Booknote: The Merciless Book of Heavy Metal Lists

Howie Abrams and Sacha Jenkins, The Merciless Book of Heavy Metal Lists. New York: Abrams Image, 2013. ISBN: 978-1-4197-0738-4.

Genre: nonfiction
Subgenre: music, heavy metal, trivia
Format: paperback
Source: Berea branch of the Madison County Public Library

If you are a heavy metal enthusiast, you will likely enjoy this opinionated, informative, and entertaining book. Fans of trivia overall will likely enjoy it too. It is a good book to read through, but you can just browse and read the lists or topics that interest you.

The book has a foreword, an introduction, 21 chapters of lists, and an afterword. Some chapter topics are:

• Albums: The  Good, The Bad, and the Really Ugly. 
• Axes Bold as Fuck (about guitar and bass players). 
• Random Information. Thoughts and Speculation. 
• And Your Mother Dresses You Funny. 
• Reading is Fun-Da-Metal (includes a list of best metal blogs and a heavy metal reading list). 

 Overall, it was a light and amusing book. I learned some new things and enjoyed the humor. Metal fans will probably want it on their shelves. For others, it is mainly a book to borrow rather than buy. In the end, I liked it.

3 out of 5 stars.

Additional reading notes:

From the book's reading list, some books for my TBR pile. Links to WorldCat record where available:

• Moynihan, et.al., Lords of Chaos: the Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground. 
• Ian Christie, Sound of the Beast: the Complete Headbanging History of Heavy Metal. 
• Nikki Sixx, The Heroin Diaries: a Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star. By the way, I had no idea there was also a graphic novel adaptation of the book until I checked WorldCat. Go figure.
• Brian Lew, et.al., Murder in the Front Row: Shots from the Bay Area Thrash Metal Epicenter. 
• Ross Halfin, Iron Maiden: a Photo History.