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 ]
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S&S marks Transgender Awareness Week with Stonewall programme

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[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-16 03:22:59 UTC ]
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Chirp Audiobooks Review: Does Chirp Change the Audiobook Game?

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[ Book Riot | 2020-11-13 11:34:00 UTC ]
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Lone Star Stories: The 10 Best Books About Texas

a great book about Texas should not only contain historical fact, it should give readers an impression of the Lone Star state—its scents, sights, and sensations—as well as what it feels like to be a human being of fragile flesh and blood in that immense, brutal, and beautiful land. The post Lone... Continue reading at The Millions

[ The Millions | 2020-11-13 11:00:16 UTC ]
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Presidential Memoirs Are Big Business. Will Anyone Buy Trump's?

Insiders say a book by President Donald Trump could be a tempting proposition for major publishers—but it may not be worth the cost. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-11-13 05:00:00 UTC ]
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Mark Wright fitness guide to Thorsons

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[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-13 04:45:20 UTC ]
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Beyoncé, Joni Mitchell and more: A veteran journalist tries to give female stars their due

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[ The Washington Post | 2020-11-12 16:00:00 UTC ]
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How Sigrid Undset Brought a Medieval Norwegian Epic to Life

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[ Literrary Hub | 2020-11-12 09:48:20 UTC ]
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'A Handful of Earth, A Handful of Sky' reveals Octavia E. Butler's early life in Pasadena

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[ Los Angeles Times | 2020-11-11 15:30:06 UTC ]
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Seven Kinds of People You Find in Bookshops by Shaun Bythell review – virtuosic venting

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[ The Guardian | 2020-11-11 09:00:33 UTC ]
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‘Written in the Stars’ is a ‘Pride and Prejudice’ reboot that’s charming, effervescent and entirely itself

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[ The Washington Post | 2020-11-10 14:38:18 UTC ]
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The inspiration for Maisie Dobbs? Jacqueline Winspear’s memoir offers charming clues

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[ The Washington Post | 2020-11-10 14:00:00 UTC ]
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‘Loved and Wanted: A Memoir of Choice, Children, and Womanhood,’ by Christa Parravani: An Excerpt

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This Medical Memoir Reads Like a Detective Story

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[ The New York Times | 2020-11-10 10:00:08 UTC ]
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Tinder Press wins Patterson's 'heartbreaking yet joyful' memoir

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[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-09 23:01:40 UTC ]
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Penguin Life bends over backwards for 'innovative' yoga title

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[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-09 18:19:01 UTC ]
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Prince Charles pens foreword for Southgate's life lessons

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Comedian Norcott's 'smart' memoir to Monoray

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Cape snaps up 'exquisite' memoir from Hewitt

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[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-03 07:03:12 UTC ]
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Penguin Life wins three-way auction for Lancaster's Bridge

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[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-03 06:48:20 UTC ]
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