Book cover of I Wanna Be Yours

Book description

This is a memoir as wry, funny, moving and vivid as its inimitable subject himself. A joy for both lifelong fans and for a whole new generation.

'One of Britain's outstanding poets' - Sir Paul McCartney
'Riveting' - Observer
'An exuberant account of a remarkable life' - New Statesman

John…

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Why read it?

2 authors picked I Wanna Be Yours as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

I found this book to have amazing detail, considering it goes back a long way, and I don’t know how John remembered it all. It’s an entertaining and intriguing book about his life and his amazing, honest story about becoming a performing poet, his battle with addiction, and his unique route to cult status.

From Pete's list on British rock music icons.

Poet John Cooper Clarke came up with what I think is still the best definition of punk, “It gave us working class surrealists somewhere to go,” he said. Read his memoir, and you’ll see why.

There can’t be that many punks that served their apprenticeship in Bernard Manning’s notorious Embassy comedy club in Manchester. I love the portrait he paints of growing up in Salford in the 1950s and 1960s. It’s a world of corner shops, close working-class communities, and the eccentric characters that populate them. Coming from a similar world, I can strongly relate to that.

I enjoyed the…

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December on 5C4 by Adam Strassberg,

Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!

On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…

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