Books by Joe Bonomo

No Place I Would Rather Be is a look at Roger Angell's writing over the decades, including his early short stories, pieces for the New Yorker, and later autobiographical essays, and at the common threads that run through it.

By first taking a look at the critical years before his famed night in 1964 at West Germany's Star-Club, then the tumultuous years that follow, culminating in his years on the American Country charts in the late 60s/early 70s, this book examines and explains the almighty impact of the Father of Rock'n'Roll - Jerry Lee Lewis.

Released in 1979, AC/DC's Highway To Hell was the infamous last album recorded with singer Bon Scott, who died of alcohol poisoning in London in February of 1980. Officially chalked up to "Death by Misadventure," Scott's demise has forever secured the album's reputation as a partying primer and a bible for lethal behavior, branding the album with the fun chaos of alcoholic excess and its flip side, early death. The best songs on Highway To Hell achieve Sonic Platonism, translating rock & roll's transcendent ideals in stomping, dual-guitar and eighth-note bass riffing, a Paleolithic drum bed, and insanely, recklessly odd but fun vocals. Joe Bonomo strikes a three-chord essay on the power of adolescence, the durability of rock & roll fandom, and the transformative properties of memory. Why does Highway To Hell matter to anyone beyond non-ironic teenagers? Blending interviews, analysis, and memoir with a fan's perspective, Highway To Hell dramatizes and celebrates a timeless album that one critic said makes "disaster sound like the best fun in the world."

It is June 2001. Keith Streng steers a cramped mini-van north along Lincoln Avenue in Chicago while Peter Zaremba, Bill Milhizer and Ken Fox sprawl in the back nursing hangovers. They pull into the Apache, quaintly described as a "hooker hotel" by local folk. This is a bare-knuckled account of road-paving rock & roll played in the real world.