Slanted is not a book to read before bed. Despite being a memoir that rolls up its sleeves and digs into the finer points of intellectual property law, musician and activist Simon Tam’s prose has a fist-pumping, rock ’n’ roll romanticism that makes you wanna get up and kick things. Beginning in 2009, Tam repeatedly tried to trademark the name of his Portland dance-punk band the Slants, but the US Trademark Office denied his application due to a provision of the Lanham Act, which rejected registrations if they were considered “scandalous, immoral, or disparaging.” It didn’t matter that Tam and his bandmates were Asian Americans. In Slanted, Tam takes readers through nearly 10 years of applications and appeals, but the pacing of the memoir makes it feel like someone recounting the ins and outs of a dramatic breakup—in a good way. You can read this book and understand what’s happened, and you will want to know what happened because THEY DID WHAT? OH NO THEY DIDN’T.