The Picador Book Room

Every few months, a new Spotify playlist about books/authors/writing seems to make the rounds. It’s always the same fifteen songs, though: something by The Police, some Ryan Adams; “Catcher in the Rye” by Guns N’ Roses.

And I can’t see “Hey Jack Kerouac” (by 10,000 Maniacs) listed again. Not when there’s a song called “New York Times Book Review” on a J Church gatefold LP that I actually own and cherish and blast mid-winter to remember what summer feels like. 

So, without further ado… 140 other literary (or contextually literary) tracks to cherry pick for your bookish mixtapes: Lit. Rock Deep Cuts

Embarrassing fact: My record cabinet (pictured above) is decoupaged with Joyce’s Dubliners, so you know I’m for real.

A sampling:

“You Are A Writer” - Daniel Johnston

“Ode to Self Publishing” - The Hidden Cameras

“New York Times Book Review” - J Church

“Books About Miles Davis” - The Ergs

“Young Adult Friction” - The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart

“I Need Feedback” - Swingin’ Utters

“Proofreading” - Oxford Collapse

“We Are Both Writers” - Kind of Like Spitting

“Anchorless” - Propaghandi

“Historical Fiction” - The Measure (SA)

“The Words” - Lungfish

“One Act Play!” - Dead Mechanical

“Public Domain” - The Dopamines

“Turn Your Page” - Eddy Current Suppression Ring

“Albert Camus” - Titus Andronicus

“Rough Draft” - Lemuria

“The Collected Works” - A.C. Newman

“Lovecraft in Brooklyn” - The Mountain Goats

“We Are All Accelerated Readers” -Los Campesinos!

“My Favorite Book (Flack)” - Stars

“Farrar, Straus & Giroux (Sea of Tears)” - Destroyer

“Paperback Head” - Tegan and Sara

“Bookshop Casanova” - The Clientelle

“I am the Uncorrected” - Billy Childish

“I Like the Books of Jane Austen” - Papa Razzi and the Photogs

“Alphabet Aerobics” - Blackalicious

“Simple Words” - Madeline

“Every Word in the World” - Robert Pollard

“Heart of Darkness” - Sparklehorse

“I Typed for Miles” - Jets to Brazil

“At the Academic Conference” - Dent May

“The House That Jack Kerouac Built” - The Go-Betweens

“Word Attack” - The Adolescents

“Books” - Leatherface

“Book of Stories” - The Drums

“I Knew Prufrock Before He Got Famous” - Frank Turner

“She’s Never Read My Poems” - The Television Personalities

“Books About UFOs” - Hüsker Dü

“Heart of a Broken Story” - The Promise Ring

“Bookstore (Mote)” - Sonic Youth

“Books Written for Girls” - Camera Obscura

“A Single Hand Writing Several Stories” - Her Space Holiday

“I Am The Alphabet” - Black Moth Super Rainbow

“First Page Of My Book” - Joey Briggs

“The Trials of Oscar Wilde” - Dead To Me

“Lexicon Devil” - The Germs

And so many more… 

UPDATE: Full playlist (for those without Spotify) can be found in the comments.