The Bluffer's Guide to Rock - By Eamonn Forde

So over hipster coffee sometime circa the new year, we sat down to Bluffer's Guide to Rock. Yes, I am a fan on books. No, I am not a fan of eBooks. I don't know, most of them feels too much like just reading off a webpage, you know what I mean? All those endless scrolling. Meh. I am happy to report, however, that the Bluffer's platform is actually pretty realistic to the simple yet essential experience of flipping pages. And that is pretty cool. Particular given our hipster cafe experience. Yes, we were suitably hip for the venue.

Oh, but the real joy came from reading the guide itself. So what the book essential sets out to do is turn the reader into an "overnight" expert in the subject of the book, and in this case, rock. The music, not the earthly mineral LOL. My guest co-reviewer is CK who is a rock music enthusiast and I am happy to report that the rock and roll legends mentioned in the book has earned this man's approval. I particularly found the more quirky trivias interesting. Stuff that make certain rock legends stand out from the rest. The good, the bad, but most frequently the ugly. Which is juiciests, really in our opinion.

The coolest thing about the experience is that for the next few days, we found ourselves streaming songs that we found in the book so we could listen to them with much greater appreciation. Like the Ramones. We streamed the Ramones' 1976 album almost right away. Of course, it was not the first time we are hearing their songs, but we have not heard it since like literally forever and the book had made us realise how some of their quirks (like how "most of their songs are under two minutes long and are like comic books and B-movies set to guitars that sound like confused punk wasp"). Oh yes, it really does!

We like the writing style of the writer, particularly how he lets his personality be his style in the book. It is like being in a fun and lively discussion with friends. Almost banter-ish. I guess that is great as it helps the overnight rock expert wannabe also have an opinion about different aspects of rock. CK reserves though, that the writer has underplayed U2's contribution to the genre. Well, I guess that is what books like this are exactly for. To have an opinion.

Bluffer's has over 80 titles of these kind of guide books and they make really great gifts. If you'd like to see their other titles or buy the books, just click over here. There is a 3 for 2 boxset giftset available which is a really good deal.