When Rolling Stone staffer Sheffield’s wife Renee died suddenly, he trawled back through the mix tapes they used to make each other throughout the course of their tragically short relationship. At times almost unbearably poignant, Sheffield’s music memoir is, ultimately, an uplifting hymn to the redemptive power of song and the connections that music makes throughout life.
In this stunning memoir, Rob Sheffield, a veteran rock and pop culture critic and staff writer for Rolling Stone magazine, tells the story of his musical coming of age, and how rock music, the first love of his life, led him to his second, a girl named Renee. Rob and Renee's life together - they wed after graduate school, both became music journalists, and were married only five years when Renee died suddenly on Mother's Day, 1997 - is shared through the window of the mix tapes they obsessively compiled.
There are mixes to court each other, mixes for road trips, mixes for doing the dishes, mixes for sleeping - and, eventually, mixes to mourn Rob's greatest loss. The tunes were among the great musical output of the early 1990s - Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Pavement, Yo La Tengo, REM, Weezer - as well as classics by The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Aretha Franklin and more.
Mixing the skilful, tragic punch of Dave Eggers and the romantic honesty of Nick Hornby, Love is a Mix Tape is a story of lost love and the kick-you-in-the-gut energy of great pop music.
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
ISBN: 9780749928759
Number of pages: 240
Weight: 167 g
Dimensions: 133 x 200 x 16 mm
Packs a surprising, epic, life-affirming punch - THE SUNDAY TIMES
Sheffield's self-depreciating memoir of his late wife Renee is remarkable . . . You'll leave feeling uplifted - Q magazine
A memoir that manages, no small feat, to be funny and beautifully forlorn at the same time - NEW YOUR TIMES BOOK REVIEW
As well as being a poignant account of youthful love, LOVE IS A MIX TAPE offers a witty and affectionate portrait of liberal, alternative small-town American life in the decade of grunge - TLS
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