Joe T. rules BookPeople’s second floor. He is a kind master and brilliant Inventory Manager who knows where every book is on every shelf at all times, because he is also omnipotent. And a righteous karaoke dancer.
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I am always reading. You will find me a t a bar with a book in my hand, at a rock show with my nose in a book, and everywhere else with my fingers wrapped around a book. I’m starting new books before I’m finishing the last three books so I don’t always have a solid list of my favorites for this year. Of the books that I did finish, though, these are among my favorite works of non-fiction for 2011.
The Great Big Book of Horrible Things by Matthew White
This book may well be my favorite book to be released in 2011, proving the point I’ve long maintained: I am a horrible thing. It is, to a certain extent, the Moneyball of atrocity studies as it is the culmination of Matthew White’s obsession with the cold facts and hard numbers behind all the man made disasters since the beginning of recorded history. From the Second Persian War up to the Second Congo War, from Idi Amin to World War II, he lays them all out with wit and verve and opinionated analysis that takes pot shots at both the left and right’s sacred cows. This is THE bathroom book of the 21st century!
It’s So Easy and Other Lies by Duff McKagan
Okay, first things first, Guns N’ Roses’ Appetite for Destruction is one of my all time greatest desert island albums ever and Duff McKagan, after Izzy Stradlin, was my favorite gunner when I was a wee lad of twelve. So of course I had to read this even if I didn’t expect much from it. OH JEEBUS! This book is amazing. Instead of being the typical trash talking memoir we’ve come to expect from celebraties these days, it is in fact an honest and gripping portrayal of life in the glare of being in the “Most Dangerous Band In America.” I loved it. Duff is just adorable and proves what I felt when I met him back in the late nineties, he is one of the nicest guys alive.
I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution by Craig Marks and Rob Tannenbaum
The oral history to end all oral histories, this book tells the story of the rise of the cultural juggernaut in all its tawdry, sordid details. Sex? Check. Drugs? Check. Rock ‘n Roll? Check. Billy Squier talking about how a pink tank top ruined his career? Check. It’s filled to overflowing with hilarious anecdotes that you WILL repeat to all of your friends. If the Duff McKagan book is all about respect and restrain, this book is the complete opposite, just as any history of MTV should be.
Supergods by Grant Morrison
Grant Morrison may well be my favorite living writer. His imagination, based on popular culture dosed with Robert Anton Wilson and every idea you’ve ever had at three in the morning, turned comic books into the second coming of The Beatles and changed the industry like no one else except for Alan Moore. In this book,a self-penned hagiography of sorts, Grant tackles such weighty topics as his life and his writing (oh, and some other people’s as well) and how Super Heroes are The New Gods for our times.
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