“When you are growing up there are two institutional places that affect you most powerfully: the church, which belongs to God, and the public library, which belongs to you. The public library is a great equaliser.” – Keith Richards
Who would have thought that Keith Richards upcoming autobiography Life is as much a book about books as it is a book about a life in music.
Life, due out in October from Little Brown, will contain much on Richards life with books. The Independent reports, in the cleverly titled piece “It’s only books ‘n’ shelves but I like it,” that in the book Richards, after years of playing hard, has taken to “quietly nurturing his inner bookworm.”
Richards confesses to his “secret longing” of wanting to be a librarian. He even talks about his attempt to arrange his collection of thousands of books by the Dewey Decimal system. There is also much on the role of books in Richards life before he discovered the blues and began his musical life.
Richards has reportedly received an advance of $7.3 million for the book.