Novels and their Playlists

In my class tonight, we discussed making connections between books and other forms of media.  Pairing books and movies together was one of our first suggestions...  A classmate suggested pairing David Levithan's Every Day with Memento, which I have not actually seen (but am now fully aware that the director, Christopher Nolan, was not responsible for the new Transformers franchise...  Sorry, Michael Bay; oh, my sides...).  The point of the exercise was to get us thinking outside the box, which we so often do in librarianship--we can't help it.  Boxes are helpful.

At one point, my professor brought up the idea of playlists for books, like with Eleanor & Park.  There are plenty of fan-made music playlists out there to go with E&P, and various other titles.  The playlist discussion made me think of a few authors immediately: Maggie Stiefvater, Stephenie Meyer, and Stephen Chbosky.

Maggie is a fabulous example of pairing music with writing.  She's a gifted musician who often writes her own music to go with her stories (color me impressed, as long as it's purple).  Additionally, she creates playlists to complement her books, and for her fans to enjoy.  It's such an inviting part of the Maggie Stiefvater experience.  You can check out her website to see the music created for the book (I'm a big Wolves of Mercy Falls fan, but I am also very much in love with the story/music of The Raven Cycle), or her blog for all of her playlists.

Back in the days when I was reading the Twilight series, I stumbled upon Stephenie Meyer's website and discovered that she loved writing while playing music, and she provided her personal playlists for each book.  I loved that!  She lists her musical choices for each book on their individual pages, but here is the playlist for Twilight.  She was probably the first author I knew of that did this, so I'll always appreciate that she shared this with her fans.

Stephen Chbosky may be a little more indirect (or more direct, if you think of it another way), but if you've ever read The Perks of Being a Wallflower, you know what I'm getting at.  Chbosky's main character, Charlie, loves to make mix tapes for his friends, and describes making a mix for Patrick about winter.  He picks several songs that remind him of the season, starting (and ending) with Asleep by the Smiths.  Ever since I read that book back in high school, I cannot help but think of Charlie when I hear the Moody Blues's Knights in White Satin (another song for Patrick).  When my head was still swimming with the book, I went searching for the songs on iTunes and found that someone had already compiled the entire mix tape into a playlist that you could download instantly.  Chbosky provided a list of all of the songs and fans went ahead and replicated the playlist so that they could enjoy the story in a different way.  Although published in '99, when CDs were new/popular, I have to wonder how many readers made their own mix tapes in honor of Charlie.

Fans themselves make their own playlists of songs that remind them of their favorite stories.  I've never really made an entire playlist based on a book, but I like when songs remind me of things I've read.  "Jump Into the Fog" by The Wombats makes me think of Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins each time without fail, and there's a great Death Cab for Cutie song called "Be Still My Heart" that, embarrassingly enough, always makes me think of Bella's love for Edward in Twilight (again, I know; I'm sorry).  Once you make those connections, it's hard to shake them!

I've included my two songs so that you can experience the same connection I made with them.  I hope you enjoy!

 

What are some songs that make you think of your favorite books?