U2-A Diary

You may recall this post from the start of the month — Perfect Gift for U2 Fans — where I showed a photo of five (5) copies of U2 – a Diary on the shelf at my local Barnes & Noble bookstore.

A fear came over me right around Christmas … a fear that no one in my hometown had bought a copy of the book! I was thinking to myself, What if I go into B&N after Christmas and all five copies are still there?

The horror! The shame! The embarrassment!

Well, talk about relief: I walked into the store yesterday and, holding my breath the whole time, ventured into the music books section. Great news: There were only three copies left!

Whew! You have no idea what a relief that was. :)

… if you do have a copy of the book already, I would be happy to learn what you think about it. Whether you love it, hate it, or somewhere in between, feel free to leave a comment below.

And, if you’d like to leave your thoughts where more people will see them, why not leave a review on Amazon.com, Amazon UK, the Barnes & Noble web site, or another online book seller? (Amazon links are to the right….)

I knew it would happen eventually. After all the positive reviews, one critic came out swinging the other way.

A guy named Robert Holman pretty much ripped the book apart in the Toledo Free Press newspaper. The whole review is too long to quote here, and I don’t understand some of the criticisms. Give it a read and let me know what you think.

Part of me would like to go line-by-line through the review and challenge/refute the stuff I don’t understand or agree with, but that would be petty. :) Everyone’s allowed an opinion … it’s okay to not like the book … and this guy happens to get paid to share his opinions. Life goes on, and I’m sure there’ll be other critics who don’t like the book. Most important thing to me is what you, my fellow U2 fans, think about it.

I’m exhausted. It’s a lot of work collecting and answering 31 questions from you folks. But it’s also a lot of fun. :-)

That’s the number I ended up with after announcing Contest #2 last week. As I mentioned in the comments, some of the questions were off-topic, and I’ve skipped those to focus on questions about U2 – A Diary.

So, without further ado, here’s the full group interview of 31 questions and answers … followed by the announcement of the winner … and a quick preview of the next contest. (more…)

A couple weeks ago, Caroline posted a YouTube video on U2log.com that I just now finally got around to watching.

WOW!

This is an interview from when Bono was appearing on Dave Fanning’s radio show to play the band’s first three songs, and Fanning’s listeners were being asked to vote which one of the songs should be the A-side to U2-3, which was released a month later.

There are lots of clues in the interview that have me thinking it happened late night (after midnight) on August 20, 1979, but I’ll have to listen again to make sure. The whole interview is pure gold and I’m stoked to write this up for a possible future update of U2 – A Diary.