Bill Flanagan is the author of Written in My Soul, a collection of conversations with songwriters, and U2 at the End of the World. He is Senior Vice President and Editorial Director of VH1. Flanagan has written for Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, GQ, Esquire, Spy, and many other publications. He lives in New York City with his wife and three children.
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The most intimate and appreciative biography of the mega rock band U2 to date—by the author to whom the band gave complete access.
When U2 took the stage for their three-year Zoo TV world tour in 1991, Bill Flanagan was there—in the bus, on the plane, in the recording studio and well after hours with the biggest rock band in the world. A tour that began to support the hugely successful Achtung Baby record and ended with a second, even more successful record, Zooropa, took U2 to the far reaches of the world, playing to over a hundred sold-out arenas in over forty cities.
U2 At The End Of The World takes you on the world tour and drops you off at the cultural intersection where rock stars meet politicians; where writers, directors, and models all wind up backstage with U2. You're there when the band meets Bill Clinton in a Chicago hotel room; when Salman Rushdie comes out of hiding to join the band onstage at Wembley Arena in London; when Frank Sinatra and Bono record their famous duet, "I've Got You Under My Skin." And finally, when the band performs their last Zoo TV concert in Tokyo in 1993 and nearly collapses from physical and mental exhaustion, you are there with them waiting for the end of the world. Augmented with sleek photos by renowned photographer Anton Corbijn, U2 At The End Of The World is the most definitive book on the band to date.
"Rarely has a rock biography been as insightful or as much fun. It reads like a James Joyce-meets-Hunter Thompson novel. It's the literary equivalent of the Zoo TV tour—a brash, ambitious marathon with a momentum all its own."—BostonGlobe
