Showing results by publisher "Faber & Faber" in Biographies & Memoirs

A music-obsessed retrospective, beginning with Thurston Moore's childhood epiphany of rock 'n' roll in the early 1960s into an infatuation with the subversive world of 1970s punk and no wave blasting forth from New York City - where he eventually runs off to join a band in 1978. By 1981 Moore would form the legendary and notorious experimental rock group Sonic Youth, who proceeded to record and tour relentlessly for almost 30 years, always progressing, always exploring. Along the way we meet a constellation of artists and musicians who colluded and collided with Sonic Youth.

Ultra running defies conventional logic. Yet this most brutal and challenging sport is now one of the fastest growing in the world. But is it an antidote to modern life or a symptom of a modern illness? Adharanand Finn travelled to the heart of the sport to find out - and to see if could become an ultra runner himself. His journey took him from the deserts of Oman to the snow-capped peaks of the Rockies, and from a 24-hour track race in Tooting to his ultimate goal, the 105-mile Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc.

Formed as a New York City hardcore band in 1981, Beastie Boys struck an unlikely path to global hip-hop superstardom. Here is their story, told for the first time in the words of the band. Adam "AD-ROCK" Horovitz and Michael "Mike D" Diamond offer revealing and very funny accounts of their transition from teenage punks to budding rappers; their early collaboration with Russell Simmons and Rick Rubin; the almost impossible to fathom overnight success of their debut studio album, Licensed to Ill; that album's messy fallout; and their break with Def Jam, move to Los Angeles, and rebirth as musicians and social activists, with the genre-defying masterpiece Paul's Boutique.

Suzi Ronson was working in a Beckenham hair salon in the early seventies when Mrs Jones came in for her weekly shampoo and set. After being introduced to her son David and his wife Angie, Suzi finds herself at the Bowies' bohemian apartment and is soon embroiled in their raucous world. Having crafted his iconic Ziggy Stardust hairstyle, Suzi becomes the only working woman in David's touring party and joins the Spiders from Mars as they perform around the globe.

Written in his own unmistakable voice and with a new afterword by the author, this is the frank and fascinating memoir by arguably the greatest bass player of his generation. Beginning with an East End childhood in a London barely recovered from the War, he takes us on a journey through the beginnings of punk and post-punk as a founding member of Public Image Limited, an illustrious forty-year solo career which has seen collaborations musical greats such as U2, Brian Eno and CAN and a Mercury Music Prize nomination through to the present day still playing to sell out audiences.

When first published in 2001, it divided female critics and readers. One famous columnist wrote a piece demanding that Cusk's children were taken into care, that was she was unfit to look after them. Oprah Winfrey invited her on the show to defend herself and the book as protests grew about its honest, gritty account of the misery of those early months. It is a seminal, stand-out book on the complications of being an ambivalent mum in an age of white-washed, Annabel Karmel'd new families.

In a remarkable feat of biography, Matthew Hollis reconstructs the intellectual creation of the poem and brings the material reality of its charged times vividly to life. Presenting a mosaic of historical fragments, diaries, dynamic literary criticism and illuminating new research, he reveals the cultural and personal trauma that forged The Waste Land through the lives of its protagonists.

As dawn breaks on the farm, Helen Rebanks makes a mug of tea, relishing the few minutes of quiet before the house stirs. Within the hour the sounds of her husband, James, and their four children will fill the kitchen. There are also six sheepdogs, two ponies, 20 chickens, 50 cattle and 500 sheep to care for. Helen is a farmer's wife. Hers is a story that is rarely told, despite being one we think we know. Weaving past and present, Helen shares the days that have shaped her.

Miss Dior paints a portrait of the enigmatic woman behind the designer Christian Dior: his beloved younger sister, Catherine, who inspired his most famous perfume and shaped his vision of femininity. Justine Picardie's journey takes her to Occupied Paris, where Christian honed his couture skills while Catherine dedicated herself to the French Resistance, until she was captured by the Gestapo and deported to the German concentration camp of Ravensbrück.

Following publication of Let's Go (So We Can Get Back) and How To Write One Song, both New York Times bestsellers that cemented and expanded his legacy as one of America's best-loved performers and songwriters, Jeff Tweedy is back with another disarming, beautiful, and inspiring book about why we listen to music, why we love songs, and how music can connect us to each other and to ourselves.

