I’m borderline obsessed with Lou Reed’s Transformer — to the point where I could probably recite the album’s entire wikipedia page from memory. Despite its lush sonics and poetic simplicity, it was the most punk thing Bowie ever did. Yes, I know he’s only listed as the album’s producer, but — let’s be real — Transformer is a Bowie album, note-for-note (go ahead, try and convince me that Lou Reed, whose greatest achievement is a two chord song about the tribulations of being junkie, wrote Perfect Day).

Anyways, I just finished Ezra Furman’s book on Transformer, published through Bloomsbury’s 33 ⅓ series, and only now do I truly understand just how deep the rabbit hole goes.

A good portion of the novella is spent analyzing Lou’s hazy lyrical themes, decoding subliminal messages, and providing insight into the recording process via a series of obscure studio anecdotes; it’s the kind of sacred knowledge reserved only for the most devout of nerds.

Laudations aside, Furman spends as much time praising the artist’s work as she does condemning the artist himself; a few surprisingly vicious editorial passages regarding Lou’s vexed personal life are purposefully crafted to direct any worship to Lou’s music rather than his complicated legacy of hubristic cool-ness.

That being said, If you aren’t a fan of Lou’s, no sweat; to date, 168 different entries in the 33 ⅓ saga have been published, each chronicling a different album, each written by a different author.

Just to help give you an idea of the series’ range, here are a few notable titles: Slayer’s Reign In Blood, Television’s Marquee Moon, Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew, Roxy Music’s Avalon, Dusty Springfield’s Dusty in Memphis, Phish’s A Live One (not sure who greenlighted that one), MC5’s Kick Out the Jams… the list goes on. No two entries are alike, each varying in literary style and cadence. For instance; Ben Sisario’s Doolittle reads like a long-form Frank Black interview, while John Darnielle’s fictitious Master of Reality is designed to read as pages from a spiraling psych ward patient’s therapy journal. There is no formula.

““It was only a matter of time before a clever publisher realized that there is an audience for whom Exile on Main Street or Electric Ladyland are as significant and worthy of study as The Catcher in the Rye or Middlemarch…””

— The New York Times Book Review

This week in Sunday With Books, we’re highlighting the 33 ⅓ series, a retrospective-style collection of short but sweet journalistic investigations into what makes the greatest music of all time so great. Part two in our “books that read well and look good on your coffee table” series. We’ll let you take your pick for this one, but these are next on our list:

Wire’s Pink Flag by Wilson Neate

Pink Floyd’s The Piper at the Gates of Dawn by John Cavanagh

The Flying Burrito Brothers’ The Gilded Palace of Sin by Bob Proehl

Throbbing Gristle’s 20 Jazz Funk Greats by Drew Daniel

Talking Heads’ Fear of Music by Jonathan Lethem

Nick Drake’s Pink Moon by Amanda Petrusich

Beastie Boys’ Paul’s Boutique by Dan Le Roy

—Jackson Todd