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The Name of This Book is Talking Heads
Krista Reese
Amazon link

(Fun fact: I finished this book in about two hours, while waiting for an event that I was doing for my internship.)



Long out of print, Reese's chronicle of everyone's favorite polo-shirt-wearing CBGB band (my God, if you thought Vampire Weekend, I'll kick yer ass) is a definitive yet sparse one. Why sparse? It's not for the obvious reason: the book was published in 1982 and no further editions ever came out to cover Speaking in Tongues and so on. It's because there is very little about the past lives of each band member. And perhaps, that was not the point of the book. And I'll commend Reese on that. After all, I feel weird knowing really personal stuff about celebrities and if it has no bearing on the history of a rock band, no skin off my nose if it isn't in there.

If you have read the Wikipedia page on them, well, this book would be a step up from there. I think if this continued onto the rest of Talking Heads' eighties domination and added a bit more detail, this would be near perfect. For what it is right now, it's not that bad. There are tidbits that I read in here that I've yet to find in other sources (e.g. the issues that they faced with having a female [Tina Weymouth] in the group).

One thing I must point out is... whoever edited this needed a second opinion. I counted quite a few spelling errors. Now I know the book was printed in England, but these errors I saw, I'm certain they aren't British spellings.

Do I recommend it? If you've already read This Must Be the Place (like yours truly) and the Wikipedia page and anything else... this book will not be breaking new ground. If you are a sucker for out-of-print books and want to learn more about this band, then by all means... try out eBay. That's where I found my copy.

If you can find it or even borrow it, have yourself a read. It won't take too long.