Canongate Books, 276 pages
Nick Cave changed my life when I first discovered him, sometime back in the mid-90s, by which point he’d already built a career spanning decades and the musical landscape I perceived at the time was growing ever more bleaker by the second. Personally, I’m still with him where he stated, “I’m forever near a stereo saying, ‘What the fuck is this garbage?’ And the answer is always the Red Hot Chili Peppers.” Still, the younger, saltier Cave of that era now seems a far cry removed from the older, more mellowed version of today, and the two of them finally chance to meet within the pages and on the cover of this gorgeously intimate book.
Cataloguing a lifetime’s worth of writing, artwork, and various other artifacts from Cave’s childhood through this present day, Stranger Than Kindness represents a selection of pieces from the exhibit of the same name, which finally opened last month at the Royal Danish Library in Copenhagen. For those unable to attend, I would highly recommend this book for the insights it provides into the life and works of its subject.
—Arthur Graham, Editor in Chief
