Andrew Mueller is Australian by birth, a Londoner by choice, a wanderer by nature, and a journalist by profession. Unable to decide among being a rock critic, travel writer, or foreign correspondent, he hit upon the novel, if time-consuming, solution of trying to be all three at once. In Rock and Hard Places, published originally in the U.K. in 1999, now re-envisioned, updated, and available for the first time in the U.S., he travels to Lebanon with the Prodigy, comes to America with Radiohead, and goes all over the place with U2. He ventures to Bosnia and Herzegovina with an aid convoy in the middle of the war, sees Def Leppard play in a cave in Morocco, and attempts to ask the Taliban not only what they think they're up to, but whom they fancy for the World Cup. He flings himself headfirst down the Cresta Run, sits in Stalin's armchair, chases ambulances through Moscow, chases some kind of lost tribe in India, wakes up at least once in a park in Reykjavik, and strongly advises avoiding the seafood salad in Sapporo Airport. He's funny. Occasionally he makes a point.
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
London-based Aussie Mueller is the kind of adventure journalist who inserts himself into nearly every story; as a rock critic, travel writer and foreign correspondent, Mueller gives equal weight to encounters with customs officials and foreign dining experiences as he does war-zone reporting in Bosnia or buddying up to the Taliban in Afghanistan. In this collection of 28 pieces penned for non-U.S. periodicals, dating from the early 1990s on, Mueller showcases his broad range-everything from The Prodigy in Beirut to Bruce Springsteen in Middle America, from revisiting Chernobyl to his own book tour of Britain. While Mueller's snarky style (think a clean-mouthed Matt Taibbi) tends to marginalize nearly everything his sources say, he pens new introductions to each piece that are at least candid about his shortcomings: he admits that he was "trying rather too hard" to insult L.A. in a 1991 story about Courtney Love, and apologizes to residents of Fredericton, New Brunswick, "for the fusillade of cheap shots taken at their town" in a 1995 piece about Green Day's Canadian tour. Mueller's best stories are the ones in which he stays on topic, including pieces on Woodstock II, The Hold Steady and the Drive-By Truckers.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
Praise for I Wouldn’t Start from Here
“The best foreign correspondent of his generation.” —P.J. O’Rourke
“I am regularly lost. I ask people all the time for directions. They send me to places I never could have imagined . . . I usually want to enter these places when everyone else is queuing up to leave, oftentimes there's just one person in front of me, oftentimes it's Andrew Mueller . . . at the desk in the airport, or in the customs hall at the same counter as me, filling out a similar form. His face has the same expression every time . . . it’s a very familiar expression: comic disbelief. He can't believe it's happened to him again . . . he thinks it's the poor directions, the road maps or the unkind stranger who pointed him here. And where is here? Nowhere...it's not that he likes to be lost, it's just that he likes the company of the lost. Be very careful reading this book.” —Bono
“A 21st-century original; a fresh, irreverent, wry and jovial jaunt of a guidebook around our violent and baffling modern world.” —The Guardian
“A gung-ho Candide with a taste for places it is wiser to avoid. . . the reports collected in I Wouldn't Start From Here are graphic, comic, bemused and properly contemptuous of faith and ideology.” —Jonathan Meades, “Books of the Year,” Evening Standard
“An utterly sui generis report from the world's plague-spots.” —Michael Bywater, “Books of the Year,” New Statesman
“A tour-de-force of hilarious, harrowing and ultimately enlightening reportage that will remind readers of the work of P.J. O'Rourke, Jon Ronson and David Foster Wallace.” —The Washington Times
“His sardonic, self-deprecating perspective makes for unstuffy company.” —The Los Angeles Times
“Peppered with trenchant observations that reflect a nimble, cut-to-the-chase practicality, Mueller's interviews with everyone from terrorist warlords to international peacemakers are refreshingly irreverent yet astute.” —Booklist
“Brilliantly observed, articulate, often funny and immensely readable.” —The List
“The best foreign correspondent of his generation.” —P.J. O’Rourke
“I am regularly lost. I ask people all the time for directions. They send me to places I never could have imagined . . . I usually want to enter these places when everyone else is queuing up to leave, oftentimes there's just one person in front of me, oftentimes it's Andrew Mueller . . . at the desk in the airport, or in the customs hall at the same counter as me, filling out a similar form. His face has the same expression every time . . . it’s a very familiar expression: comic disbelief. He can't believe it's happened to him again . . . he thinks it's the poor directions, the road maps or the unkind stranger who pointed him here. And where is here? Nowhere...it's not that he likes to be lost, it's just that he likes the company of the lost. Be very careful reading this book.” —Bono
“A 21st-century original; a fresh, irreverent, wry and jovial jaunt of a guidebook around our violent and baffling modern world.” —The Guardian
“A gung-ho Candide with a taste for places it is wiser to avoid. . . the reports collected in I Wouldn't Start From Here are graphic, comic, bemused and properly contemptuous of faith and ideology.” —Jonathan Meades, “Books of the Year,” Evening Standard
“An utterly sui generis report from the world's plague-spots.” —Michael Bywater, “Books of the Year,” New Statesman
“A tour-de-force of hilarious, harrowing and ultimately enlightening reportage that will remind readers of the work of P.J. O'Rourke, Jon Ronson and David Foster Wallace.” —The Washington Times
“His sardonic, self-deprecating perspective makes for unstuffy company.” —The Los Angeles Times
“Peppered with trenchant observations that reflect a nimble, cut-to-the-chase practicality, Mueller's interviews with everyone from terrorist warlords to international peacemakers are refreshingly irreverent yet astute.” —Booklist
“Brilliantly observed, articulate, often funny and immensely readable.” —The List
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More About the Author
I live in London and write things about stuff for a variety of publications, including The Guardian, Monocle, Esquire, Uncut, The Times, The Independent and The New Humanist. The website at www.andrewmueller.net broadcasts regular updates about same. I've written two books, and am currently working steadily towards ceasing procrastinating about starting on a third.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fantastic,
By
This review is from: Rock and Hard Places: Travels to Backstages, Frontlines and Assorted Sideshows (Paperback)
I wanted to give the book a 5 star review (a) because it deserves it, and (b) to offset one of the uninformed reviews. The book clearly states it's a collection of his printed works stories. Yes a rewiew below knocks it for not being a novel, and the stories not tieing together. I don't know what in the product description lead that reviewer to believe it was a novel, but whatever. It's a great book. His other book "I Wouldn't Start From Here" is even better, and has updates to some of the stories in this book. I'd recommend reading both of them. Thanks.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Just fantastic,
By Cameron Rogers (Melbourne, Victoria Australia) - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Rock and Hard Places: Travels to Backstages, Frontlines and Assorted Sideshows (Paperback)
This is an utterly fantastic collection of articles - 20 years worth - of one self-described hack's experiences of touring warzones with rock bands. It's dry, it witty, it's hilarious. I love this guy's style, and for some reason the fact that he was born and raised in Wagga Wagga only endears him to me more. He's smart, he's savvy and the modern introductions to all the articles frame them all wonderfully. A very, very likeable, lovable book and one I'll be keeping and rereading. Mueller's brilliant
1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Rock & Hard Places,
By JSN (USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Rock and Hard Places (Paperback)
I great read. Bought this book used from a bookstore in England via the net. It's in my re-read stack.
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