The Importance of Music to Girls - Softcover

Greenlaw, Lavinia

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0571230296 ISBN 13: 9780571230297

Publisher: Faber & Faber, 2008

Synopsis

The Importance of Music to Girls tells the story of the adventures that music leads us into - getting drunk, falling in love, cutting our hair, wanting to change the world - as well as the darker side of the adolescent years: loneliness, bullying, getting arrested. Lavinia Greenlaw remembers the music that inspired and accompanied her, and compelled her generation. From fancying Donny Osmond, to wanting to be Ian Curtis, this is a razor-sharp memoir, filtered through the medium of music.

About this title

Review:

'An award-winning poet and radio dramatist, Greenlaw has a gift for creating maximum impact in just a few words. There were several moments while reading The Importance of Music to Girls when I felt as if I had been hit in the stomach...There's a visceral itensity to this evocation of a misspent girlhood, as if all that angst and rebellion had been distilled into essence of punk. It should probably be required reading for all teenage girls' -- Kate Chisholm, Spectator

'The soundtrack to Lavinia Greenlaw's life ... reads like a playlist from the greatest fantasy radio station of all time ... Dylan would be proud.' -- Shirley Halperin, Entertainment Weekly

'The writing of this passionate memoir is unflinching and true.' -- Daily Telegraph

'a highly original memoire ... "High Fidelity" for chicks. It has all the coming-of-age angst and humour of Hornby's classic, and, too, all the sense of pop music knowledge as secret handshake' -- Margaret Sullivan, Buffalo News

'instantly appealing, especially for girls with iPods and thousands of songs on their laptops ready with a click to play the instant a momentous kiss or dance occurs.'
-- Jayanthi Daniel, New York Sun

`Her lyrical style recalls the depth of Joy Division and the joys of Donna Summer'
-- Frances Wilson, Daily Telegraph

`I know at least three people in their late thirties who will be thrilled to read The Importance of Music to Girls. `A strange and beautifully orchestrated collection of prose and poetry'
-- Polly Samson, Guardian

`Poet and novelist Lavinia Greenlaw's enchanting new book is a series of vignettes documenting the author's relationship with music... as this lovely book shows, for many girls, music is what makes adolescence bearable...Greenlaw vividly captures that teenage realisation that the only person who understands exactly what you're feeling is the person singing on your stereo' -- The Gloss Magazine

`The Importance of Music to Girls is as much about the love of words as the sound of music...Greenlaw's subject is not only childhood but writing itself . Her lyrical style recalls the depth of Joy Division and the joys of Donna Summer' -- Frances Wilson, Daily Telegraph

`[A] highly original and idiosyncratic memoir...in beautiful prose Greenlaw explains how her disparate musical experiences shaped her personality, helping her to form relationships and to assert her place in the world...[it] will resonate with everyone who has ever danced around a handbag or played air guitar' -- Val Hennessy, Daily Mail Critics Choice

Book Description:

The Importance of Music to Girls is award-winning poet and novelist Lavinia Greenlaw's vivid and engaging portrait of what music means to us as we grow up.

About this edition

• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0571230296
• ISBN 13: 9780571230297
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 208