"Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story" REVIEWED IN THE WASHINGTON POST

Reviewing Bono’s memoir for the Washington Post was a big deal for me. U2 was my first favorite band, and I remain, as I say in the piece, “wearily devout.” It’s been a few years (but only two albums) since the Paper of Record let me rank their albums! (I’d like a word with circa-2009 me about some of my decisions.)

I didn’t find space to point out that the only two living world leaders for whom The Fly has anything less than an admiring word are Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. Or to point out that two episodes from the author’s career — though I would not call them successes — go unmentioned entirely: U2’s 9/11 memorial performance at the 2002 Super Bowl halftime show, and Bono and The Edge’s ill-fated foray (with Julie Taymor!) into musical theatre with the Broadway flop Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. Though it you want to know about that exercise, I can recommend Glen Berger’s Song of Spider-Man: The Inside Story of the Most Controversial Musical in Broadway History.

Anyway. My review of Bono’s memoir is here. Am I boogin’ ya I doon’t mean to boog ya.

"Like a Rolling Stone: A Memoir" Reviewed in The Washington Post

Rolling Stone’s first issue, from December 1967.

Turns out you can’t say “starfucker” in the Paper of Record, even if you spell it “starf***er.” So I subbed in “starstruck to the point of myopia.”

There’s lots else I could say about Rolling Stone co-founder and longtime editor Jann S. Wenner’s new memoir Like a Rolling Stone, but the Washington Post kept me to 1,000 word or so. It was a genuine honor to write about this very superficial and self-serving book by a man who created a magazine I loved.