cover image Rockers and Rollers: A Full-Throttle Memoir

Rockers and Rollers: A Full-Throttle Memoir

Brian Johnson. HarperCollins/It, $25.99 (224p) ISBN 978-0-06-199083-0

It's surprisingly refreshing that Johnson's lively memoir basically has little to do with writing about life with AC/DC%E2%80%94it's really all about cars. The working-class singer was beginning a successful auto repair business when he joined AC/DC in 1980, and he still remains a gearhead at heart as well as an accomplished racecar driver and auto collector. In each of his more than 90 short and speedy chapters, Johnson offers personal vignettes and expert opinions about the many cars that he has loved and lost. You don't need to know anything about AC/DC to appreciate his funny and highly descriptive writing about everything from the Lotus Cortina Mk1 ("a brick with wheels") and the Citroen Maserati SM ("a beautiful creation that came straight from Hell") to the Rolls-Royce Phantom ("2.5 tons of hand-built sex, with a 7.2 BMW engine with twelve funnels of fun" and the Mini ("the Beatles of motorcars"). (July)