10 Books every Musician should read

Books based on the lives of musicians are quite often not talked about. Especially in today’s Hollywood era where magic castles, secret closets and 50 shades of bullshit are backed by thousands of dollars in PR. Very few books about music/musicians make their way into people’s homes, probably because you’ll literally need to find a bookshop, find a section on performance arts and then hope that in some miraculous way, the memoir you’re looking for is available. Of course, you can always order online but where’s the fun in that.

Thankfully in Dubai, there’s a few bookstores which can still cater to your needs, my personal favorite being Magrudy’s. Others like Kinokuniya are good too. They usually house a huge library of titles so there’s a better chance to find musicians memoirs here.

The thing about musician’s memoirs is that you get to read about the vicarious thrills and historical events that shaped their success (or downfall). It becomes a compulsive read. Sometimes, it’s not even a memoir, it’s a book illustrating their poetry which I rather find amusing. The latter has personally help me develop my songwriting skills too.

So, here’s a list of 10 books which I personally recommend to anyone who still makes time to read a few pages a day. Some of them are about my hero’s and some are educational in a way. Either way, they reflect creativity, drama, conspiracy, abuse and even success and failure of the author. Now, since I’m a rock musician, I repeat these are some of my personal favorites, you can tell judging by their covers. But they’re all great works of literature in my eyes and interesting for reading nevertheless.

Please remember that I’m not ranking these books from best to worst. Top 10 refers to 10 books which I dig. If you’d like to add to this list then please share your favorites in the comments section below.

 

1) Heavy Metal Islam – Mark Levine 
(full review on Heavy Metal Islam coming soon)

2) This is a Call – The life and times of Dave Grohl : By Paul Brannigan

3) Music and Traditions of the Arabian Peninsula : By Lisa Urkevich

4) Slash : Slash and Anthony Bozza

5) Nocturnal Music in the Land of the Sufi's – Unheard Pakistan : By Jurgen Wasim Frembgen

6) Wilderness Vol 1- The lost writings of Jim Morrison : By Jim Morrison 

7) The Death and Life of the Music Industry in the Digital Age : By Jim Rogers

8) Know your enemy - Rage Against The Machine : By Joel McIver

9) How music works : By David Byrne

10) Robert Plant - A life : By Paul Rees

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