Waging Heavy Peace: A Hippie Dream - Tapa blanda

Waging Heavy Peace is the remarkable memoir of rock icon Neil Young

'I felt that writing books fit me like a glove; I just started and I just kept going'

Neil Young is a singular figure in the history of rock and pop culture in the last four decades, inducted not once but twice into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Reflective, insightful and disarmingly honest, Waging Heavy Peace is his long-awaited memoir. From his youth in Canada to his crazy journey out to California, through Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills & Nash, to his massively successful solo career and his re-emergence as the patron saint of grunge on to his role today as one of the last uncompromised and uncompromising survivors of rock 'n' roll - this is Neil's story told in his own words.

Young presents a kaleidoscopic view of personal life and musical creativity; it's a journey that spans the snows of Ontario to the LSD-laden boulevards of 1966 Los Angeles to the contemplative paradise of Hawaii today. Along the way he writes about the music, the victims, the girls and the drugs; about his happy family life but also about the health problems he and his children have experienced; about guitars, cars and sound systems; about Canada and California and Hawaii.

Candid, witty and revealing, this book takes its place beside the classic memoirs of Bob Dylan and Keith Richards.

'This year's biggest music biography, Neil Young's memoir is absolutely fascinating. The singer writes candidly, revealing much about the life experiences which have influenced his song-writing.' Bookseller magazine

'Neil Young has never been your average rock star and this is not your average rock star autobiography . . . Over the course of its 500 pages, Waging Heavy Peace is variously wildly idiosyncratic, unpredictable, bafflingly digressive, wryly funny, deeply moving, painfully honest . . . infuriatingly elusive and shot through with moments of rare insight and beauty, which you might say makes it the perfect literary counterpart to the 50-year career it describes' Guardian

'He's talking to you, not at you, unravelling himself as well, and you don't want it to end . . . You see rock and roll history from the inside out, and in the present tense' Independent

'Young appears bounteous and joyful, a genuinely happy hippy . . . Unusually for a rock memoir, this one is almost completely angst-free' Sunday Times

'Dryly hilarious . . . poignant . . . Waging Heavy Peace shows that Young is still in full possession of that stubborn, brilliant, one-of-a-kind instrument' Rolling Stone

'A real treat . . . he writes openly and movingly abut the key figures in his life...you feel you know Young better for reading it' Metro

'A ride through Young's many obsessions . . . Waging Heavy Peace eschews chronology and skips the score-settling and titillation of other rocker biographies. Still, Young shows a little leg and has some laughs. The operatics of the rock life give way to signal family events, deconstructions of his musical partnerships and musings on the natural world. It is less a chronicle than a journal of self-appraisal' New York Times

Neil Young was born in Toronto in 1945, and later went to live with his mother in Winnipeg after his parents split up. He moved to California in 1966 where he co-founded Buffalo Springfield before joining the hugely successful Crosby, Stills & Nash, and then embarking on a stellar solo career. He has been inducted not once but twice into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which describes him as 'one of rock 'n' roll's greatest songwriters and performers'.

Young is an outspoken advocate of environmental issues and the welfare of small farmers - he co-founded Farm Aid in 1986. He is also active in educational projects for disabled children, and co-founded The Bridge School which assists children with physical impairments and communication needs. Widely regarded as one of the most influential musicians of his generation, Neil Young continues to live on his ranch in northern California and in Hawaii.