Life
By Keith Richards with James Fox
Little, Brown and Company
“To live outside the law, you must be honest,” Mr. Dylan instructed us all those years ago. And it’s fair to say that Keith Richards has mastered the art of doing both. Richards’ memoir Life is written as only a gentleman pirate could. This is a tale well told in Richards’ own manner, with a nice balance of cool, confidence, humor and – yes – humility. While hardly a “just say ‘No’” book (the closest it comes is Keith’s take on heroin: “I’d never recommend it to anybody”), Life doesn’t pretty anything up, either. (In Keith’s world, a junkie is a junkie – including himself – and there’s nothing glamorous about the puke-and-shit-yourself world of going cold turkey.) The mainstream press has made a large deal about Richards’ fiery relationship with Mick Jagger – apparently they weren’t paying much attention for the last 3 decades. The true moments that really matter are Keith’s feelings about family, friends, and making music. Life’s like that. So is Life.
