As the founding member and leader of the American rock band Wilco, and before that the cofounder of the alt-country band Uncle Tupelo, Jeff Tweedy is one of contemporary American music’s most accomplished songwriters, musicians, and performers.His new book is Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back): A Memoir of Recording and Discording with Wilco, Etc.
One of Tweedy's six favorite books, as shared at The Week magazine:
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes (translated by Edith Grossman)Read about another entry on the list.
I've sometimes told people that if they want to understand what "rock and roll" means to me, they should read Don Quixote. Which is an unbelievably obnoxious thing to say and also something I stand by. Without Sancho Panza believing in or at least humoring his "liege," the magic evaporates. It feels incredible to suspend disbelief and subscribe to the world-changing spell cast by a rock song. What's wrong with that? Lots, probably. But life would suck without it.
Don Quixote was the second most popular book among prisoners at the U.S. base at Guantánamo Bay. It is on Ben Okri's six best books list, Bruce Wagner's six favorite books list, Panayiota Kuvetakis's top ten list of fictional best friends we'd like to have as nonfictional best friends, and John Mullan's lists of ten of the best literary women dressed as men and ten of the best books written in prison.
Paul Auster always returns to Don Quixote; Claire Messud hasn't read it.
--Marshal Zeringue
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