The folks at Continuum Books have opened up for another round of proposals for their 33 /13 book series, and it's clear that there is a lot of interest in penning one of these little gems. Series Editor David Barker issued the final list of submitted proposals yesterday, an eye-popping 449 for 380 different albums. There are some really interesting proposals, and few that are head scratchers. For every great album that probably has a great story behind it -- AC/DC's Back in Black, XTC's Skylarking and the La's self-titled album, for example -- there are discs that are probably too obscure or too well-documented or too new to warrant selection. Even so, I came up with about 40 that I'd like to read, so it'll be tough for them to narrow down.

Then again, I am biased. That's my proposal for Synchronicity by the Police on the list. I started crafting the proposal before the reunion hubub, sparked instead by watching Stewart Copeland's film "Everyone Stares" and reading Andy Summers' memoir One Train Later. The Policemania of late can't hurt, I suppose, so I eagerly await the announcement in March of the books Barker selects for publication.

I interviewed Barker last year after the last open call for submissions. My rather flimsy proposal to write about the Jayhawks' Hollywood Town Hall was rightly passed over, and Barker was nice enough to talk about the series and the selection process. Last time out, he received about 170 proposals and picked 20. With 450 submissions and what I would guess to be a similar amount that will be selected, it's starting to feel as competitive as Harvard Law School around here.

Whatever he chooses, Barker will assuredly make good picks. Perusing the list of 51 books published (or soon to be) so far, there are few that don't hope to read at some point.

Labels: books, music