33 1/3 Books

Browsing Barnes & Noble the other day* we noticed this rack of small 33 1/3 books. The books are part of a series published by Continuum. Authors describe stories that were inspired by certain albums and music artists. The top selling books revolve around Neutral Milk Hotel, The Kinks, The Beatles, The Smiths, The Rolling Stones, Joy Division, Velvet Underground, Led Zeppelin, Radiohead and Pink Floyd. The latest book is by John Darnielle and is about Black Sabbath’s Master of Reality. An extract:

Imagine that you are a man from space! And you don’t speak English and you never heard of weed, and you landed in California and the first person you met up with took you to his house and said “Hey check out this band.” And then he played you “Sweet Leaf.” In my opinion, the man from space would hear that song, just the crunchy guitar sound and those bass notes, Geezer Butler is the best bassist it sounds like his strings are made from lime jello salad, and he would start banging his head! Because the riff on “Sweet Leaf,” that is something anybody could understand. ANYBODY.

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* To be honest, we were there not for books but because we were hoping to catch Padma at a Top Chef talk but she wasn’t on the bill.