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Get It While You Can
by
When his beloved guitar is stolen, Nick Jaina finds himself untethered from the dream he’s pursued since he was sixteen. No matter how many albums he’s released or tours he’s led, he still can’t shake the feeling that he has failed at life. So the critically acclaimed, endlessly heartbroken singer-songwriter checks himself into a ten-day silent retreat. As those silent day
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Paperback, First, 224 pages
Published
January 8th 2015
by Perfect Day Publishing
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I experienced the author, Nick Jaina, reading some sections of the book as well as playing music as a performance. The reading/music was an excellent pitch. I bought the book on the spot. "Get It While You Can" is a satisfying hybrid of memoir, prose, and essay. It has a story arch, but can be read in fits and spurts. I have not read another book like it. If you are looking for something modern, accessibly existential, and deep, I would recommend this book.
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I love everything about this memoir. My copy is full of bookmarks for passages that spoke to me. 25 stars!! He is performing at the Sou'wester Lodge the Sunday eve after this review.
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I believe musicians are geniuses. But rather than their “genius craft” is solving proofs with derivations, organizing the periodic table, or designing a tesla, instead, they create art that resonates with the complexities of human emotion. This books expresses what it’s like to be in the mind of this type of genius. If you love books and love music read this book.
Absolutely fantastic. Clearly trying hard to say something meaningful, but then actually does so
36: Get it While You Can by Nick Jaina...which I bought from Nick and had signed two weeks ago when he visited the high school I taught at and performed with Stelth Ulvang in an intimate concert that was wonderful. As Nick inscribed in my copy of his book, "Dear Janelle, This is a book about wry things.<3 Nick" and it is, and I love it. Nick spends the entire book of his own non-fiction story, at a no-communication meditation retreat, writing love letters that he may or may not send, thinking ab
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This book was enjoyable, though on a weird inter-referential level. I met Jaina at a book festival earlier this year and he struck me as being a cool person and on an admirable path creatively. So I went into this book biased in his favor. It's basically a lot of soul searching, self discovery, that kind of crap. Fellow artists beating their own heads against the wall of American indifference will find it easy to relate. A humbling memoir or a memoir of a humbling. Take a break from beating your
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Memoir's not really my thing, unless it's funny, like David Sedaris, or gorgeously written, like Amos Oz. Nick Jaina's Get It While You Can was original and well written enough to hold my interest.
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This is one of the best books I’ve read in a very, very long time. I found myself dog-earring so many passages to revisit that I started reading with a highlighter in hand.
Jaina is able to describe little pieces of life and love in a way that is very relatable and just the right amount of philosophical so that his writing is still accessible.
Jaina is able to describe little pieces of life and love in a way that is very relatable and just the right amount of philosophical so that his writing is still accessible.
What I really appreciated about this book is the way that Jaina’s background in music emerges through the intricate lyricism of the prose. This book is something of a mixed media project, and, having seen Nick Jaina read material from this work, it makes perfect sense that his musical background would have such a strong influence on his writing. Jaina’s readings always incorporate some musical element, which seems to perfectly dovetail with the musical sensibility of the book’s structure and lyr
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Nick weaves together unsent love letters, descriptions of famous live performances, stories of touring with his band, and stories of slowly realizing he's not going to make it in the music industry. Heartbreaking, funny, and insightful.
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Loved the poetic imagery when I heard the author read several letters from this book between his songs at a show and bought the book there. It is a wonderful read especially on the recent raining days in the Bay area.
This statement should be taken with a grain of salt, as I am the publisher of this book, but with the publication of Get It While You Can, Nick Jaina joins Patti Smith, Keith Richards, and Dean Wareham atop the list of songwriters turned memoirists. Hilarious, heartfelt, and full of wonder...
Brilliant writer and poetic narrator of abstracts, especially multi-valent emotions like nostalgia, loneliness. Beautiful meandering daydream through bizarre human life, travel, art.
I had the persistent suspicion that Nick was speaking for me in this book, but doing a better job of it than I would have.
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