Advertisement

The 46 essential rock reads

Share

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.


Do rock and books go together? That’s a question we asked in August, and after a month’s worth of posts on books and music, we think, well, duh. Here’s our list of 46 essential rock reads, in alpha order by author. They’ll rock your books off:

Michael Azerrad -- ‘Our Band Could Be Your Life’
Lester Bangs -- ‘Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung’
Stanley Booth -- ‘The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones’
Cecil Brown -- ‘Stagolee Shot Billy’
Jim Carroll -- ‘The Basketball Diaries’
Rich Cohen -- ‘Machers and Rockers’
Nik Cohn and Guy Peellaert -- ‘Rock Dreams’
Stephen Davis -- ‘Hammer of the Gods: The Led Zeppelin Saga’
Don Delillo -- ‘Great Jones Street’
Pamela Des Barres -- ‘I’m With the Band’
Bob Dylan -- ‘Tarantula’
Richard Farina -- ‘Been Down so Long It Looks Like up to Me’
Steven Gaines -- ‘Heroes and Villains: The True Story of the Beach Boys’
Albert Goldman -- ‘Elvis’
Marcus Gray -- ‘Return of the Last Gang in Town’
Johnny Green and Garry Barker -- ‘A Riot of Our Own’
Peter Guralnick -- ‘Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley’
David Hadju -- ‘Positively Fourth Street’
Billie Holiday -- ‘Lady Sings the Blues’
Nick Hornby -- ‘High Fidelity’
Denis Johnson -- ‘Jesus’ Son’
Camden Joy -- ‘The Last Rock Star Book’
Chuck Klosterman -- ‘Fargo Rock City’
Zachary Lazar -- ‘Sway’
John Lennon and Jann Wenner -- ‘Lennon Remembers’
Lydia Lunch and Exene Cervenka -- ‘Adulterers Anonymous’
Johnny Lydon -- ‘Rotten’
Madonna -- ‘Sex’
Greil Marcus -- ‘Lipstick Traces’
William McKeen (ed.) -- ‘Rock N Roll Is Here to Stay’
Dennis McNally -- ‘A Long Strange Trip: The Inside History of the Grateful Dead’
Legs McNeil -- ‘Please Kill Me’
Richard Meltzer -- ‘The Aesthetics of Rock’
Philip Norman -- ‘Shout! The Beatles in Their Generation’
Joe Pernice -- ‘Meat Is Murder’
Frank Portman -- ‘King Dork’
Simon Reynolds -- ‘Generation Ecstasy’
Henry Rollins -- ‘Get in the Van’
Jon Savage -- ‘England’s Dreaming’
Rob Sheffield -- ‘Love Is a Mix Tape’
Patti Smith -- ‘Babel’
Norman Spinrad -- ‘Little Heroes’
Mark Spitz and Brendan Mullen -- ‘We Got the Neutron Bomb: The Untold Story of LA Punk’
Neil Strauss and Motley Crüe -- ‘The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band’
Ellen Willis -- ‘Beginning to See the Light’
Crystal Zevon -- ‘I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead’

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Photo: Bob Dylan. Credit: Sony BMG Music Entertainment

Advertisement
Advertisement