In this tuneful coming-of-age memoir, the glamorous New Wave band Duran Duran presides spiritually over the all-consuming teenage male efforts to comprehend the opposite sex. Music journalist Sheffield (Love Is a Mix Tape) chronicles his passage through the 1980s in a series of chapters in which period groups—from headliners like Roxy Music and Prince to one-hit wonders like Haysi Fantayzee of “Shiny Shiny” semifame—provides musical accompaniment to his adolescent angst. They are the soundtrack to his fumbling attempts to dance or make passes at girls, to weather a winless stint on the high school wrestling team, to survive a summer job as an ice-cream truck driver. The relationship insights he arrives at—chiefly, the imperative of unquestioning submission to female whims—are no more or less cogent than the song lyrics he gleans them from. The book really shines as a collection of free-form riffs on the glorious foolishness of Reagan-era entertainment—the movie E.T., he writes, was about “a sad muppet who thought he was David Bowie”—and its weirdly resonant emotional impact. The result is a funny, poignant browse from a wonderful pop-culture evocateur. (July)

Prequel to Rolling Stone contributing editor Sheffield's Love Is a Mix Tape (2007). There's a truism in rock that a breakthrough hit the first time through will often lead to a sophomore slump. The author's second attempt to use favorite songs to reflect on and illuminate his life isn't really a disappointment, though it necessarily lacks the emotional power of Mix Tape. Where that memoir of the 1990s had a natural narrative arc, from the birth of love to the heartbreaking death of the author's young wife, this successor, which focuses on the '80s-the musical culture and the author's formative years-is more of a hodge-podge collection of essays straining for cohesion. Proceeding chronologically, with 25 chapters titled after songs released during the '80s, Sheffield pursues a general theme of how girls and boys talk about, think about and feel about music differently. There are incisive chapters on Hall & Oates, Paul McCartney and the Replacements ("they made good imaginary friends"), along with revelations about how the author was an altar boy until 16, never had a girlfriend until 19 and had a traumatic experience clipping his grandfather's toenails. Though the reader learns in passing about the author's remarriage, much of the talk about girls concerns his younger sisters, "the coolest people I knew." Where Sheffield's debut felt cathartic, some of this book seems comparatively glib-for example, "There are times in a man's life that can only be described as ?times in a man's life.' The first time he experiences A Flock of Seagulls is one of them"; "MTV was, roughly speaking, the greatest thing ever."Those who loved the author's debut should enjoy this follow-up.