly and openly about the music he loves (and his affection is intoxicating), and writes about how awesome his wife was. It's almost like he's a new friend who's telling you about this song you've just got to hear, and this girl he knows who you should meet because she's just that cool. And how she died, and it wrecked his life for awhile, but she's still the coolest person he ever knew. And that the biggest suck of all is that he can't introduce you, because you would have really liked each other. And she would have really dug that song.
It's a sad story, but it isn't self-indulgent which makes it all the more affecting, I think. Really beautiful.
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LibraryThing member PamelaReads
Rob Sheffield has written the ultimate love letter to his late wife, Rene, as well as paying homage to their favourite music, by sharing with us the various mixed tapes that he listened to before, during and after their relationship had come to pass.
It was heartwarming to hear of his pure and
Because of a terrible obsession I have for playing any songs mentioned in a book while I'm reading it, it took me hours to get through the first chapter. I soon forced myself to carry on without following this tradition, with the promise that upon completion of it I would go back through and listen to the music. I look forward to doing that know, and who knows, I might end up with a few mixed tapes (CDs) of my own by the end of it.
It was heartwarming to hear of his pure and
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irreplaceable love for Rene, and as such I really enjoyed the story, up until she died suddenly of a pulmonary embolism, at which point it became a tad self-indulgent and even boring at times. I suppose this provided a good way to actually feel what Sheffield was feeling at that point in his life, but I'm not sure that was the intention. Because of a terrible obsession I have for playing any songs mentioned in a book while I'm reading it, it took me hours to get through the first chapter. I soon forced myself to carry on without following this tradition, with the promise that upon completion of it I would go back through and listen to the music. I look forward to doing that know, and who knows, I might end up with a few mixed tapes (CDs) of my own by the end of it.
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LibraryThing member bnbookgirl
I truly enjoyed this book. It is a memoir about loss, but written in such a different style, it stands out from others that I have read. The mix tape lists at the beginning of each chapter brought back so many memories for me; I made these tapes, labeled them for different occasions. It is
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interesting how the power of music, and what some music means to us, can get us through tough times, happy times, and so much more. Music can also bridge so many gaps in or lives, be it the death of a loved one, the loss of a job, a special moment or event. Filled with raw emotion and humor, this is a great read for lovers of music, pop culture, and the memoir. Show Less
LibraryThing member pecochran
It was pretty good. Not extraordinarily well written, but a quick and entertaining read. Dark subject, obviously. Kind of hard to recommend.
LibraryThing member Spoo
I'm not sure what I expected from this book. Started it, then dropped it.
LibraryThing member csweder
In a true-High Fidelity fashion, music loving fashion, this book kinda spoke to my soul. First of all, it recognizes the HUGE impact that music has on our life. There are definitely songs that, when I hear them, bring me to another state--another place. I am whisked away to other times/places to be
For Rob Sheffield, this is true as well. But what do you do when you lose the person with whom you've shared so much of that music with? When every new song you hear on the radio makes you think, "Damn, he/she would've LOVED this song?!"
Simple: You get very, very depressed.
And that's the story of this book. This is a book of loss and love. When Rob feels any emotion, he makes a mixed tape (even if it's a CD or playlist on the iPod, he still calls it a mixed tape). This helps him to express the feelings he can't otherwise get out. Looking over my own iTunes...I see MANY playlists that speak to many different emotions. "Upbeat" "Emo" etc.
Each chapter starts with a playlist of songs from a tape that Rob made (or someone in his life), and he tells his story. Quick read, well worth it.
Not that I was keeping track or anything, but Green Day was mentioned (in it's amazing-ness) twice, once on a page that also mentioned Johnny Depp. There was no way this book was not headed for greatness.
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with people I haven't seen in a long time. Such is the power of music.For Rob Sheffield, this is true as well. But what do you do when you lose the person with whom you've shared so much of that music with? When every new song you hear on the radio makes you think, "Damn, he/she would've LOVED this song?!"
Simple: You get very, very depressed.
