Shakey by Jimmy McDonough
This is flat-out the best biography of a rock hero I’ve read to date. I could criticize McDonough for going on endlessly with details of Young’s life that seem, at times, exhaustively pedestrian and unnecessary. But as the story of this oddly incandescent man from Winnipeg develops, I realized that the book succeeds in getting behind the inspiration. By learning about Young’s strange and unpredictable zigzags, we understand why he does what he does and how that weirdness fuels his creativity. McDonough did what few biographers of artists have managed to do: he got into his subject’s head and taught us where the songs come from.

–Sean Coakley