I Wanna Be Yours by John Cooper Clarke

The last few years has seen something of a resurgence in the career of the so-called punk poet laureate, Dr. John Cooper Clarke, and, as part of that, he released I Wanna Be Yours, an autobiography named for one of his more lauded poems. To the casual observer, or even the slightly less casual, it’s...

I Am Brian Wilson by Brian Wilson with Ben Greenman

While the summery 1960s hits of The Beach Boys were something of a staple of my younger years living by the beach (though almost as far from California as its possible to be) and the big songs from the likes of Pet Sounds, as well as Good Vibrations, are timeless, the life of the band’s...

Heart Of Darkness and other tales by Joseph Conrad

Heart Of Darkness by Joseph Conrad is one of those stories that has always existed in the back of my mind as a title with some impressive heft behind it but, aside from being the inspiration for the movie Apocalypse Now, I’ve never really known actually much about it - now though, thanks to the...

A Cook’s Tour: In Search Of The Perfect Meal by Anthony Bourdain

While Anthony Bourdain is a writer and chef I’ve been aware of for probably twenty years or more, it’s only since discovering a couple of his TV series on Netflix that I took a genuine interest in his work and so, A Cook’s Tour (variously subtitled In Search Of A Perfect Meal or Global Adventures...

Lonely Boy: Tales From A Sex Pistol by Steve Jones with Ben Thompson

In 2022 Disney+ (of all unlikely places) released Pistol, a drama series, directed by Danny Boyle, telling the story of the most notorious of early British punk bands, the Sex Pistols, based largely on sections of Lonely Boy, the autobiography of the band’s guitarist Steve Jones (co-written with Ben Thompson). While the series was certainly...

Jaws by Peter Benchley

Released in 1975, Steven Spielberg’s film adaptation of Jaws remains an undisputed classic that changed the face of mainstream cinema (for good or ill) but, somewhat less revered these days, is the book on which it was based, released only a year before and written by Peter Benchley. Inspired by tales of shark attacks off...

The Godfather by Mario Puzo

It’s fair to say that The Godfather is one of those things most people have heard of whether they have seen the films by Francis Ford Coppola or, indeed, read the original novel by Mario Puzo, or not. Having watched the full film series properly a few months ago I thought it time I took...

The Gangs Of New York by Herbert Asbury

Ever since I first saw Martin Scorsese’s heavily fictionalised film version of The Gangs Of New York in the cinema in 2002 I had intended to read the source book by Herbert Asbury, and now I’m happy to say I finally have. Originally published in 1927 it charts nearly a century of life in New...

Some New Kind Of Kick by Kid Congo Powers with Chris Campion

Hot on the heels of finishing Dave Grohl’s memoir of a sort, The Storyteller, I eagerly dived into the new autobiography from guitarist and songwriter Kid Congo Powers, best know for his time with The Cramps, The Gun Club, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds and more, Some New Kind Of Kick. While I was...

The Storyteller: Tales Of Life And Music by Dave Grohl

Lockdowns over the last couple of years hit us all hard in different ways and, for those who make their living touring the world playing music to stadiums full of people, it meant a very sudden change of situation, particularly for someone so apparently energetic as Foo Fighters' main man Dave Grohl, so, to while...