On Sunday, George Lewis Jr., a/k/a TWIN SHADOW, brings his new-wave and R&B-inflected indie-pop to the Paradise, where he'll play songs from his latest record, Confess. Released in July via 4AD, the introspective album has an unconventional companion piece: Lewis's recently penned first novel, The Night of the Silver Sun, which is not yet in print, though excerpts are online. To get a sense of his literary inspirations, we asked the onetime Bostonian, now based in Brooklyn, for a list of reads he recommends. He named favorite classics (Lolita, American Psycho) as well as recent discoveries.THESUBTERRANEANS BY JACK KEROUAC
"A lot of people overlook him and don't take him seriously because they want to lump him in with the whole beat-poetry thing," Lewis says. "He really had nothing to do with that term. He was such an outsider." The Subterraneans is about Kerouac's short-lived romance with an African-American woman. "I really connected with the [discussion] of relationships between people who aren't the same race," he adds. "I think it's a brilliant book."
THE POETRY OF ERIC GREEN
"He is putting together a book of poetry right now, and I've been reading a lot of it," says Lewis of his friend Green, an American poet and artist based in Berlin. "He's an incredible writer, and I just know he's going to come out with something that's going to blow everybody's minds."
LIFE BY KEITH RICHARDS
"Sometimes you don't need a book to be anything more than entertaining," says Lewis. "And [Life] is wildly entertaining. It's fun to hear about other people's stories on the road — and realize how much more fun they had than you are having."
Related:
Review: La Roux at the Paradise, Not teens, not dreams, This bird can sing, More 
- Review: La Roux at the Paradise
"I could have been singing this at the Grammys — but I'm here with you tonight," declared Elly Jackson, the public face of La Roux, with a detectable dash of annoyance folded into several dollops of playful sarcasm.
- Not teens, not dreams
“The abstract has been very good to us.” I am communicating via e-mail with the two members of Baltimore’s dreamy pop choir Beach House, and to be honest, I don’t know which one of them made that statement.
- This bird can sing
For any artist, there comes a time when you must assess just what it is you have to offer the world.
- Photos: Yeasayer and Sleigh Bells
Photos of Yeasayer and Sleigh Bells on tour.
- Powering up with the Smith Westerns
Sometimes when we settle into the tattered sofa of lo-fi pop music, it's easy to imagine that the artists intended for it to be made this way.
- Die Antwoord | Ten$ion
Moreso than any "controversially-lipped" chanteuse (to borrow from one of Lana Del Rey's many observers), South African rap/rave/meme/satire/knuckleheads Die Antwoord beg the question:"Is that all there is?"
- At home with Sharon Van Etten
Sharon Van Etten is peeling an orange in her South Brooklyn apartment.
- Band of Skulls | Sweet Sour
Band of Skulls aren't innovators, and they probably won't ever be.
- Spiritualized | Sweet Heart Sweet Light
Whenever an artist looks back to a high point in his or her catalogue for inspiration in building a new work, it's typically "uh-oh" time.
- The Ting Tings just won’t go away
The 2000s as a whole felt like a giant one-hit-wonder tar pit, but the decade also had a silver lining for young bands — television commercials.
- Alabama Shakes | Boys & Girls
In 2012, every other mainstream female pop singer is trying her hand at honest-to-God soul, shooting stylistically for Aretha Franklin (by way of Adele's 21) but usually winding up closer to early-Nelly Furtado.
- Less
Topics:
Music Features
, Paradise Rock Club, Music, Books, More
, Paradise Rock Club, Music, Books, Arts, R&B, Twin Shadow, Twin Shadow, synth pop, Less
