New Book: Lou Reed: A Life by Anthony DeCurtis

A few weeks ago, I finished Chuck Klosterman X: A Highly Specific, Defiantly Incomplete History of the Early 21st Century by Chuck Klosterman.  It's a collection of essays and articles he has written over the past 19 years on various pop culture and sports-related topics.  There is a lot of good stuff in there, including some of his interviews with various musicians, ranging from Eddie Van Halen to Taylor Swift.  My favorite piece was his lengthy article about KISS, chronicling and rating every album (both group and solo), and providing various other ruminations about the band.  He also had two pieces on Lou Reed, which is timely, considering . . . .

I have since started reading Lou Reed: A Life by Anthony DeCurtis.  I'm already about halfway through.  Having been a Velvet Underground fan since the mid '90s, I recently came to the realization that I didn't know much about Lou Reed himself or much about his solo work post-VU -- other than the Transformer album and "Walk On The Wild Side," which everyone knows.  Obviously, I know he's widely considered one of the most influential rock stars ever and that he had a reputation for being an asshole, but my knowledge has been relatively limited to this point to rock docs or books about punk in general (and his influence).  So I decided to get a Lou Reed bio.  It didn't hurt that the book was written by fellow IU alum and acclaimed rock journalist Anthony DeCurtis, who apparently was one of the few journalists who had a good rapport with Reed -- granted, not a good enough rapport for DeCurtis to write a Lou Reed biography before Reed died.

Books Read in 2019:
-The Anatomy of Evil by Michael H. Stone, M.D.
-The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King
-Room Full of Mirrors: A Biography of Jimi Hendrix by Charles R. Cross
-Chuck Klosterman X: A Highly Specific, Defiantly Incomplete History of the Early 21st Century by Chuck Klosterman