God Save My Queen

This book is amazing. Any Queen fan who has felt at some point some surreal connection with the band will benefit greatly from reading this and its companion. It puts into words the abstract forms of things I'd never thought to try and describe. Parts of it brought tears to my eyes; parts of it made me laugh out loud. There are few things I can say that express what the book is, let alone its greatness. In any case, it is not a fan biography; it isn't a review; it is simply a genre in itself as something completely unique from anything else I've ever read. And it rocks.

Daniel Nester is an obsessed fan. Nothing strange there - lots of music books are written by fans. The difference is that Nester - also a New York poet - takes his fandom seriously; he considers it a suitable topic for poetry. And why not? Post-baby-boomers tend to define themselves by their cultural affiliations - whether you like the Smiths or System of a Down, pop taste articulates your personality, your stance towards the world. Nester's prose poems - one for every Queen song - go well beyond the traditional tribute. They explore the odd, obsessive mindset of the fan, the curious distance and closeness he feels towards his chosen object. The poems are madly associative in the Beat tradition but also toy with a pedantic scholarly bent, particularly in the hilarious footnotes. This bold work deserves to be read and discussed.

I believe that any music obsessive can always identify another. Just by casually glancing at this book I immediately recognized the author as a genuine fanatic. But the book isn't merely the ramblings of a Queen junkie (that would hardly be enough). It is a carefully crafted trip down the author's own memory lane with Queen as the singular, all-consuming soundtrack. The result is so infectious that I could hardly believe that I was anxious to read it again (rare for a book of poetry). It also made me anxious to revisit the Queen canon. A perfectly fitting tribute to a great (and sometimes underrated) band.

I'm a Queen fan, so I went online to look for a few books about the band, and I found this. I'm not really into poetry, but this book rocked. There were a few times I laughed out loud when I was reading it. This guy is funny and sincere. I'm 30, and there was something about this book that reminded me of when I was 12 or 13 and first getting into music. It's more about being a weirdo teenager than anything else. I really liked it. Also, it's the size of a 45, which is cool.

I loved this book! These short pieces have an impressive breadth--the copious footnotes reference everything from a WWII era letter from the author's grandfather, to the guitarist Brian May's Phd thesis. Captures the singular obsession of fandom and the desire to write this peculiar catelogue of knowledge into one's own biography. A personal allegory for a media-driven consumer age. Not what I expected, but very cool indeed!