1/26 Reading at Pete’s Candy Store
I am reading on Thursday at 7:30 as part of Pete’s Reading Series, along with Rosie Schaap! Details here. See you there?
I am reading on Thursday at 7:30 as part of Pete’s Reading Series, along with Rosie Schaap! Details here. See you there?
Lots of amazing things going on:
I’ll also be appearing at the reading series at Pete’s Candy Store (along with Rosie Schaap) on January 26, 2012.
I am thrilled to have been asked to contribute to Largehearted Boy’s “Book Notes” series on the blog today. I’ve been reading these for years and it was always a wish on my part to be asked to be contribute to this series – “authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book” on one of my favorite blogs. (If you don’t know Largehearted Boy, and you love books and music, you are missing out.)
“Caryn Rose’s B-Sides and Broken Hearts is a rare book, one that incorporates music seamlessly into its core. Rose’s debut novel is filled with characters whose love for music is great and relatable, their passion for ’80s and ’90s indie rock and punk jumps off the page in this absorbing novel. In her own words, here is Caryn Rose’s Book Notes music playlist for her debut novel, B-Sides and Broken Hearts.”
B-sides and Broken Hearts got a great writeup in the Huffington Post‘s article “Great Rock and Roll Reads for the Fall”:
“If you’ve ever sat in a diner at 3 a.m. after a concert and hashed over the set list minute by minute, song by song — or marked the events in your life by what tour was taking place at the time, or which record was just released — or waited in line all night to buy concert tickets – or drove across the country to see a show — then likely you will enjoy this book as much as I did…Rose is steeped in rock and roll history, this is her life blood, she walks the walk and talks the talk.”
I was against the idea of wasting time and energy on a book launch party for my novel, B-sides and Broken Hearts, until I had the brainwave to use the occasion to invite some of my amazing friends to read with me, and then I suddenly liked the idea a whole lot.
So I invited Maura Johnston (Village Voice), Evie Nagy (RollingStone.com), Judy McGuire (Dategirl columnist and author of How Not To Date), Devon Maloney (Billboard Pro) and Jillian Mapes (Billboard) and amazingly, they all said YES. I called it “You Sure Know A Lot About Music For A Girl” because part of the genesis of writing B-sides was that I was tired of books about rock and roll where the women didn’t know anything or were relegated to mixing drinks in the background, and because, even in 2011, WE STILL HEAR THAT KIND OF SHIT.
The trailer for my novel B-sides and Broken Hearts, featuring original music by Joel Graves from Everest, and memorabilia from my personal collection. If I’m not in the photo, I was behind the camera.
There’s going to be a contest around the trailer for people who are on my mailing list.
Messrs Patell and Waterman kindly invited me to contribute my own NYC-themed playlist to to their blog, in honor of the publication of their 33 1/3 tomes on Some Girls and Marquee Moon (highly recommended!).
(Also of note, their appearance at my local bookstore, Word, later this month!)
I remember the night Joey died. I remember getting the news, I remember the first email hitting my inbox with a ding and then the ding ding ding continuing, building, as I sat there reading that first email with that first news story, not believing what I was reading, and then reading it again and again as though rereading it I would find something different, that he would somehow not be dead. I remember listening to the U2 show from Irving Plaza and thinking that things sounded good, as they covered “I Remember You,” not knowing that they had just seen Joey in his hospital room and things were not good, at all. I remember sitting there feeling alone, 3,000 miles away from New York City, wanting to go into a bodega, buy a 7 day votive candle, walk down Bowery and stand in front of CBGBs and light that candle and stand there and cry for a good long while. But I couldn’t do that, because I wasn’t there.
A few months later, I started a novel about how someone’s life changed the night Joey Ramone died. It was originally titled JOEY RAMONE IS DEAD, and is now called B-SIDES AND BROKEN HEARTS, and it’s (finally) being published this summer.
If you want to find out when the book is available, you can sign up for my mailing list. (God, that sounds weird.) I will also post more info here over the coming weeks.
I’ll be on Live From E Street Nation next Friday, 9/24 at 10:30am EST, where I’ll be grilling Dave Marsh on Darkness On The Edge Of Town.
Readers may remember that I had submitted a proposal to write a 33 1/3 on Darkness, which made it through the first round of approvals, but not the second and final round. Dave was going to be one of my sources, so I’m going to take advantage of all the research I did to put the proposal together and ask him the questions for our collective benefit.
elsewhere