About Book Marks
Recent Reviews
Bob Stanley
Mixed The Telegraph (UK) Stanley is a wonderful guide, showing us the gems of this vast catalogue with enthusiasm, insight and wit ... It’s a weakness of Stanley’s book that he had no interactions with his heroes – was Barry even approached, I wonder? – and is overly reliant on observations and quotes culled from press clippings. Although he rattles through a complex triple life story at a fair clip, covering 70 years in under 300 pages, he isn’t really interested in their private lives, and I came away feeling I didn’t understand the Gibbs any better as people.
Britney Spears
Rave Air Mail Short, bittersweet and extremely powerful ... This is the forensically convincing account of the madwoman in the attic of pop. And it is not pretty ... Spears is good at telling offhand anecdotes that make ex-boyfriends and husbands look silly ... A story not about music so much as about the way that women are still routinely mistreated in the music business. That it hasn’t turned into a complete tragedy is a testament to Spears’s essential fortitude of spirit – something that burns off these pages.
Britney Spears
Rave The Telegraph (UK) Short, bittersweet and extremely powerful ... This is the forensically convincing account of the madwoman in the attic of pop. And it is not pretty ... The Woman in Me is a story not about music so much as about the way that women are still routinely mistreated in the music business. That it hasn’t turned into a complete tragedy is a testament to Spears’s essential fortitude of spirit – something that burns off these pages.
Bono
Positive The Telegraph (UK) Surrender offers a sprawling, haphazard, open-hearted account of what he acknowledges has been a \'paradoxical life\' ... He’s a voracious reader, deep thinker and sharp phrasemaker, and this one is all his own work. Albeit he did tell me that as much as he loved writing it, he hated editing it. Which frankly shows ... The narrative arc is not always easy to follow as the story trips backwards and forwards through time ... Bono writes like a songwriter, with rhythm and cadence, artful repetition and sloganeering hooks. He is fond of puns, alliteration and triplets ... Yet readers will search in vain for salacious details or gossipy indiscretions. Bono is generous to a fault, namechecking everyone whom he feels has contributed to his charmed life at a cost to narrative coherence ... For me, the force of will and humility involved in dedicating so much time and energy to the wellbeing of others is immensely moving, and I have never really understood why it should generate so much opprobrium. Do we really want rock stars who only care about themselves? ... This is no kiss-and-tell confessional, and may have less sex and drugs than any other rock-and-roll autobiography. What it does instead is open up the tumultuous inner life of a naturally rambunctious and hyper-driven man...in a moving tale of love, faith and artistry.
Bob Dylan
Rave The Telegraph (UK) When the most revered singer-songwriter of all time delivers a hefty tome about the art of song, you sit up and take notice. Yet surely no one will be surprised to learn that Bob Dylan’s mischievously titled The Philosophy of Modern Song barely pretends to offer a coherent treatise on the state of contemporary songcraft. Rather, its lavishly and wittily illustrated 340 pages are an excuse for the great man to write with joyful zest, piercing profundity and flamboyant imagination about whatever crosses his mind ... Cleverly curated pictures offer amusing, surprising and occasionally baffling counterpoints to his sometimes luridly agitated prose ... There is not much strictly musicological analysis, and only occasional (if always intriguing) dissections of lyrical form ... For Dylan, songs are metaphysics and alchemy. This book is lightning in a bottle.