Emotional Rescue: Essays on Love, Loss, and Life--With a Soundtrack

What songs have made up your life’s soundtrack? Which have captured your every mood and deepest sentiments? Pop music, like no other form of entertainment or art, is capable of articulating our feelings, desires, joy, and pain. In a few soul-grabbing minutes, artists from every genre—from Little Richard to Lou Reed, Willie Nelson to Wu-Tang Clan, Sly and the Family Stone to the Rolling Stones—can help us understand our place in our own lives.

This collection of short, sharp essays by New York Times bestselling author Ben Greenman (Mo’ Meta Blues), organized around a thematic playlist of songs, serves as a reminder of the lyrical power of songwriting and the sonic ability of pop to capture the human experience. Greenman’s wit, insight, and honesty are as sweet and satisfying as the hits (and the deep cuts) at the center of each essay.

Ben Greenman is a contributing writer to the New Yorker and the author of eight books of fiction. His most recent novel is The Slippage, and his latest collection of short stories is What He’s Poised to Do. He has collaborated with Questlove on the New York Times bestselling hip-hop memoir Mo’ Meta Blues and on Something to Food About, which explores the intersection of creativity and eating, and he also cowrote George Clinton’s memoir, Brothas Be, Yo Like George, Ain’t That Funkin’ Kinda Hard on You?