And that's the story of this book. This is a book of loss and love. When Rob feels any emotion, he makes a mixed tape (even if it's a CD or playlist on the iPod, he still calls it a mixed tape). This helps him to express the feelings he can't otherwise get out. Looking over my own iTunes...I see MANY playlists that speak to many different emotions. "Upbeat" "Emo" etc.
Each chapter starts with a playlist of songs from a tape that Rob made (or someone in his life), and he tells his story. Quick read, well worth it.
Not that I was keeping track or anything, but Green Day was mentioned (in it's amazing-ness) twice, once on a page that also mentioned Johnny Depp. There was no way this book was not headed for greatness.
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LibraryThing member llyoungborg
This is an amazing and heartfelt book. I could not put it down and thus finished it in less then a day. The story was very moving and Sheffield's use of music was something that I could connect with, even if I did not have a connection to most of the music he had on the mix tapes. Highly
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recommended. Show Less
LibraryThing member arsmith
dood. i cried all through the last third of this book. maybe it's the getting close to turning 30 part of me. maybe it's the literary geek in me that feels it is soo hard to communicate, the part of me that retreats into books and music for connection. maybe that's why i loved this memoir. a music
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geek writes passionately about his life, his love, his music. indeed, love is a battlefield. Show Less
LibraryThing member LukeGoldstein
Memoirs are dangerous and tricky things. They can be selfless and selfish at the same time, an expulsion of emotion and memory that you just needed to get out for your own sanity, while simultaneously inviting everyone through the door, basically begging them to ask for even more probing details
Ambition, ambition’s a tricky thing
It’s like riding a unicycle on a dental floss tightrope over a wilderness of razor blades (Matthew Good – Avalanche)
How much do you give of yourself before turning back from that line in the sand? How far do you walk away from the past to allow yourself to put it all down on paper, leaving others a breadcrumb path to wander back into those days gone by? Most importantly, how do you wrap it all up into a package interesting enough to make others want to ignore their own lives, step out of their shoes and walk a few hundred pages in yours? All of those questions and more plague the writer of a memoir, but now and again one finds the right combination, or in this case, the right mix, and everything flows in and out with the regularity and rhythm of the tides. It becomes relaxing and thoughtful, peaceful and terrifying, ever-changing yet always familiar. These are the ones that you read and somehow feel we all lived in our own way.
Love is a Mix Tape by Rob Sheffield is a musically charged farewell letter to a person we’ve all met at some point in our lives. The one who in normal circumstances we would never have the courage to talk to because the worlds were too far apart, but whether through cosmic destiny or the luck of the draw, that person enters your life and ignites the change you always knew would come. The book follows his relationship with his wife Renee and carves out each section in relation to a mix tape made during those cherished moments in history. This harmonic trip into Rob’s life also reminds us of the true power of music, the passion it can instill, the sorrow it can unfold and the memories it can unearth.
I saw this book a long time ago at the store and was instantly drawn to it because I was in the middle of writing my own memoir. My main reason for not reading it back then was I could already tell it was done well and something I would feverishly enjoy, but I didn’t want to consciously or subconsciously rip-off any of Rob’s devices, so I left it lying on the bookstore display table and hid it away on the shelf in the back of my mind. Years later, with my memoir wrapped up, destiny once again dropped this book in my path while trolling through Borders on the first day of their store closing sale (Everything Must Go!…and I want it all to go home with me.).
Any author of a memoir wants the reader to find something to identify with, one portion of their personality or circumstances that can draw the reader that much farther into their world. While I do enjoy my iPod injected rides to work in the morning, singing my way into the work day, hoping it will hold me through, I definitely do not identify with the level of knowledge or intensity Rob has for music (mine is more on the movie front). But as the pages turned and Rob begins to reveal his loss and how it was to walk through the fog of those weeks and months, the words spoke in an entirely new level of honesty and bravery. Anyone who has come through to the other side of a terrible tragedy will find portions of his story incredibly reminiscent of their own, although probably put in more colorful language and set to a better soundtrack. Even those who might still be lost in the fog of sorrow would benefit from this tiny playlist of memories, almost an attempt at one person’s “Guide to Life after Life”. Die hard music fans, especially those who grew up in the angsty revolution of the 90′s, will constantly chuckle with recognition at each song listed out on the mix tape covers, but even those less musically inclined will find their heartstrings played beautifully by this story of rambunctious love and loss.
