Last week author T. Cooper did a Book Notes playlist for Large Hearted Boy. We will be celebrating the McSweeney’s release of T. Cooper’s Real Man Adventures on Sunday with T. Cooper and performances from Hem, the Wingdale Community Singers, and more.

Here’s a little of what T. Cooper had to say about his playlist to Large Hearted Boy:

“Real Man Adventures is my first nonfiction book. Roughly, it is a meditation on the topic of masculinity, with autobiographical elements. Also kind of a love story. It is not a memoir. But sure, there’s a little memoir in there, in addition to interviews, journalism, essay, a poem, artwork, a few six-word-memoirs, some lists and letters, and other things I should probably leave out to build a sense of mystery. I already produced a playlist for the book: an actual album on CD with mostly original songs inspired by specific chapters of the book–written and recorded by amazing artists I’m honored and humbled to have had the opportunity to work with. I can’t offer those actual songs here, because most of them are only on the CD (which is available for free, but in limited quantities with purchase of the book–or from me in person at my events, many of which will feature artists playing their music, including songs from the CD).

The reason I produced a CD for the book was probably to take a little focus off myself. That’s not entirely true, but there is some truth to that. Mostly I wanted very much not to be the end-all be-all authority on the subject of masculinity, and for the Real Man Adventures album to take the conversation off the page and into another medium, creating a sort of chorus of voices sounding off on what it means to be a man. And on the flipside, a woman. Or even somewhere in between.”
Read the full post at Large Hearted Boy.

You can listen to the full playlist on Spotify, or you can just come to the show. We’ll be playing the playlist between sets on Sunday.

posted by dustin