Books like This Is What It Sounds Like — picked by fans

Having spent seven years researching and writing about Prince (and another year updating the book), I spoke to as many people who worked and lived with him as I could. While my book is rich with information gleaned from interviews, alongside my own analysis, there were a few people who didn’t talk to me. Of the above, I did talk to Dez Dickerson, but the others were holding off (presumably because their own books were in the works). All the books below work as perfect compliments to mine and are all must-haves for any Prince fan’s purple library.

Having spent seven years researching and writing about Prince (and another year updating the book), I spoke to as many people who worked and lived with him as I could. While my book is rich with information gleaned from interviews, alongside my own analysis, there were a few people who didn’t talk to me. Of the above, I did talk to Dez Dickerson, but the others were holding off (presumably because their own books were in the works). All the books below work as perfect compliments to mine and are all must-haves for any Prince fan’s purple library.

Having spent seven years researching and writing about Prince (and another year updating the book), I spoke to as many people who worked and lived with him as I could. While my book is rich with information gleaned from interviews, alongside my own analysis, there were a few people who didn’t talk to me. Of the above, I did talk to Dez Dickerson, but the others were holding off (presumably because their own books were in the works). All the books below work as perfect compliments to mine and are all must-haves for any Prince fan’s purple library.

Having spent seven years researching and writing about Prince (and another year updating the book), I spoke to as many people who worked and lived with him as I could. While my book is rich with information gleaned from interviews, alongside my own analysis, there were a few people who didn’t talk to me. Of the above, I did talk to Dez Dickerson, but the others were holding off (presumably because their own books were in the works). All the books below work as perfect compliments to mine and are all must-haves for any Prince fan’s purple library.

Music is a major passion of mine. I’m highly involved in making and promoting independent music both locally and internationally via social media. The primary focus of all my endeavors is promoting a do-it-yourself ethos. Whenever I work with musicians, I’m always fascinated by how their creativity allows them to do a lot with a little. Hence, I suppose, the story of Frankie Lumlit. It’s a story about falling in love with music and finding a way to make it even when the world says no.

Kristina Parro is a long-time Taylor Swift fan who dove deep into the stories and lyrics of folklore to help her overcome the tumultuous period she spent as a front-line healthcare worker during the pandemic. She discovered layers of deep meaning and surprising connections in the album, as well as throughout Taylor’s entire collection, that led her down a rabbit hole of her own. A quest that brought her to a more enlightened state of being. Lucky is Parro’s first novel. She's currently working on another adult-fiction manuscript. You can also find her hosting a live, weekly show on Instagram, during which she has insightful conversations with authors, artists, thinkers, creatives, and Taylor Swift fans! 

I love music books and annoy my wife with how many I consume per month. (She wants me to read fiction. Pish-posh.) The ones that play with format and provide multiple viewpoints are my favorites. I became a music journalist after spending my teenage years in a ska band; that alone taught me that music is complex, ever-evolving, and the technical is intrinsically tied to the personal. I approached my book with the same acknowledgment of diverse opinions and fierce emotional connection. I have devoted my life to loving and playing ska, and it seemed to be the only genre lacking a defender. The defender turned out to be me. 

I’m a historian of the senses. When I first traveled to the United States, I was fascinated and overwhelmed by the smell and sound of the streets entirely different from my hometown in Japan. Since then, every time I go abroad, I enjoy various sensory experiences in each country. The first thing I always notice is the smell of the airport which is different from country to country. We all have the senses, but we sense things differently—and these differences are cultural. I wondered if they are also historical. That was the beginning of my inquiry into how our sensory experience has been constructed and changed over time.

With three kids, bedtime at my house is usually nuts. When we strike gold with a great bedtime read that’s funny or cozy, or better yet, BOTH, it becomes part of our permanent rotation. I love finding books that make my kids excited about story time (and just maybe encourage them to get through their bedtime routines a little faster). As a children’s picture book author, my own books are inspired by my kids’ everyday lives, and sleep, or lack thereof, is a topic that I always find so very relatable!

Classical music has been one of the great passions of my life, ever since at the age of 6 my father introduced me to the magic of Chopin’s Polonaise héroïque, by improvising the story that the music was telling, creating a magical mosaic of notes and words. I then realized that music tells stories and that musical stories do not only offer pleasure, excitement, and consolation, but also act as sources of insight into the world we inhabit, in all its complexity and drama. I have since made classical music a regular part of my life, Bach, Mozart, Chopin, and Beethoven being intimate friends and acquaintances, not distant historical figures.