Book cover of Country: The Twisted Roots Of Rock 'n' Roll

Book description

Celebrating the dark origins of our most American music, Country reveals a wild shadowland of history that encompasses blackface minstrels and yodeling cowboys honky-tonk hell and rockabilly heaven medieval myth and musical miscegenation sex, drugs, murder and rays of fierce illumination on Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, and others, famous and…


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Why read it?

1 author picked Country as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

No one can say exactly when Rock ’n’ Roll was born, including biographer, novelist, poet, and recently deceased journalist Nick Tosches, but he provides enough background musings to take us on a wild ride through American musical history.

His book reveals twisted roots indeed, some that provided me with reference material regarding a connection between minstrelsy and one of the most popular Christmas tunes of all time. And a country song breaks loose from the genre corral and into the world of pop music when it is made into one of the best-known ballads ever by a singing politician.

If you love Country...

Book cover of December on 5C4

December on 5C4 by Adam Strassberg,

Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!

On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…

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