'Rock and Roll is Life' by Dj Taylor
'Rock and Roll is Life' is the new novel from the country's leading man of letters, D. J. Taylor.
Taylor's magnificent new novel is Spinal Tap for literary types. . thoroughly entertaining, knowledgeable romp through the fear and loathing of rock's golden age. Beautifully written and consistently funny, it is also a poignant account of one man's search for his own identity -- Simon Humphreys * Mail on Sunday *
Hugely entertaining . . . perceptive and sardonic . . . a dazzling rollercoaster homage to an era both bacchanalian and oddly innocent -- Dermot Bolger * Guardian *
A highly entertaining riff on the music business in the 1960s and 1970s . . . an immensely satisfying portrait of a creative and occasionally monstrous industry -- Ian Critchley * Literary Review *
An affectionate homage to a sub-genre of music journalism that has lost much of its cultural cachet in the internet age. Taylor skilfully combines nostalgic reverence and ironic distance in this genial romp, puncturing the mythology of the era while never quite repudiating its charms -- Houman Barekat * Spectator *
This tale of pop group excess cleverly slips fact into fiction . . . Taylor's wry, detached style and eye for detail is a pleasure to read -- Will Hodgkinson * The Times *
D. J. Taylor has a gift for rendering the defining details of a world . . . It might be said that the book depicts a world that comes with the satire built in, but for good or ill rock music and its successors have taken on a cultural and economic importance that no one could have predicted. The subject requires a powerful imaginative chronicler. In D. J. Taylor it finds a writer closer to Balzac than it may even deserve -- Sean O'Brien * TLS *
A literary version of Rob Reiner's hilarious mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap, tragically narrated by a provincial depressive -- Lewis Jones * Daily Telegraph *
Entertaining . . . By the end, you'll almost be humming the music -- Suzi Feay * The Tablet *
The list of truly great music-based novels might be a short one, but with the addition of Rock and Roll is Life it just got slightly longer -- Ashley Norris * Shindig *
Hugely entertaining . . . perceptive and sardonic . . . a dazzling rollercoaster homage to an era both bacchanalian and oddly innocent -- Dermot Bolger * Guardian *
A highly entertaining riff on the music business in the 1960s and 1970s . . . an immensely satisfying portrait of a creative and occasionally monstrous industry -- Ian Critchley * Literary Review *
An affectionate homage to a sub-genre of music journalism that has lost much of its cultural cachet in the internet age. Taylor skilfully combines nostalgic reverence and ironic distance in this genial romp, puncturing the mythology of the era while never quite repudiating its charms -- Houman Barekat * Spectator *
This tale of pop group excess cleverly slips fact into fiction . . . Taylor's wry, detached style and eye for detail is a pleasure to read -- Will Hodgkinson * The Times *
D. J. Taylor has a gift for rendering the defining details of a world . . . It might be said that the book depicts a world that comes with the satire built in, but for good or ill rock music and its successors have taken on a cultural and economic importance that no one could have predicted. The subject requires a powerful imaginative chronicler. In D. J. Taylor it finds a writer closer to Balzac than it may even deserve -- Sean O'Brien * TLS *
A literary version of Rob Reiner's hilarious mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap, tragically narrated by a provincial depressive -- Lewis Jones * Daily Telegraph *
Entertaining . . . By the end, you'll almost be humming the music -- Suzi Feay * The Tablet *
The list of truly great music-based novels might be a short one, but with the addition of Rock and Roll is Life it just got slightly longer -- Ashley Norris * Shindig *
D.J. Taylor's novels include English Settlement (1996), which won a Grinzane Cavour Prize, Trespass (1998) and Derby Day (2011), both long-listed for the Man Booker Prize, Kept: A Victorian Mystery (2006), a Publishers Weekly book of the year, and The Windsor Faction (2013), joint winner of the Sidewise Award for Alternate History. He has also written several works of non-fiction, including Orwell: The Life, winner of the 2003 Whitbread Prize for Biography and, most recently, The Prose Factory: Literary Life in England Since 1918 (2016). He lives in Norwich with his wife, the novelist Rachel Hore, and their three sons.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781472128829 |
| ISBN 10 | 1472128826 |
| Title | 'Rock and Roll is Life' |
| Author | Dj Taylor |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Little, Brown Book Group |
| Year published | 2019-05-02 |
| Number of pages | 480 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |