“Here comes Kevin Dettmar’s Punk in Fifty Pieces, to join Dave Marsh’s The Heart of Rock and Soul: The 1001 Greatest Singles and Paul Williams’ Rock and Roll: The 100 Best Singles—music books disguised as lists which turn out to be love letters. As with those earlier books, I devoured Dettmar’s to learn what he thinks and found myself treated to a mosaic self-portrait, a memoir of growing up alive in a world of music and possibility.”—Jonathan Lethem, author of Motherless Brooklyn and The Fortress of Solitude

“A sharp, spirited, and wonderfully personal take on what it was like to grow up alongside the punk explosion of the late seventies and eighties. Fifty argument-starting blitzes of fury and awe, with just the right dash of playful crankiness.”—Hua Hsu, New Yorker staff writer, author of Stay True