U2-A Diary

If you click through to see the larger image on Flickr, you’ll see that’s me next to Eminem. And Ronnie Wood. And there’s Slash above me. John Lennon and Andy Summers below me. Pretty cool, if you ask me. :)

You can imagine my surprise when I saw this a couple nights ago at the local Barnes & Noble: my book on display on an endcap! That’s some nice publicity. And for all the criticism that the final book cover took, I actually think it stands out much better in this environment than the other covers. The wide black space really makes the book title quite eye-catching.

Or maybe it’s just that my eyes are used to seeing this cover and so I noticed it more quickly? Possible. Still, it’s just cool to see the book getting promoted like this.

Thanks to Eric for pointing me toward this Record Collector review of U2 – A Diary. I have no idea how old the review is, and there’s no date on the web page.

It’s a 3-star review, but I don’t know if that’s 3-out-of-4 or 3-out-of-5. Hmmmm. The text seems favorable:

Whether this is of interest to you – even as a U2 fan – depends largely on what kind of books you like reading – and that’s not as trite a point as it sounds. Truly, lists and quotes appeal to a certain section of the music buying public more than the conjecture and received wisdom of flowing prose. We know which we prefer.

I suppose you could say tha RC doesn’t make it obvious how they feel about the book. But, given that it’s a magazine that focuses on facts and figures, values, release dates, and other collecting details, I’m taking this as a “we prefer this style of book ahead of flowing prose.”