God Save My Queen I & II

My first two books are collections of experimental essay, memoir, prose poem, and music history on my life-long obsession with the rock band Queen. Throughout these two volumes, I write one piece, or riff, to coincide with every song ever released by the band, plus selected solo work. These books, published by the super awesome Soft Skull Press, garnered reviews in publications, both large and small.

Here are the champions, my friends

“These two books are absolutely fantastic … raises the profile of obsessive record collectors from nerd to artiste while simultaneously creating a genre of poetry where a new word for ultra-nerd needs to be created to describe the authorship. The first volume features one short poem for every track on every major Queen LP. As the book explores sexuality, humanity and vulnerability the lyrical text confusingly shifts from Nester’s personal biography to the exploits of Mercury and May in a haze of poetics where it doesn’t matter what or who he’s talking about. … To bring this point home the second volume is a track by track series of poems covering obscure Queen albums, solo work and hidden CD tracks, thus, even the fellow fans who were able to recall every Queen track and perhaps relate them to the poems in book one is left headscratching by this volume. These books are as beautiful as fat bottomed girls on bicycles.”—Roctober

• “Nester’s method considers a serious fan’s bliss impeccably … Nester’s best poems consider the homosexual allure of the band’s late singer, Freddie Mercury, describing Mercury’s gestures, phrasing and lifestyle with aplomb…vainglorious pomposity…”—Ken Tucker, The New York Times Book Review
• “I have to say: Nester NAILS it. Those of us who have been there … will most appreciate Nester’s two books.”—David Barringer, Word Riot
• “I have to say: Nester NAILS it. Those of us who have been there … will most appreciate Nester’s two books.”—Gabriel Welsch, small spiral notebook
• “I wonder what hardcore Queen fans will think of this … I hope they like it as much as I did.”—The Pursuit of Happiness’s Moe Berg, from a roundtable discussion in Bookninja with Peter Darbyshire and George Murray
• “[A] book that both transcends genre and includes enough true, sometimes painfully honest, emotion to touch any reader.”—Peter Conners, Double Room
• “Makes telling linkages … The effect is not to exhaust his subject, but to increase its mystery and thereby its magic.”—Tom Nissley, The Stranger
• Review by Henry Yu in MAXIMUMROCKNROLL