"What makes Ian Svenonius funny is a little different. He's funny in his use of language in music, in the ridiculous extended conceits of so many of his songs; he's funny in his prose style, a supercharged Marxist-Leninist jargon placed at the service of deliberate absurdity; he's funny in his presentation as a self-made character, a preaching, yelping, evangelical amalgam of James Brown and the protagonists of Godard's La Chinoise . . . Ian Svenonius' career in comedy has involved various vehicles, but the silly-serious approach is consistent throughout."
—Tribune (UK)
"The material is quite varied but all of it is written with Svenonius's intelligent and revolutionary prose . . . These essays are amongst the more palatable and intriguing Svenonius has written . . ."
—Razorcake
"Wielding the satiric tone of a Gen-X Jonathan Swift or leftist Andy Kaufman . . . Svenonius is an engaging companion . . . and he lands some scathing blows, as when he links internet porn to contemporary Christianity by noting that both are 'anti-intellectual, patriarchal, have an elitist or outsider self-image, and are aesthetically garish.'"
—Publishers Weekly
"I’m not sure I’ve ever read anything that is so much about loving written language as Ian F. Svenonius’s Against the Written Word: Toward a Universal Illiteracy. The whole book, all 300 pages of it, is essentially infatuated with words . . . In Against the Written Word, however, Svenonius is after more than merely provocation; he has an argument to make. His book posits that the printing press and the Renaissance were, among other things, the start of everything going wrong for humanity. These chapters are serious and fascinating."
—Alta
Critical Praise for Ian F. Svenonius's previous work:
“Like its author, Supernatural Strategies is part tongue-in-cheek, part deadly serious—a satire of rock’s consumerist origins but also a thoughtful treatise on what it means to devote yourself to a collective . . . Drawing from the wisdom of rock ’n’ roll’s most famous ghosts, Svenonius’s advice ranges from hilarious to cryptic to surprisingly useful.”
—Pitchfork on Supernatural Strategies for Making a Rock 'n' Roll Group
“Svenonius hasn’t written a basic ‘How to Make It in the Music Business’ book. Rather, the writer, online talk show host and, most important, singer in a series of breathtaking rock ‘n’ roll bands (Nation of Ulysses, the Make-Up, Chain & the Gang), is drawing a line in the sand and doing so with what he hopes will finally define the undefinable.”
—Los Angeles Times on Supernatural Strategies for Making a Rock 'n' Roll Group
“While putting a copy of this book on your nightstand would be a sign of good taste, who cares about good taste? Are you willing to be seen reading a book titled Censorship Now!! in public? If so, your skin might burn with funny glances from squares, scolds, and looky-loos. But on the inside, you’ll feel your brain throbbing as it swells to accommodate some hilarious, absurd, and radical new strategies on how to live in our ridiculous world.”
—Washington Post on Censorship Now!!
“In a sense the book is Mr. Svenonius’s love letter to the good old days of do-it-yourself punk concerts, though it’s cleverly disguised as a series of Marxian essays.”
—New York Times on The Psychic Soviet
