Browse a Bookstore While You Can

By ROB PATTERSON

I recently mentioned how my mother asked me if I’d read any good books lately. And I had to tell her that I’d more been watching TV than reading.

That prompted me to resolve to go book shopping – a process that has changed since with the growth of the Internet. The Borders chain went down in 2011, and Barnes & Noble, which bought out Borders, is struggling (and as of this writing is up for sale itself). Independent bookstores are still hanging on, but not everywhere. Amazon is now the giant in the book sales market, and I do buy from there on occasion.

But I like the experience of browsing the shelves, reading a book’s cover copy, and leafing through the pages. And I prefer the tactile pleasure of reading a printed book to e-books or listening to audio books.

Some cities still have thriving independent bookstores. There are stores that sell used books and sometimes also overstocked or remaindered books that were somewhat recently published. Small independent used bookstores can still be found here and there. I like doing most of my shopping at the Texas-based Half Price Books chain, with a number of locations here in Austin where I live and some 120 stores nationwide. The selection of used and remainders is always broad and the prices are right. (They are also very involved in community work and programs.)

When I had a few free minutes not long ago, I stopped into the Half Price nearest me and quickly found two books I might want. And then I spotted it: a book I’d read good reviews of and knew I wanted to read.

It’s Clothes Clothes Clothes Music Music Music Boys Boys Boys by Viv Albertine. She’s primarily known as the guitarist and songwriter for the late-1970s post-punk band The Slits. Albertine was also friends with such legendary seminal punk acts as the Sex Pistols and The Clash; the latter band took The Slits on tour as an opening act and guitarist Mick Jones was Viv’s on-again/off-again boyfriend. Though in the grand scheme of things The Slits may appear to be something of a footnote, among their fans was Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain.

Before you sign off thinking, well, doesn’t really seem like a book that would interest me, heed what England’s Telegraph said about Clothes ... Music ... Boys. “You don’t need to be a fans of The Slits or even punk to be gripped from the start.” It’s a rich and compelling book, wonderfully written with an incisive honesty and sense of herself and her place in the world as a woman.

Hence, in addition to being an evocative memoir about the early punk years in London and being in a pioneering all woman rock band, it’s a book about a life lived fully, sometimes painfully, and always informed by the lessons learned along Albertine’s personal journey. It’s an insightful and colorful coming of age story that blossoms as she moves into adulthood and then studies and works in TV and film, marries and deals with all that comes, good and not so, from that union, struggles to conceive a child and finally becomes a mother, and battles and finally survives cancer.

It’s also a book that pulled me in from the first paragraphs and wooed me to read on in every free moment I had until I almost sadly yet still feeling rewarded came to its last page. That’s the kind of book reading experience I cherish.

Populist Picks

TV Documentary: Who Shot the Sheriff? – The first entry into Netflix’s “Remastered” series examines the 1976 shooting of reggae superstar Bob Marley at his home in Kingston, Jamaica, and the nation’s fractious political divide between between the Leftist PNP and right-wing JLP that surrounded it. Three days later he courageously played a scheduled national unity concert, then left the island for a three-and-a-half year exile in London and on tour. An excellent examination of Marley’s political and cultural importance.

Musical Album: Golden Hour by Kacey Musgraves – It’s the women who are leading the creative way in today’s county music – a genre I have all but given up on in disgust. And Musgraves is right at the head of the pack. Her latest LP is only nominally country but largely plays within a space all her own amidst that style, rock, smart pop and contemporary singer-songwriter stylings. With a sweet, gentle vibe (yet still assertive), and on some songs influenced by her first LSD trip, Musgraves says, this is a delicious slice of nutritious musical candy that shimmers throughout.

Rob Patterson is a music and entertainment writer in Austin, Texas. Email orca@prismnet.com.

From The Progressive Populist, April 15, 2019

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