Great Gift Ideas: '80s Books

As Christmas approaches and the Holiday Season continues, here's two possible gift ideas for your friend who loves '80s culture. One is a book called Mad World: An Oral History of New Wave Artists And Songs That Defined The 1980s.  Its a book that takes you on a memory trip back to the new wave era of the '80s. Each chapter of the book discusses a single well-known '80s song and the group that did it. Songs dealt with include "I Melt With You" by Modern English, "The Metro" by Berlin, "Girls On Film," by Duran Duran, and other similar beloved songs from the '80s.

 

This book just came out and it's really a wonderful trip back in time for the fan of '80s music, the groups that made the songs, and the times when it all occurred.

Here's a great companion book that came out about a year or two ago, called Talking To Girls About Duran Duran by Rob Sheffield. In the book, Sheffield gives a great account of growing up as a teen in the '80s decade. Ironically, this book is set up in a similar fashion to Mad World, in that each chapter is named after a specific '80s song which in some way connects with the youthful topic or incident that the chapter deals with. The real stories brought up in this book will bring up instant memories for those of us who grew in that era.

 

I think it says a lot about the '80s that both of these '80s related books are structured around specific songs . . . the '80s indeed were an era where memories seem most closely tied to specific songs, perhaps more so than other decades. It was indeed, the last great era of pop.

The Pursuit of Cool, and other stuff

I've been surfing around the net, perusing my fellow retro bloggers, and discovered this great review of a new '80s oriented novel and interview with its author over at Kickin It Old School. KIOS is an excellent blog, especially for fans of '80s culture, often featuring some great interviews with '80s figures.


Recently, it featured a post on The Pursuit of Cool, a recently released novel about college life during the '80s. It sounds like a great flashback to that era. There is also an interview with the author, Robb Skidmore, where he talks about the '80s, and his memories of them. There is a great quote from him in the interview, which is just so "spot on" about the '80s:



The 80s was a charmed era and a truly great time to be young. The Cold War had 
stalled into a nonevent and it was a period of peace and prosperity. With no wars to 
fight, young people had lots of spare time. In 1981, MTV appeared on cable television 
converters and everybody watched it, constantly. The vibe of the videos, like the 80s 
in general, was generally happy and celebratory. But the 80s also had a very 
purposeful, ambitious edge as well. There was a career chic that made achievement 
and wealth a popular thing.

I just can't help but agree with this description. He talks about his own experience with the '80s, with John Hughes movies, with '80s music, and other elements of '80s culture. Commenting about '80s music, he says: "I still love 80s music and listen to it. The range and quality and originality of music produced in that era I don't think has been surpassed." I just wanted to recommend checking out the interview and the book as well. 


Also check out my own list of recommended '80s books in this Christmas post.


Looking around the retro-blogosphere for '80s subjects:

Fourth Grade Nothing recently had a post on another of my fave '80s flicks, the cult classic The Last Starfighter.

Totally Radical Awesome 80s had a post on the charity recording, USA for Africa, which included the '80s classic "We Are The Word." The song collected funds for famine relief in Africa.

And finishing up my recent string of Eurythmics videos, here's a song and video I remember well from 1985: "There Must Be An Angel (Playing With My Heart."


Annie Lennox truly had a voice for all seasons.

Bright Lights Big City

We are all familiar with the "brat pack" of '80s movie actors, but did you know there was also a literary brat pack as well?

Back in the mid '80s, a several young writers became associated with being the new faces of literature. Among them, Jay McInerney (Bright Lights, Big City), Bret Easton Ellis (Less Than Zero), and Tama Janowitz (Slaves of New York). The term "literary brat pack" soon began to be applied to this group, as well as certain other writers similarly associated. The works of these writers often involved the realities of modern life in the '80s, and were usually written in a minimalist, stripped down style.

I've always had a fondness for McInerney's first breakthrough work, Bright Lights, Big City. The novel, which came out in 1984, was unique in that it was told entirely in second person singular. It detailed the life of a young writer in '80s New York, who was working in the fact-checking department of a major magazine. The main character went through the process of disappointment with his profession, the difficulties of the break up of his relationship, and his ultimate disillusionment with the fast-paced Yuppie lifestyle which he had fallen into. 

When I first read the novel, I was in college in the mid '90s, and already having major nostalgia for the '80s. I picked up Bright Lights, Big City, and was immediately drawn into this world of '80s upwardly mobile aspirations. The main character proved worthy of sympathy as he searched for himself amidst the chaos of his personal life and the fast moving urban world where he lived.

Here's a brief snippet from the novel that I always find myself returning to, I guess because I myself sometimes feel as the character here is described to feel. This excerpt is told, as is the novel, in second person singular: 

Once upon a time, you assumed you were very likable. That you had an attractive 

wife and a fairly interesting job seemed only your due. You were a good guy. You 

deserved some of the world's booty. After you met Amanda and came to New York, you 

began to feel that you were no longer on the outside looking in. When you were 

growing up you suspected that everyone else had been let in on some fundamental secret 

which was kept from you. Others seemed to know what they were doing. This conviction 

grew with each new school you attended. Your father's annual job transfers made you 

the perennial new kid. Every year there was a new body of lore to be mastered. The 

color of your bike, your socks, was always wrong. If you ever go into psychoanalysis, 

you will insist that the primal scene is not the encounter of parents in coitus: it takes 

the shape of a ring of schoolchildren, like Indians surrounding a wagon train, laughing 

with malice, pointing their vicious little fingers to insist upon your otherness. The 

scene repeated itself in schoolyards across the country. Not until you reached 

college, where everyone started fresh, did you begin to pick up the tricks of winning

 friends and influencing people. Although you became adept, you also felt that you were 

exercising an acquired skill,  something that came naturally to others. You succeeded 

in faking everyone out, and never quite lost the fear that you would eventually be 

discovered a fraud, an impostor in the social circle. Which is just about how you feel 

these days. Even now, as you puff yourself up with tales of high adventure in 

magazine publishing, you can see Elaine's eyes wandering out over the room, 

leaving you behind. She's drinking champagne.