Big Nothing.

I just spent two hours reading Benjamin Nugent's Elliott Smith and The Big Nothing cover to cover. I hate to say it: not so hot. There's some interesting backstory about Elliott's painfully earnest PC college days at Hampshire, a great bit from Doughty, formely of Soul Coughing, regarding an Elliott/Magnetic Fields show he witnessed (plus his assertion that much of XO was written at the LA Skybar[!]), and some amusing anecdotes regarding Elliott's defense of Celine Dion in the days after the '98 Oscars. And that's about it. The rest of the book is mostly a rehash of previously available biographical material and maddeningly bland attempts at analyzing his music. (Not to mention the fact that few of Elliott's friends, family, and peers would agree to be interviewed for the project, leaving Nugent to rely on old radio interviews, magazine profiles and Elliott's Under the Radar interview ad nauseam.)
I didn't go into this book looking for lurid drug stories and speculation, I wanted detailed accounts of Elliott's recording process and the creation of his music. That never happens. (Elliott's trip to Abbey Road Studios for the recording/overdubbing of Figure 8 is given one throwaway paragraph.) Of course any bio of Elliott has the obligation to delve into his drug problems. It's just frustrating to read page after page of crack/alcohol/heroin stories that are written to include every scrap of minutia, and to get so little information about what's really important in the story of Elliott's life.