Posts Tagged Book Review
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May 26, 2019 by Simon Sweetman
Jessica Hopper: Night Moves
Night Moves Jessica Hopper University of Texas Press, First Edition edition Jessica Hopper collected up two decades of her music criticism recently and it’s a great read – covering hip-hop, pop and indie. She was a publicist, DJ, mover and groover before – and around – being a paid, published music writer. So for her next book she’s taken her own diaries from the early 00s when […]Archive
May 9, 2019 by Simon Sweetman
Bret Easton Ellis: White
White Bret Easton Ellis Knopf; 1st Edition edition “Stop whining, take your medicine; grow the fuck up” – this is Bret Easton Ellis’ advice in his first effort at non-fiction; a book written to largely justify a series of individual tweets and then all-out Twitter brawls, a book that starts promisingly as actual memoir and then shifts just as surreally […]Archive
May 3, 2019 by Simon Sweetman
Jaron Lanier: Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now
Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now Jaron Lanier Henry Holt and Co. Jaron Lanier was there for the building of the internet, an early chat-room visitor (and developer), a guy with major tech credentials. He’s become an internet philosopher, a fierce critic of Silicon Valley; he’s like any writer with a troubled history and […]Archive
May 1, 2019 by Simon Sweetman
Colin Hogg: Off The Road
Sam Hunt: Off The Road Colin Hogg (w/ Sam Hunt) HarperCollins When I read The Spinoff’s review of this book – I laughed. I loved it. Brilliantly written – and I winced at the thought that it was probably true, but that I still wanted to read Off The Road because the book that started the friendship between Hunt and Hogg, and the […]Archive
May 1, 2019 by Simon Sweetman
Todd Rundgren: The Individualist – Digressions, Dreams & Dissertations
The Individualist – Digressions, Dreams & Dissertations Todd Rundgren CLEOPATRA; First edition When I first heard Something/Anything? it blew my mind. It still does actually. Regularly. I knew about Todd Rundgren the guitarist and producer – with credits ranging from Meat Loaf and XTC through to creating the score for the movie Dumb and Dumber…but I had never heard any […]Archive
April 13, 2019 by Simon Sweetman
Graeme Jefferies: Time Flowing Backwards
Time Flowing Backwards: A Memoir Graeme Jefferies Mosiac Press Graeme Jefferies has made some of the great noisy pop from New Zealand – he’s sent it out to the world, taken it with him as he’s traveled through America and based himself – for huge periods of time – in Europe; then he brought it all back home […]Archive
April 8, 2019 by Simon Sweetman
Carl Shuker: A Mistake
A Mistake Carl Shuker VUP The literary page-turner – a rare beast. Pip Adam can do it. John Colapinto managed it with both fiction and non-fiction and here Carl Shuker manages it and essentially turns non-fiction into fiction, or frames fiction via non-fiction and/or vice-versa. But what’s true, instantly, of A Mistake, his fifth novel, is that the writing is electric, the […]Archive
March 26, 2019 by Simon Sweetman
Box Brown: Is This Guy For Real? – The Unbelievable Andy Kaufman
Is This Guy For Real?: The Unbelievable Andy Kaufman Box Brown First Second A graphic novel about Andy Kaufman written and drawn by the guy that paid tribute to Andre The Giant using the same form – I’m in!Archive
March 10, 2019 by Simon Sweetman
Ross Murray: Rufus Marigold
Rufus Marigold Ross Murray Earth’s End Ross Murray’s Rufus Marigold comic strip began life online – now it’s a book – expanded, new panels, new stories. It’s a wonderful examination of social anxiety. Much like Brent Williams’ powerful Out of the Woods graphic novel it is doing great work for explaining lived-experience with mental illness; for normalising, de-stigmatising. I’m not an anxiety-sufferer, but, like anyone, […]Archive
January 22, 2019 by Simon Sweetman
Ali Whitelock: and my heart crumples like a coke can
and my heart crumples like a coke can Ali Whitelock Wakefield Press I finished reading Ali Whitelock’s poetry volume the day I heard of Mary Oliver’s passing. I had been savouring the pages of “coke can”, taking my time, reading no more than four poems in a sitting; deep stories, they require a lot of you (in the best possible way), they sit with […]Archive
January 9, 2019 by Simon Sweetman