Waging Heavy Peace
by Neil Young
- Percentage of approved critics who have given this book a positive review.
Critic Rating
91%
Critic Reviews: 36
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- User rating from iDreamBooks & iTunes
Reader Rating
79%
Reader Ratings: 320
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Synopsis
An iconic figure in the history of rock and pop culture (inducted not once but twice into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame), Neil Young has written his eagerly awaited memoir: 'I felt that writing books fit me like a glove; I just started and I just kept going'. Young offers a kaleidoscopic view of his personal life and musical career, spanning his time in bands like Buffalo Springfield, Crosby, Stills & Nash and Crazy Horse; moving from the snows of Ontario... more
About Neil Young
Published: September 25, 2012 by Blue Rider Press
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs, Humor & Entertainment, Arts & Photography. Non-fiction. 512 pages
- All Critics: 36
- Positive: 35
- Negative: 1
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Washington Post | 16 Nov 2012
Time and again, he confronts his big fear: that he doesn’t have the spark anymore. And he’s honest enough to admit that he can’t know the answer. All he can do is keep trying.
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The Telegraph | 15 Nov 2012
Young has delivered a blog-like account of his daily life which meanders into tangential memories.
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The New York Times | 26 Oct 2012
“Waging Heavy Peace” is a convoluted road map to that life, drawn on cocktail napkins and pinned up with refrigerator magnets — part free-form blog, part liner notes to some future hundred-disc anthology...
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The New York Times | 28 Oct 2012
...presents a much more playful, capricious portrait of the same tough, controlling person Mr. McDonough described.
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The Guardian | 19 Oct 2012
...some discussion of guitars and the occasional backstage tantrum, but rather more about his son Ben, who was born with cerebral palsy and is quadriplegic, and his own childhood polio and the brain aneurism that attacked him in 2005.
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Paste | 6 Nov 2012
There’s a certain charm to his non-musical enthusiasms, and it can be interesting to hear about the wild stuff that people do with their money when they hit it big.
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Kirkus Reviews | 15 Oct 2012
...an entertaining and mostly well-written journey into the past, if light on rock ’n’ roll.
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Rolling Stone | 25 Sep 2012
...often reads less like a traditional autobiography than a lively blog – full of casual asides, unpredictable tangents and open-ended questions as he looks back on his life at age 66.
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AV Club | 15 Oct 2012
Those indifferent to Young will see no point to it, but Young obsessives will find it hard to put down.
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Los Angeles Times | 7 Oct 2012
...which is surely one of the most idiosyncratic rock star autobiographies I've encountered, a book that wears its genius (yes) and its excess on its sleeve.
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The New Yorker | 17 Oct 2012
He just seems lost and mute when he might have brought a scene or a person to life, as if there were nothing more to prose writing than listing and noting.
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The Times-Picayune | 25 Oct 2012
...like all things he does, he has written his book exactly his way. If you like his way, then, you will most likely like it.
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Lancaster Online | 24 Nov 2012
As you read, you're never sure exactly where you're going, and you're not always satisfied when you arrive, but the trip...is entertaining, making for a worthwhile journey.
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The Wall Street Journal | 28 Sep 2012
...because the book is terrific: modest, honest, funny and frequently moving—an antidote.
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Books & Review | 27 Nov 2012
"Waging Heavy Peace" was Young's first attempt at writing, but just like his music - that humble, shaggy-dog swagger, the virtue of cleverness in simplicity - he makes it look easy.
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Los Angeles Review of Books | 29 Oct 2012
...Waging Heavy Peace might be the most authentically demystifying rock memoir yet ever penned.
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Entertainment Weekly | 28 Sep 2012
Fittingly, Peace unfolds like a blustery Crazy Horse jam: often frustrating but occasionally hitting on an enrapturing revelation, requiring ample stores of passion and patience.
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National Post | 11 Oct 2012
The book is filled with shout-outs to old friends and frequent addresses to the reader...
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The Newtown Review of Books | 6 Dec 2012
If you’re prepared to ride around with him on his psychic highway, you’ll get to see the most revealing portrait of a rock & roll icon yet written.
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Chron.com | 29 Sep 2012
...an honest, insightful, engaging and, dare we say, fun literary rambling. It’s a yarn told by a good buddy in a dark bar over beers and tequilas with great music on the jukebox in the background.
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San Francisco Chronicle | 22 Oct 2012
...an unbidden editor's nightmare but an indulgent fan's delight - and just about the most ADHD-stricken autobiography of all time.
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Tampa Bay Times | 4 Nov 2012
But get into its rhythm and you'll be rewarded with the kind of storytelling that has made Young's music so evocative.
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Austin Chronicle | 7 Dec 2012
Like the whole of his musical career, Waging Heavy Peace varies from enlightening to wildly frustrating....one can only conclude that's simply Neil Young's humanity showing through.
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Publishers Weekly | 1 Oct 2012
Young weaves crystalline lyrics and notes...with reflections on the enduring beauty of nature, and the lasting power and influence of music.
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The Independent | 20 Oct 2012
But there is none quite like Neil Young's eccentric, sprawling, absorbing telling of his life.
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All About Jazz. | 3 Nov 2012
There may be no other biography that is so closely in tune with the artist, nor an artist that is this in tune with his muse and has the ability to write about it in such a detailed and expressive way.
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Under My Apple Tree | 23 Nov 2012
Enjoyable and entertaining, music and memoir fans will find this a satisfying read.
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Chicago Tribune | 28 Sep 2012
Neil Young leaves much to be interpreted in his meandering new book — just as you might expect
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Quill & Quire | 1 Dec 2012
...this charming, poignant volume is much like Young’s oeuvre: sustained periods of pure delight punctuated by sudden, unexpected turns.
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Rock Cellar Magazine
The triumph of Waging Heavy Peace is that after reading it, you really feel that you’ve just had a great time hanging out with Neil Young.
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Jambands | 9 Nov 2012
...but the constant that truly counts is Young himself. His feelings, memories, and confessions were laid out on the pages as they came from his soul.
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The Northern Echo | 12 Nov 2012
Like with so much else, Young has done this book his way, and it is excellent.
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The Beat Magazine. | 6 Oct 2012
In short, Waging Heavy Peace is very much like its author -- rambling, meandering and equal parts brilliant and frustrating.
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The Buffalo News | 1 Oct 2012
...the memoir is a paean to the Muse herself, and a testament to Young's lifelong insistence on maintaining the wide-eyed wonder of a child in her presence.
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Straight.com | 26 Oct 2012
The legendary rocker unloads about his life, his friends, and his muse, all written as a nonlinear recollection, as if the reader were sitting with Young himself at the back of his tour bus, shooting the shit.
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The New York Times | 26 Oct 2012
Young’s a star who behaves like a grizzled, antic prospector in the comedy of his own life. “Waging Heavy Peace” is his testimony before an audience conceived of as like-minded, if only as a brotherhood of the incongruous.
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