HOW TO BE A ROCK STAR

SHAUN RYDER

Allen & Unwin, 304pp, £20

Against all sensible odds, Shaun Ryder is alive and nearly 60, after being front man for the band Happy Mondays on and off for four decades. A legendary hellraiser and druggie, in oldie age he is now clean. The

Guardian’s Emma Garland said: ‘Shy on stage and a pain in the arse everywhere else, he was an addict in a polo shirt and a pair of flares who, even during his rise to fame in the “Madchester” era, reputedly earned more money selling [ecstasy] than records. Split into short chapters covering everything from lyrics to haircuts, riders to rehab... [the book is] mainly an opportunity for him to reflect on the experience of going from a postie who didn’t know the alphabet to performing for 198,000 people in Rio.’

Ryder’s experiences aren’t necessarily gold-standard career advice

‘It is partly a repackaging of well-polished tales of chaos for both devoted fans and younger newcomers who know Ryder best via stints on I’m

A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! or Gogglebox,,’ said Victoria Segal in the

Sunday Times. ‘He says he now thinks of himself as “an all-round entertainer” – an oddly benign term for a man who once passed out in the coffin of a Brazilian heroin dealer’s recently deceased grandmother.’

‘While there is a reprehensible kind of common-sense advice here – don’t throw TVS from hotel windows if you don’t want police attention – Ryder’s experiences aren’t necessarily gold-standard career advice,’ said Segal. And Garland concluded: ‘Candid and brilliant, touching if occasionally a bit repetitive, it is a collection of stories so bizarre you’d be more likely hear them from some rogue bloke down the pub than a celebrity. But that’s the thing about Ryder: he is some rogue bloke down the pub.’