3 music-related books this spring for East Village readers

A shelf view at Book Club Bar on Third Street

Three new books out this spring have strong East Village ties — and all are music-related. 

Let's take a look...

• "Almost Grown" 

East Village-based singer-songwriter Jesse Malin's memoir details how this "hyperactive kid from Queens made his dreams come true." 

Malin, a partner in several East Village establishments, including Niagara, 96 Tears and the Bowery Palace, launched his music career at 12, fronting the hardcore band Heart Attack. He was later the lead vocalist of D Generation during the 1990s. 

Malin has become a prolific artist with nine studio albums and collaborations with Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello, and Billie Joe Armstrong. 

In May 2023, Malin suffered a rare spinal stroke that left him paralyzed from the waist down. 

Book details here.

• "No New York: A Memoir of No Wave and the Women Who Shaped the Scene" 

Per the description:

Adele Bertei didn’t just witness the No Wave explosion — she ignited it. As acetone organist for the Contortions and Brian Eno’s assistant, she was at the epicenter when punk collided with post-punk, when Lydia Lunch screamed her first songs, when Kathy Acker was penning her transgressive novels, when Kathryn Bigelow was making her first films. No New York reveals the untold story of the boundary-pushing women who made No Wave possible...

Book info here.

• "Found Time"

Caroline Goldstein's "second-chance romance" questions whether a whirlwind, week-long love story can still stir something three decades later. (We're also told that "it's also secretly a history of the East Village 1993-2023.") 

Per the description: 

In 1993, Lili and Reid locked eyes after a Jeff Buckley show at Sin-é in New York's East Village. Their connection is immediate and intense—kicking off a steamy summer romance that cracks something open for both of them — but then Reid heads off to pursue his career. And it's the '90s, so stalking isn't the same... 

Thirty years later, they’re both navigating midlife as single parents of teen girls when they cross paths once more. (Literally, the teens get in a fight in the bathroom line at a concert.) Can they find their way to each other through the complexities of adulthood better than they could during the relative simplicity of their youth? 

Book info here. 

Vogue published an excerpt at this link.