A sort of literary music minute. Punks. Jews. Springsteen. Love. Okay, we're not sure about the love part in general, but we're feeling it. Big time.

Last week we were riffing on meeting author David Masciotra who's doing this new joint on Bruce Springsteen at Continuum and then almost immediately we see that Continuum has posted some lengthy blurbage about the book Working on a Dream - The Progressive Political Vision of Bruce Springsteen on their website. Quite cool stuff indeed. And then today we see that The New York Times, yes that New York Times, has done a piece about a gathering and panel discussion in New York City on the intersection between being punk and being Jewish led by some legendary Jew Punks, Tommy Ramone and Lenny Kaye among others, and in the article they quote author and friend Steven Lee Beeber's most excellent book The Heebie-Jeebies at CBGB's, which we have written about here in the blog and reviewed for Wonka Vision magazine. Also good stuff. And all worth checking-out don't you think? Way.

The TBWCYL, Inc. 2008 Top Ten Lists are coming and today you get our Top Ten Books. No for real, you do. Just look below.

It is Top Ten time here are TBWCYL, Inc. and our plan is to roll out lists on books, movies and music as we did last year and maybe add one on television this year as well. As we have also done in the past, we are not limiting our books list to books released in 2008, though we will do so with our other lists. On the other hand, we are quite pleased to say that we have done some kind of review on everyone of these books during the last year here at This Blog Will Change Your Life, and while we may be terribly biased in our reviews and choices, something that bothers us not in the least, we are happy to say that we have also had the opportunity to connect with everyone of these authors in some capacity, which frankly is quite cool, for us anyway, the experience for them may have been something else entirely. That said, here we go (including the hyperlink to our previous reviews):

(1) Breaking it Down - Rusty Barnes
(2) The Lost Episodes of Beatie Scareli - Ginnetta Correli
(3) Black Flies - Shannon Burke
(4) Half-Empty - Tim Hall
(5) The Heebie-Jeebies and CBGB's - Steven Lee Beeber
(6) Songs of Insurgency - Spencer Dew
(7) Sunbeams and Cigarettes - Nick Ostdick
(8) The Love Book - Ken Wohlrob
(9) Unmarketable - Anne Elizabeth Moore
(10) When the Leaves are Falling - Kelly Moran

Honorable mention: I Call This Flirting - Sherrie Flick, Unlucky Lucky Days - Daniel Grandbois and My Inflatable Friend - The Confessions of Rollo Hemphill - Gerald Jones.

Please note, that all of these books are self-published or released by independent presses, something that pleases us to no end. Also, we honestly believe that all of these books will change your life, though to be honest, even if they don't, your patronage and support will certainly help change the lives of the authors and their publishers.

Awake - A Reader for the Sleepless rocks it. A lot.

We have finished AWAKE - A Reader for the Sleepless and it is an eclectic, free-wheeling trip through the endless confusion, compulsions and complexes that those of us who find ourselves counting ceiling tiles late at night know all too well. Big props to editor and Jew Punk Steven Lee Beeber and for those of you interested in his take on this anthology, as well as, his fantastic book The Heebie-Jeebies at CBGB's you need look no further than If I Could Sleep, I Would Dream of Joey Ramone an interview/book review we did with him for Wonka Vision magazine. We should add here, that while we are contractually obligated to reference the interview, we really do think you will enjoy it. A lot. Plus, we also think that it just might change your life, well at least, a little, and if you don't, or it doesn't, please let us know, because we are always happy to talk refunds.

Orange Alert Press reading love, Songs of Insurgency and Joey Ramone.

Much awesomeness to touch on including, but not limited to the fact that last night was the inaugural Orange Alert Press reading at The Whistler and it rocked, big time, and for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was the killer line-up - the great local writer and terribly handsome Robert Duffer who read a new piece he's working on, the quite cool Stephanie Kuehnert author of the awesomely well-received novel I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone, read from her forthcoming novel Ballads of Suburbia, and maybe our favorite local live reader Spencer Dew read a new piece as well called Why I am a Catholic. So yes, quite happening, and yes, much newness going on, but we also want to take a moment to touch on two additional and not so tangential topics. First, we have finished engorging ourselves on the killer paranoia driven near tales of love lost, crushed and stroked that comprise Spencer's short story collection Songs of Insurgency and loved it to say the least, so go buy it, please, it just may change your life, and two, our book review/interview with Jew Punk Steven Lee Beeber author of the most excellent Heebie-Jeebies at CBGB's and editor of the wonderfully tortured insomnia anthology AWAKE! which is titled If I could sleep, I would dream about Joey Ramone - you see the tie-in, right, nice - is now live and begging to be read, so we would be thrilled if you chose to read that too. Though no pressure or anything, we're just saying.

Jewish punks and insomnia. What else could you want?

We are most happy to have met writer and way cool dude Steven Lee Beeber who has not one, but two books out that we are very excited to read. The first is The Heebie-Jeebies at CBGB's - A Secret History of Jewish Punks, which we are quite stoked about, and the second is a book Steven edited for Soft Skull, yes that Soft Skull, called Awake! A Reader for the Sleepless, which looks like much fun and is not only filled with many authors we all know and love including Jonathan Messinger, Jonathan Ames, Aimee Bender, Neil Pollack and many, many more, but includes an awesome Beeber riff on Vinnie Spano. Yes, the Vinnie Spano. We will let you know what we think about the books when we get through them, but in the interim why not go out and get them anyway? On the one hand, you get to support independent media. On the other, you get to feel good about yourself for doing so. And what could beat that? Not much, well besides re-watching Indian Summer of course.