New Book Release: "You Don't Know Me But You Don't Like Me" By Nathan Rabin

NEW FROM THE AUTHOR MINDY KALING CALLED “SMART AND FUNNY”

YOU DON’T KNOW ME

BUT YOU DON’T LIKE ME

By Nathan Rabin

 “I love this book. Not only is it funny and well written, but it is, dare I say… beautiful. People could learn a thing or two from Nathan. Instead of judging new things and keeping them at bay because they’re “scary” or “shitty,” he embraces them and walks away with rich life experiences. So, give yourself a rich life experience of your own and read this book  Then, when you’re finished, go and see a Phish show. What do you have to lose? Nothing. What do you have to gain? – maybe they’ll play a thirty minute “Tweezer” and you’ll get to see god.”

―Harris Wittels

“…his gonzo approach to journalism makes him a spiritual kin of Hunter S. Thompson and Matt Taibbi. A wild rock ’n’ roll ride.”

―Kirkus

“Whether or not you enjoy either of these two acts, the story told here is in part a universal one about the way any of us find the music we adore. By making it personal, and by profiling such a broad spectrum of fans, [Rabin’s] greatest accomplishment is putting a human face

 on what could be a caricature.”

―Publishers Weekly

When Nathan Rabin set out as a journalist and critic to explore two very curious groups of individuals—those neo-hippies who are fans of Phish and the infamous devotees of Insane Clown Posse (ICP) who call themselves “juggalos”—he never suspected his life would spiral out of control along the way. He also never expected to become a diehard fan of both of these oft-maligned bands.

Written in the same spirit of his 2009 memoir, The Big Rewind: A Memoir Brought to You by Pop Culture—which was critically acclaimed by such cultural forces as Roger Ebert, who called it “compulsively readable;” Rich Dahm, co-Executive producer of The Colbert Report, who said it was “heartbreaking and hilarious;” and Dwight Garner, who wrote in The New York Times that the book is “packed…like a cannon, full of caustic wit and bruised feelings”— YOU DON’T KNOW ME BUT YOU DON’T LIKE ME: Phish, Insane Clown Posse, and My Misadventures with Two of Music’s Most Maligned Tribes (Scribner; On-Sale 6/11/13) is part-memoir and part-pop culture handbook.

In YOU DON’T KNOW ME BUT YOU DON’T LIKE ME, Nathan Rabin shocks and awes again with his willingness to immerse himself in the experience, his extraordinary ability to befriend the strangest of characters, and his woeful tendency to attract pain and misery. As he skitters his way across the stranger recesses of the United States, Rabin’s life and mental health begin to crumble. And, in an exceedingly odd turn of events, he becomes an employee of "Weird Al" Yankovic when the parody king and beloved American icon hand-picks Rabin to write the text for his coffee table book. By the end of his journey, Rabin pulls himself back from the brink of mental breakdown, near professional and financial ruin, and several drug-induced calamities. In the process, he makes a critical discovery about his mental health and puts the fractured pieces of his life back into place—all the while offering a thorough and insightful look at the counterculture followings of Phish and ICP. The quest Rabin undergoes in YOU DON’T KNOW ME BUT YOU DON’T LIKE ME to understand the massive underground following these fringe bands have attracted coincides with his own journey of self-discovery, ending, true to Rabinian form, in the contrasting outcomes of a daunting psychological diagnosis and a marriage proposal.

Equal parts heartbreaking and triumphant, YOU DON’T KNOW ME BUT YOU DON’T LIKE ME sheds a new light on the outcasts that make up the ICP and Phish fan-bases. Rabin places his experiences among them within the framework of his own mental struggle, connecting deeply to each group and casting aside long-ingrained prejudices. A truly uplifting and an entirely unique read, YOU DON’T KNOW ME BUT YOU DON’T LIKE ME is a wild and refreshing tale of coming of age again in your thirties.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Nathan Rabin is a staff writer for The Dissolve, a new film website from the popular music website Pitchfork. Previously, he was the head writer for The A.V. Club, the entertainment guide of The Onion, a position he held until recently since he was a college student at University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1997. Rabin is also the author of a memoir, The Big Rewind, and an essay collection based on one of his columns, My Year of Flops. He most recently collaborated with pop parodist “weird Al” Yankovic on a coffee table book titled Weird Al: The Book. Rabin’s writing has also appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Spin, The Huffington Post, Boston Globe, Nerve, and Modern Humorist. He lives in Chicago with his wife.

PRAISE FOR THE WORK OF NATHAN RABIN:

“I'm not as interested in anything as much as Nathan Rabin

is interested in everything.”

―Chuck Klosterman

"Rabin writes like the secret love child of Woody Allen and Lester Bangs:

Honest, erudite, neurotically manic, and very funny."

―Neal Pollack

“Nathan Rabin's life reads like a fanboy's collision with Dostoyevsky. This hilarious, sad, truthful memoir is compulsively readable […] He chronicles his adventures with a cross between utter shamelessness and painful honesty,

and he is very funny.”

―Roger Ebert

“Nathan’s memoir is your memoir is my memoir. You will experience moments of sour disagreement, followed by, ‘Oh wow, me too!’. A book that reads like a conversation. Terrific.”

―Patton Oswalt

“The Big Rewind is heartbreaking and hilarious. Based on the incidents in this book, it’s amazing Nathan Rabin is still alive, much less one of the sharpest pop-culture critics around.

I just hope he’s learned his lesson about dating loonball polyamorists.”

—Rich Dahm, Co-Executive Producer of The Colbert Report

“Through all the shame and depression, Rabin found a life preserver in the form of popular culture…underneath all of the quirky structure, mewling apathy, and caustic wit, Rabin tells a sweet tale of finding one’s place in life.”

—Booklist (starred review)

“Engaging, maddening, hilarious and excessive.”

—Kirkus Reviews

“Jon Krakauer’s writing is beyond vivid. You feel the cold of Everest as you read his words. Into Thin Air is a harrowing journey, well worth your time. I’ve also heard great things about Nathan Rabin’s My Year of Flops.”

—Aziz Ansari

"Nathan Rabin's My Year of Flops is funnier than John Travolta's facial hair in Battlefield Earth. He's a brave man for undertaking this dangerous mission and returning alive with a highly entertaining tale."

—A.J. Jacobs, author of The Year of Living Biblically