A DRINK WITH SHANE MACGOWAN

Funny, honest, brilliant and opinionated, A Drink with Shane MacGowan is the highly-acclaimed memoir of a true music icon. One of the freshest, most original biographies Ive ever read - Lynne Barber, Observer His candour, coupled with an acerbic wit, makes him an ideal guide through an unmistakably colourful life - Time Out Shane MacGowan was an intensely talented songwriter whose band, The Pogues, merged punk with Irish folk music to create a sound uniquely their own. An anarchic hellraiser with the soul of a poet, he is forever associated with Christmas after the chart-topping success of Fairytale of New York, his duet with Kirsty McColl. He grew up on a small farm in Tipperary, won a scholarship to Westminster, was rapidly expelled, became a rent boy, then a central figure of punk and the hugely influential star of The Pogues - until his bandmates got so fed up of his behaviour they kicked him out for a time. MacGowans music, innovative and powerful, is as distinctive as his chaotic, breakdown-scarred, drug and alcohol-fuelled lifestyle. Written with his girlfriend (and later wife) Victoria Mary Clarke, A Drink With Shane MacGowan is a joyful celebration of a charming musician with a remarkable perspective on the world. An enormously vivid and descriptive picture of his life and dramatic times - Irish Times This endearing memoir . . . is Irish rock distilled - Sunday Times