Books of the Year 2024 - Number 4. Discover the full list on our blog.

The story of The Jesus and Mary Chain by the two founding members. For 5 years after they had swapped sought-after apprenticeships for life on the dole, brothers William and Jim Reid sat up till the early hours in the front room of their parents' East Kilbride council house, plotting their path to world domination over endless cups of tea.

The music turned down low so as not to wake their sleeping sister. They knew they couldn't play in the same band because they would argue too much. So, they described their dream ensembles to each other until they realized that these two perfect bands were actually the same band. The name of that band was The Jesus and Mary Chain. The rest was not silence.

Picking up those conversations again more than 40 years later, William and Jim tell the full story of one of Britain's greatest guitar bands for the very first time. A wildly funny and improbably moving chronicle of brotherly strife, feedback, riots, drug and alcohol addiction, eternal outsiders, and extreme shyness. It also somehow manages to be a love letter to the Scottish working-class family.