My recommendation, read Love is a Mix Tape to remind yourself there is music in everything, pleasure and pain, and to never tune it out.
p.s. Favorite line: “We were just a couple of fallen angels, rolling the dice of our lives.”
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than those laid out in the book. A common problem that arises in the development of a memoir is that you have to come off as someone interesting enough to read about, while still remaining human and humble enough that people don’t hate you for having an actual book written about your life. It’s an ambitious undertaking, but as Matthew Good points out so eloquently in his song 21st Century Living:Ambition, ambition’s a tricky thing
It’s like riding a unicycle on a dental floss tightrope over a wilderness of razor blades (Matthew Good – Avalanche)
How much do you give of yourself before turning back from that line in the sand? How far do you walk away from the past to allow yourself to put it all down on paper, leaving others a breadcrumb path to wander back into those days gone by? Most importantly, how do you wrap it all up into a package interesting enough to make others want to ignore their own lives, step out of their shoes and walk a few hundred pages in yours? All of those questions and more plague the writer of a memoir, but now and again one finds the right combination, or in this case, the right mix, and everything flows in and out with the regularity and rhythm of the tides. It becomes relaxing and thoughtful, peaceful and terrifying, ever-changing yet always familiar. These are the ones that you read and somehow feel we all lived in our own way.
Love is a Mix Tape by Rob Sheffield is a musically charged farewell letter to a person we’ve all met at some point in our lives. The one who in normal circumstances we would never have the courage to talk to because the worlds were too far apart, but whether through cosmic destiny or the luck of the draw, that person enters your life and ignites the change you always knew would come. The book follows his relationship with his wife Renee and carves out each section in relation to a mix tape made during those cherished moments in history. This harmonic trip into Rob’s life also reminds us of the true power of music, the passion it can instill, the sorrow it can unfold and the memories it can unearth.
I saw this book a long time ago at the store and was instantly drawn to it because I was in the middle of writing my own memoir. My main reason for not reading it back then was I could already tell it was done well and something I would feverishly enjoy, but I didn’t want to consciously or subconsciously rip-off any of Rob’s devices, so I left it lying on the bookstore display table and hid it away on the shelf in the back of my mind. Years later, with my memoir wrapped up, destiny once again dropped this book in my path while trolling through Borders on the first day of their store closing sale (Everything Must Go!…and I want it all to go home with me.).
Any author of a memoir wants the reader to find something to identify with, one portion of their personality or circumstances that can draw the reader that much farther into their world. While I do enjoy my iPod injected rides to work in the morning, singing my way into the work day, hoping it will hold me through, I definitely do not identify with the level of knowledge or intensity Rob has for music (mine is more on the movie front). But as the pages turned and Rob begins to reveal his loss and how it was to walk through the fog of those weeks and months, the words spoke in an entirely new level of honesty and bravery. Anyone who has come through to the other side of a terrible tragedy will find portions of his story incredibly reminiscent of their own, although probably put in more colorful language and set to a better soundtrack. Even those who might still be lost in the fog of sorrow would benefit from this tiny playlist of memories, almost an attempt at one person’s “Guide to Life after Life”. Die hard music fans, especially those who grew up in the angsty revolution of the 90′s, will constantly chuckle with recognition at each song listed out on the mix tape covers, but even those less musically inclined will find their heartstrings played beautifully by this story of rambunctious love and loss.
My recommendation, read Love is a Mix Tape to remind yourself there is music in everything, pleasure and pain, and to never tune it out.
p.s. Favorite line: “We were just a couple of fallen angels, rolling the dice of our lives.”
Show Less
Subjects
Language
Original publication date
2007
Physical description
240 p.; 7.9 inches
ISBN
1400083036 / 9781400083039
Local notes
BOOKCASE:
SHELF:
OTHER TITLES BY AUTHOR: Talking to Girls About Duran Duran
SHELF:
OTHER TITLES BY AUTHOR: Talking to Girls About Duran Duran