Feeling bone-tired, anxious and overwhelmed by the rolling news cycle and the pandemic age, Katherine May seeks to unravel the threads of a life wound too tightly. Could there be another way to live - one that feels more meaningful, more grounded in the places beneath our feet? One that would allow us to feel more connected, more rested and at ease, even as seismic changes unfold on the planet?

Through his pioneering work in the legendary country-punk band Uncle Tupelo, to his enduring legacy as the creative force behind the unclassifiable sound of Wilco, Jeff Tweedy has weaved his way between the underground and the mainstream - and back again. Funny, disarming and deeply honest, his memoir casts light on his unique creative process and the stories that shaped his life and career.

On Thursday, 1st July, 1999, Dr Nina Simone gave a rare performance as part of Nick Cave's Meltdown Festival. After the show, in a state of awe, Warren Ellis crept onto the stage, took Dr Simone's piece of chewed gum from the piano, wrapped it in her stage towel and put it in a Tower Records bag. The gum remained with him for 20 years—a sacred totem, his creative muse, a conduit that would eventually take Ellis back to his childhood and his relationship with found objects, growing in significance with every passing year.

Hollywood: The Oral History covers the history of Hollywood from the Silent era up to the 21st century. What makes this book unique from any other survey of Hollywood's history is that it is the history of an art form through the words of those people who created it—from Harold Lloyd to Katharine Hepburn to Warren Beatty to Jane Fonda and beyond, including directors, writers, producers, editors, designers of sets and costumes.

Every memoir is a battle between reality and invention - but in her follow up to Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys., Viv Albertine has reinvented the genre with her unflinching honesty. To Throw Away Unopened is a fearless dissection of one woman's obsession with the truth - the truth about family, power and her identity as a rebel and outsider. It is a gaping wound of a book, both an exercise in bloodletting and psychological archaeology, excavating what lies beneath: the fear, the loneliness, the anger.

What do you do when you realise you have everything you think you've ever wanted but still feel completely empty? What do you do when it all starts to fall apart? The second volume of Moby's extraordinary life story is a journey into the dark heart of fame and the demons that lurk just beneath the bling and bluster of the celebrity lifestyle. In summer 1999, Moby released the album that defined the millennium, PLAY. Like generation-defining albums before it, PLAY was ubiquitous, and catapulted Moby to superstardom.

As a pioneering female correspondent, she reported from Europe from the 1930s into the Second World War, watching 'the lights in the death-chamber go out one by one' from the frontline - always in the right place at the right time. Flinging off her heels under shellfire; meeting Hitler ('an inconspicuous little man') and the 'dapper' Mussolini; gossiping with Churchill by his goldfish pond or dancing in the bomb-blasted Ritz; reading The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism on a Soviet train or eating reindeer with guerrilla skiers....

Aftermath chronicles this perilous journey as the author redefines herself as a single woman and creates a new version of family life for her daughters. She discovers previously unknown strengths and freedoms but also finds herself suddenly vulnerable to outsiders, unwelcome advice, social displacement and the absence of a clear authority. The pressure to reconstruct a 'normal' life for her daughters competes with the sense that nothing feels normal at all. 

Among the noise and clamour of the Britpop era, Blur co-founder Graham Coxon managed to carve out a niche to become one of the most innovative and respected guitarists of his generation—but it wasn't always easy. Graham grew up as an Army kid, moving frequently in his early years from West Germany to Derbyshire and Winchester before settling in Colchester, Essex. A shy child, he had a thing for eating soil and drawing intense visions; his anxiety was tempered by painting and a growing love of music. These twin passions grew into obsessions.

After fleeing Chicago to quarantine at home in Michigan, Irby finds herself bleaching groceries and wondering if her upper lip hairs are visible on Zoom. Her career reaches new heights: she gets to work with the iconic ladies of Sex and the City - her dream! - but behind the new-found glam, Irby is just trying to keep her life together. Our friend in print is back, on point, and ready to take us with her, from adopting Abe (her scrawny, watery-eyed firstborn dog) to her favourite, extremely specific porn searches (including two old nuns).