Customer Reviews

The Sharper Word: A Mod Reader

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

One of the finest books I have read in a long time, a very sharp look at the mod culture of which I was one, this book took me back to a time I had enjoyed and lived, I would recomend this book to any one who has followed the mod culture through all its rebirths over the last 40 years. If I had any critisism it would be a lack of photographs but this doesnt detract from the content of the book I have read it three times now, the first reading was accomplished in one sitting I could not put the book down.

This collection of 31 excerpts from various works of music and cultural journalism, biography, and fiction seeks to shed light on the little-understood "mod" subculture. Hewitt has done well to seek out the relevant passages from a wide range of sources, although Richard Barnes' "Mods!", Nik Cohn's "Ball the Wall" and Johnathan Green's "Days in the Life: Voices from the English Underground 1961-1971" are each excerpted three times. The first-hand accounts of living the mod life are fairly uniform in their descriptions and as a whole tend to expose the mod subculture as a fairly empty narcissistic enterprise--albeit a sharp one. Only in "Ace Face" (and former Who crony) Pete Meaden's rambling 1978 NME interview is there any sense of a larger purpose, but then he comes across as a bit of a whacked-out dreamer compared to all the other sartorial hipsters. Still, worth reading if you're interested in the history of the mod subculture. It's a shame the publishers didn't devote any time or effort to the look of the book. From weak cover to atrocious typography, it exhibits none of the attention to detail that characterized the essence of mod style.

Its a cool collection of interviews, newstories, book excerpts, etc. Really concentrates more on peakcockish mods than hard mods. Definatley makes those early mods extremely fanatical.

a wonderful, richly detailed compendium of mod literature and philosophy by recognised experts. comes close to putting a finger on an elusive movement.