U2: At the End of the World (Paperback)

by Bill Flanagan (Author) "BONO WAKES up in Brezhnev's bed..." (more)
Key Phrases: virgin prunes, zoo plane, gavin friday, New York, Achtung Baby, Frank Sinatra (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Music journalist Flanagan (Written in My Soul) followed rock superstars U2 on the road, into the studio and into their private lives for three years to collect material for this authorized biography. It provides an interesting, if almost too comprehensive, account of day-to-day life for members of one of the most popular bands. Beginning with his subjects' arrival in Berlin to record an album as the Wall was coming down, Flanagan presents U2 as residing at the heart of politics and social change, describing their friendships with Bill Clinton and Salman Rushdie, their extralegal activities on behalf of Greenpeace and their efforts to provoke their massive audience into greater awareness through such projects as nightly updates on the war in Bosnia. Flanagan also encourages band members to spout off their philosophies on everything from music to religion and politics. An unabashed fan, Flanagan tends to lionize his subjects, but his minutely detailed accounts of them also render them compellingly human. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist
For being about a rock 'n' roll group, this is amazingly good. But then, U2 is an amazing band: four Dublin kids who didn't know how to write songs, let alone play their instruments, but who had a dream. Flanagan treats the band as if they set out on a quest as trying as any traditional hero's journey. He paces their story as fast as their globe-trotting lives and makes it as inspiring as their fans find their music. He provides a remarkable glimpse into the hearts and minds of a group that has dazzled ears and eyes throughout the world, and in so doing, renders great service to U2. Raul Nino --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 544 pages
• Publisher: Delta; Reprint edition (July 16, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385311575
• ISBN-13: 978-0385311571
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (75 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #373,610 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great rock-n-roll travelogue, June 10, 2004

By	amazonker (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews

Although this is a book about U2, it's such a strange and fascinating tale that it should stand as a classic of rock-n-roll writing as well as the single essential volume for any U2 fan.

The first thing that sets this book apart from the usual rock bio is that it doesn't focus on serving up facts about the band members. There's no "born here, went to school here" at the beginning; instead, we open with Bono, startled into crouching with a hand over his nakedness when a German family comes to reclaim the East Berlin house he's staying in just after the Wall falls. The rest of this tome continues in the same vein, conveying what the band members are like and how they live their rockstar lives by vividly recounting moment-to-moment experiences that the author lived through along with them.

Bill Flanagan was granted unprecedented access to the band member's lives, and throughout the two years he spends touring with him, they treat him as a friend. He makes no pretense of impartiality but rather tells everything from his own point of view, which is much more genuine than any false distance would be and allows you to feel you're there with the band. The length of time and volume of material that result are made more manageable by the fact that Flanagan gives each chapter its own brief coherency, so they can easily be read separately as well as together (and indeed a couple of them were originally published as magazine articles in Musician).

The real reward comes from following the band through to the end of their Zoo TV/Zooropa tour. There's a detachment from reality that Flanagan, the band members, and all the tour crew come to experience as they dedicate themselves to a roaming life, and it's gradually revealed as the band's experiences become more and more strange. Eventually, when you reach the near-insanity of Bono walking and talking and refusing to go to sleep in Japan, it makes a kind of strange sense. Along the way, Adam bottoms out, Edge does 'shrooms and falls in love, and Larry injects himself with bull's blood. It's all good stuff.

If you're really into U2, it would be a crying shame for you to miss out on this book because you'll never understand the band so well any other way. If you've somehow stumbled upon this out of a general interest in rock-n-roll life, it's worth your time to use this book for an insider's view. And if you're looking for some fun nonfiction, it doesn't get any crazier than this.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent for U2 fans, and music fans in general., January 10, 2000

By	Nathan Scoggins (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Bill Flanagan's "U2 at the End of the World," is far more appropriately titled, "U2 at the End of the Music Industry As We Know It." The book, which exhaustively charts the world-crossing tours Zoo TV and Zooropa, also functions as a historical document of the music industry on the cutting edge of a major technology surge. It forecasts the eventual rise of MP3s and deals with the copyright issues involved, and the pursuit of art, commerce, and technology, and explores where the worlds converge, and where they are still discordant. It is also a documentary of the craziness involved in tour life -- as Flanagan points out, most rock writers travel for a band with a week, then leave. It is a far far greater thing to spend two years jumping around the world with a band, to the point where tour life feel normal, and everything else is child's play. A book that deals not with the mundane day to day existence of U2's members ("and then Larry came in and said wackily, 'It was the pizzaman after all!' Bono, Edge and Adam laughed at the silly drummer," etc.), but with the deeper issues of what the band is about, what music is, what the business is like, and what it means to attempt to be relevant and reinvent ones'self in the ever-changing face of music. A must-read.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A 3-D, technicolor glimpse into U2 complete w/stereo sound., November 7, 1997

By A Customer

This is not a biography of facts about the band so if you're looking to find out how old Larry is, or how many kids Edge has, don't be buying this book. Bill Flanagan takes you into the minds of U2 but makes sure he passes their funny bones along the way.

He has the amazing ability of adding his own witty and keen input while at the same time making it seem as if U2 are talking with you personally.

By the end of the book, I was as exhausted and wrung out as if I had really just got back from the three year tour with the band. Though I read the book as a U2 fan, I would now gladly pick up anything else by Flanagan. His deceptively casual style will hook you from the first paragraph with a laugh and keep you up at four in the morning as you seek to discover "the secret of the universe" with Edge.