Born to Run (Springsteen)

Book Reviews
[B]ig, loose, rangy and intensely satisfying…The book is like one of Mr. Springsteen's shows—long, ecstatic, exhausting, filled with peaks and valleys. It's part seance and part keg party…. His writing voice is much like his speaking voice; there's a big, raspy laugh on at least every other page…. Most important, Born to Run is, like [Springsteen's] finest songs, closely observed from end to end. His story is intimate and personal, but he has an interest in other people and a gift for sizing them up.
Dwight Garner - New York Times


Springsteen can write—not just life-imprinting song lyrics but good, solid prose that travels all the way to the right margin. I mean, you'd think a guy who wrote "Spanish Johnny drove in from the underworld last night / With bruised arms and broken rhythm and a beat-up old Buick…" could navigate his way around a complete and creditable American sentence. And you'd be right…. Nothing in Born to Run rings to me as unmeant or punch-pulling…. And like a fabled Springsteen concert—always notable for its deck-clearing thoroughness—Born to Run achieves the sensation that all the relevant questions have been answered by the time the lights are turned out. He delivers the story of Bruce…via an informally steadfast Jersey plainspeak that's worked and deftly detailed and intimate with its readers—cleareyed enough to say what it means when it has hard stories to tell, yet supple enough to rise to occasions requiring eloquence—sometimes rather pleasingly subsiding into the syntax and rhythms of a Bruce Springsteen song
Richard Ford - New York Times Book Review


Bruce Springsteen’s frank and gripping memoir, Born to Run, is an intimate portrait of one man’s lifelong attempt to follow that primary command. People who choose rock and roll as their vocation are usually trying to break free from constraints, to smash things, to stir up a little turmoil in their souls. Springsteen entered a world of chaos and turned to guitars and amplifiers and lyrics to create order.
David Brooks - Atlantic Monthly


A virtuoso performance, the 508-page equivalent to one of Springsteen and the E Street Band's famous four-hour concerts: Nothing is left onstage, and diehard fans and first-timers alike depart for home sated and yet somehow already aching for more.”
Barbara J. King - NPR


[I]t might be easy to think that his new memoir Born To Run couldn't be all that revelatory since we already know so much. But it turns out that the nine years he spent writing it were worthwhile ones. He reached deep into his memory banks and produced a stunning 510 page book that will thrill even the most hardcore Bruce fanatics.
Andy Greene - Rolling Stone


(Starred review.) [A]n entertaining, high-octane journey from the streets of New Jersey to all over the world. A natural storyteller, Springsteen commands our attention, regaling us with his tales of growing up poor with a misanthropic father.... [He] writes with the same powerful lyrical quality of his music.
Publishers Weekly


Starred review.) The Boss speaks—and he does so as both journeyman rocker and philosopher king.... Springsteen is gentle with those who treated him poorly...but generous with love for friends and listeners alike. A superb memoir by any standard, but one of the best to have been written by a rock star.
Kirkus Reviews