Best new books of the month

Best new books of the month
April 2015 in words — Johnny Depp's tattooist in Rio, Johnny Rotten's hard London days, a melancholy man in a spooky castle and a personal punk history.

Lots of memoirs this month. Dig into this selection of wild characters and adventurous lives.

Anger is an Energy: My Life Uncensored by John Lydon

The second memoir from former frontman of punk pioneers The Sex Pistols, Anger… is a no-holds-barred account of Lydon’s harsh upbringing in London and the working-class values that informed his later approach to music. Poverty, fame, scandal and honesty abound.
john-lydon-memoir

Narcisa Our Lady Of Ashes by Jonathan Shaw

A drunk encounter with Charles Bukowski in LA in the mid-’70s inspired then writer and punk bum Jonathan Shaw to hitchhike to and around central and south America. When he returned to New York he found work as a tattooist and established an iconic style that saw fans like Johnny Depp quick to sign up. This new work of fiction – about a passionate and doomed romance – exhibits his flair and finesse as a storyteller, taking inspiration from the things he has seen and people he has met along his travels.
9780062354990

Under Major Domo Minor by
Patrick Dewitt

Patrick Dewitt’s last novel Sisters Brothers was a Man Booker-nominated romp through Gold Rush California and the thieves, hit men, drunks and darlings that populate its wild landscape. His new novel Under Major Domo Minor is a gothic romantic black comedy set in a castle where things are not quite what they seem.
patrick-dewitt-under-major-domo-minor

Dress Rehearsal Brags by
Graham Bendel

Writer and punk filmmaker Graham Bendel’s ‘Diary of a Nobody’ has been described as “Catcher in the Rye had the lead character been into Killing Joke and had accidentally dry-humped Tanita Tikaram at a Desmond Dekker gig”. Hilarious, sad, insightful and smart, Dress Rehearsal… is an A-Z of the underground, seen slightly from side of stage.
dress-rehearsal-bags-graham-bendel

Latest on Huck

Exploring the impact of colonialism on Australia’s Indigenous communities
Photography

Exploring the impact of colonialism on Australia’s Indigenous communities

New exhibition, ‘Under a Southern Star: Identity and Environment in Australian Photography’ interrogates the use of photography as a tool of objectification and subjugation.

Written by: Miss Rosen

My sister disappeared when we were children. Years later, I retraced her footsteps
Photography

My sister disappeared when we were children. Years later, I retraced her footsteps

After a car crash that saw Magnum photographer Lindokuhle Sobekwa hospitalised, his sister ran away from their home in South Africa. His new photobook, I Carry Her Photo With Me, documents his journey in search of her.

Written by: Lindokuhle Sobekwa

Inside New York City’s hedonistic 2000s skateboarding scene
Photography

Inside New York City’s hedonistic 2000s skateboarding scene

New photobook, ‘Epicly Later’d’ is a lucid survey of the early naughties New York skate scene and its party culture.

Written by: Isaac Muk

Did we create a generation of prudes?
Culture

Did we create a generation of prudes?

Has the crushing of ‘teen’ entertainment and our failure to represent the full breadth of adolescent experience produced generation Zzz? Emma Garland investigates.

Written by: Emma Garland

How to shoot the world’s most gruelling race
Photography

How to shoot the world’s most gruelling race

Photographer R. Perry Flowers documented the 2023 edition of the Winter Death Race and talked through the experience in Huck 81.

Written by: Josh Jones

An epic portrait of 20th Century America
Photography

An epic portrait of 20th Century America

‘Al Satterwhite: A Retrospective’ brings together scenes from this storied chapter of American life, when long form reportage was the hallmark of legacy media.

Written by: Miss Rosen

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Issue 81: The more than a game issue

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