MEMORIES, DREAMS AND REFLECTIONS BY MARIANNE FAITHFULL
Conversational, witty and revealing, Faithfull’s tale of her life with Burroughs, Ginsberg and bohemian Henrietta Moraes never fails to captivate.
CASH BY JOHNNY CASH
Cash’s writing may not be Pulitzer standard but he makes up for it in honesty and a disarmingly fresh approach to his problems with sex and addiction – it was, he says, all his own fault.
RENEGADE BY MARK E SMITH
Splendidly misanthropic stuff from The Fall frontman’s autobiography, with chapter headings which include: “The Group/s and their Useless Lives” and “The March of the Gormless Bastards”.
SCAR TISSUE BY ANTHONY KEIDIS
Light on insight into his musical career it may be, but the Red Hot Chilli Pepper writes absorbingly on what it is like to use drugs from the age of 11.
THREEPENNY MEMOIR BY CARL BARAT
Regrets, he’s certainly had a few – but the co-founder of The Libertines also had a quite a time stumbling around North London pubs “meeting groupies” and warbling with Pete Doherty.
THE DIRT BY MÖTLEY CRÜE
Tragic, hilarious, but always readable – the “rawk” band’s collective biography gives an unmatched insight into what it was like raising hell on the 80s big-haired scene.
DECODED
Jay Z’s life from drug dealer to hip hop mogul and everything in between is chronicled in his gripping book that’s both part autobiography, part journal – with lyrics and poetry included throughout.
CHRONICLES VOL 1 BY BOB DYLAN
You could fill a couple more volumes with what’s missing in this memoir, but its straight-talking eloquence and sharp portraits of the New York demi-monde make it hard not to fall for.
JUST KIDS BY PATTI SMITH
A lively, tightly written account of Smith’s artistic journey through Detroit, Paris and New York in the 1960s and 70s and her relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe
LIFE BY KEITH RICHARDS
Swaggering, elegantly wasted “Keef” tells of his 40-odd years of excess while dodging the clichéd old rockers’ path from despair to redemption – The Independent