Rock Stars Stole My Life by Mark Ellen review – misty-eyed, touchingly nerdy memoir

From the mud and thunder of early festivals to Live Aid and Rihanna, music journalist Mark Ellen was usually in the right place at the right timeMark Ellen surveys the happy youngsters comfortably cavorting at Glastonbury, marvelling at Primal Scream beneath a harvest moon. “You bastards,” moans the music journalist and editor, recalling his nascent festival experiences in the early 1970s, of trench foot, scurvy and Van der Graaf Generator. “You don’t know how lucky you are.”Still, there’s a misty-eyed reverence for the past in Ellen’s entertaining memoir of five decades surrounded by music – which is to be expected. This, after all, is the man who launched Mojo magazine after realising there was a potential readership who liked music that was “magical and built to last”. For Ellen, the magic began with the discovery of the Beatles and the Kinks, Small Faces and Chicken Shack. Like a character from Jonathan Coe’s novel The Rotters’ Club, his comfortable 60s and 70s adolescence discussing the meaning of prog is ditched for a squat in Battersea, where he begins to pen florid gig reviews for Record Mirror and NME.  Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'

[ The Guardian | 2015-03-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
News tagged with: #jonathan coe

Other Publishing stories related to: 'Rock Stars Stole My Life by Mark Ellen review – misty-eyed, touchingly nerdy memoir'


Review: A survivor's memoir on sickness and health — 'we are all terminal patients on this earth'

In 'Between Two Kingdoms,' young cancer survivor Suleika Jaouad writes with fierce honesty about the false divide between the sick and the well. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2021-02-15 15:00:38 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #memoir


‘Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted,’ by Suleika Jaouad: An Excerpt

An excerpt from “Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted,” by Suleika Jaouad Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2021-02-09 16:17:10 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #suleika jaouad #memoir


Review: A family travel memoir makes a timely pitch for personal risk

Charles Wheelan's "We Came, We Saw, We Left" charts the Wheelan family's frantic global "gap year" — infections, iffy street food, tantrums and all. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2021-01-22 18:26:12 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #memoir


Flipped eye publishing marks 20th anniversary with tour and 2021 list

Flipped eye publishing is marking its 20th anniversary this year with a digital bookshop tour, a nationwide hunt for a young editor and a 2021 list including work from Warsan Shire and José Eduardo Agualusa. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2021-01-19 07:31:59 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #20th anniversary #warsan shire #bookshop


For a multiracial writer, a life marked by earthquakes and other upheavals

Nadia Owusu recounts her sense of dislocation and her search for a place to call home. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2021-01-15 13:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #call home


André Gregory’s ‘This Is Not My Memoir’ is a free-form monologue about his quest for meaning in life and art

The boundary-smashing theater director turns an exuberant flow of reminiscences into a relatively coherent roller-coaster of narrative. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2020-12-09 12:59:55 UTC ]
More news stories like this |


Succession star Brian Cox's memoir pre-empted by Quercus

Quercus has pre-empted a “seminal” debut memoir from award-winning actor and “Succession” star Brian Cox. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-19 17:45:26 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #memoir


Review: Barack Obama's memoir is a masterful lament over the fragility of hope

"A Promised Land," out Tuesday in a worldwide release, eloquently and ruefully documents the first two and a half years of Obama's presidency. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2020-11-16 21:30:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #barack obama #promised land #half years #memoir


Review: Celia Paul is finally her own muse in the dazzling memoir 'Self-Portrait'

The painter known to many as Lucian Freud's one-time muse writes of her own muse, her mother, and provers herself a masterful writer as well. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2020-11-10 18:28:13 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #memoir


A rock photographer who captured John Lennon, Mick Jagger and Gene Simmons looks back on a charmed life

Bob Gruen’s “Right Place, Right Time” is a low-key chronicle of a man going with the flow. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2020-11-04 14:40:16 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #mick jagger #bob gruen


Monoray to publish Pat Nevin’s 'life-affirming' football memoir

Jake Lingwood, publisher of Monoray (part of the Octopus Publishing Group), has acquired Pat Nevin's memoir, The Accidental Footballer.  Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-10-20 03:29:46 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #jake lingwood


Review: Mariah Carey's memoir is her best performance yet

'The Meaning of Mariah Carey,' the pop star's tell-some memoir, sparkles and entertains and explains its subject, despite a few too many I-don't-know-hers. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2020-09-23 15:38:47 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #mariah carey #pop star #memoir


NSC Official Details a Politically Tainted Review Process for Bolton Memoir

In a bombshell letter filed with the court this week, attorneys for the National Security Council official who led the prepublication review of John Bolton’s bestselling memoir 'The Room Where It Happened' confirmed the official's position that the book was cleared of classified information... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-09-23 04:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #bolton memoir #john bolton #bestselling memoir #classified information #political appointees #memoir


Absolute snack Stanley Tucci is writing a memoir about his life as a foodie.

There are very few celebrities whose meals interest me. (Yes, I do hate Instagram, thank you.) But here’s one: Stanley Tucci, who announced today that he’s working on a memoir called Taste: My Life Through Food. Publisher Gallery Books described it as “intimate and charming reflection of Tucci’s... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-09-17 18:45:33 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #stanley tucci #announced today #memoir


Cohen memoir casts him as 'star witness' against Trump

Michael Cohen's tell-all memoir makes the case that President Donald Trump is “guilty of the same crimes” that landed his former fixer in federal prison, offering a blow-by-blow account of Trump's... To view the full story, click the title link. Continue reading at Crains New York

[ Crains New York | 2020-09-08 11:45:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #star witness #michael cohen #memoir makes #federal prison #blow-by-blow account #memoir


Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek marks 80th birthday with release of 1st memoir

Alex Trebek is celebrating his 80th birthday this week with the release of a memoir that covers his decades-long career hosting the quiz show Jeopardy! as well as his time on CBC television in the 1960s. Continue reading at CBC

[ CBC | 2020-07-20 12:30:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #alex trebek #80th birthday #memoir


New & Noteworthy, From a Rock Memoir to Chinese Surrealism

A selection of recent books of interest; plus, a peek at what our colleagues around the newsroom are reading. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2020-05-19 09:00:05 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #recent books #memoir


Hashtag Press buys memoir of reality star and actress Jess Impiazzi

Independent publisher Hashtag Press will publish Jess Impiazzi's memoir Silver Linings.  Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-05-07 17:36:02 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #independent publisher #memoir


An Attentive Memoir of Life in Parma

The value of “writing a life” that Wallis Wilde-Menozzi undertook a quarter century ago is now the model to express our times. Continue reading at The Paris Review

[ The Paris Review | 2020-03-20 16:10:53 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #memoir


Qandeel Baloch was a social media star in Pakistan. A new book explores her life and murder.

“A Woman Like Her” is both an intimate portrait and a sweeping look at cultural shifts — and the price paid by women. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2020-02-06 15:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #book explores #intimate portrait