100 books like With or Without You

I’m an Australian author and artist who is quite cautious and introverted by nature, but very curious and playful at heart. I make books that help people untangle what’s on their mind today and shift their thinking in creative ways, often using visual metaphors. My latest book, Guidebook to the Unknown, was created during the long lockdowns we had in Melbourne (and all over the world of course) during the pandemic. It was my way of exploring how to calm an anxious mind and find meaning in my daily life, right here and now, without knowing what tomorrow will bring.

I am a radiologist specializing in emergency room and breast imaging and a lifelong book nerd. Though I chose radiology as my medical specialty, I have always been fascinated by the complicated workings of the human mind. I majored in psychology in college and strongly considered careers in both psychiatry and neurology. Books exploring the fragility and fallibility of the human brain never fail to catch my attention. These stories explore the essence of what it means to be human and highlight the resilience of the human spirit.  

I am a radiologist specializing in emergency room and breast imaging and a lifelong book nerd. Though I chose radiology as my medical specialty, I have always been fascinated by the complicated workings of the human mind. I majored in psychology in college and strongly considered careers in both psychiatry and neurology. Books exploring the fragility and fallibility of the human brain never fail to catch my attention. These stories explore the essence of what it means to be human and highlight the resilience of the human spirit.  

I am a radiologist specializing in emergency room and breast imaging and a lifelong book nerd. Though I chose radiology as my medical specialty, I have always been fascinated by the complicated workings of the human mind. I majored in psychology in college and strongly considered careers in both psychiatry and neurology. Books exploring the fragility and fallibility of the human brain never fail to catch my attention. These stories explore the essence of what it means to be human and highlight the resilience of the human spirit.  

My two passions in life have always been music and reading. I was a punk rock girl, with wildly colored hair and a plethora of tattoos, who has never missed a chance to lose herself in a romance novel. I love it when my two favorite things collide in wonderful ways. I still read whatever I can get my hands on, but now I write some of those beloved books as well. Several of them have been bestsellers and many are published in various languages. My mosh-pit days are long gone, but you can still find me at a Social Distortion concert whenever they come to town. If you’ve got a rebellious heart and an ear for music that isn’t as mainstream, I’m sure you will love these books I recommended as much as I do.

I have two major passions in life: music and writing. I started learning guitar aged 16, and my friends and I formed a band as soon as we possibly could. My first professional job was writing about pop music for a monthly magazine, and much later in life, I discovered jazz. Now I’m a bass-player, jazz singer, and composer who works with some of the finest jazz musicians in London, and I play regularly at Ronnie Scott’s club. As well as the Donald Fagen biography, I’ve also written biographies of the great jazz singers Mark Murphy (for me, the greatest of them all) and Jon Hendricks.

I am a journalist, author, guitarist, singer, and songwriter who has spent my career spreading the gospel of the music I love, notably the Allman Brothers Band and the blues masters. I’ve been a Guitar World writer and editor since 1991, profiled countless musicians for The Wall Street Journal, and lived in Beijing for four years, forming a blues band with three Chinese musicians that toured the country, recorded an album, and won awards. That experience has informed everything I’ve done since, including forming Friends of the Brothers, the premier celebration of the music of the Allman Brothers Band. 

I started singing and playing guitar in garage bands in high school, about the same time that I began thinking of myself as a serious writer, so for me the two endeavors have always gone hand in hand. Over the decades, I’ve continued to write creatively—while teaching thousands of students along the way—and also to play in a number of bands that have specialized in everything from country-folk to raucous punk. Like many writer-musicians, I love reading good stories about the challenges and joys of people joining together, and falling apart, as they attempt to transcend ordinary life through the power of music.

Richard Niles was born in Hollywood but grew up in London where his 50-year professional career as a composer, arranger, record producer led to work with some of the most acclaimed artists of our time, including Paul McCartney, Ray Charles, James Brown, Tina Turner, Cher and jazz icon Pat Metheny. He has worked on 20 Gold and 28 Platinum records. He has published many books on music including The Pat Metheny Interviews, The Invisible Artist, From Dreaming to Gigging, Piano Grooves, Songwriting – The 11-Point Plan, Adventures in Arranging, Adventures in Jazz Composition, What is Melody?, and How to be an Employable Musician. Dr. Niles' PhD is from Brunel University and he has lectured internationally.

My tenure as editor-in-chief of Guitar magazine is well behind me now, but it always lights me up to create content for musicians, and to absorb it. These are my people, you see, a community of curious, empathic, chronically late daydreamers and night owls, good listeners all. I’m not qualified to comment on Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory or Stravinsky’s Poetics of Music, but neither do I want to talk about rock-star memoirs or fawning fictionalizations. No fanfare here, thank you. Instead, these are five books in which musicians may recognize some element of their creative self and come away with a little more fuel for the fire.