QUILLBLOG

Authors playing DJ

As mentioned in yesterday’s Quillblog, Paper Cuts, the new litblog launched by New York Times Book Review staffer Dwight Garner, has kicked off a regular feature in which authors are asked to come up with an annotated playlist of songs. First up is George Saunders, whose 22 selections encompass classical, light jazz, classic rock, country, and the Fugees’ cover of “No Woman No Cry” (which Saunders says his daughter turned him onto).

It’s worth mentioning, though, that the music blog Largehearted Boy has been doing exactly this kind of thing for a while now, and that one of its recent “Book Notes” authors was none other than Canadian novelist and bookseller (and Q&Q contributor) Rob Wiersema. Wiersema’s playlist includes tracks by some big guns – Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Miles Davis – as well as CanRock stalwarts the Tragically Hip and Jeff Buckley’s ubiquitous cover of Cohen’s “Hallelujah.”

(And while we’re on the subject of “Hallelujah,” here‘s a look at the song’s history by blogger Michael Barthel; he argues that it’s essentially been hijacked and turned into a sombre lament that it was never supposed to be.)

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