Pennyblackmusic - Book of the Year Award 2024

  by Admin

published: 8 / 6 / 2025

intro

We reveal the winner of our Book of the Year Award for 2024 and the runners-up.

1. Johnnie Johnstone/Through a Crack in the Wall: The Secret History of Josef K 2. Steve Wynn/I Wouldn’t Say If It Wasn’t True: A Memoir of Life, Music and The Dream Syndicate 3. John Andrew Fredrick/The King of Good Intentions III 4. Alan Edwards/I’ll Be There: Dispatches from a Life in Rock and Roll 5. Mark Plotnik and Jim Surrmaria/’70s Chicagoland Rock Concerts Pennyblackmusic’s Book of the Year for 2024 is Through a Crack in the Wall’ and Steve Wynn’s ‘I Wouldn’t Say If It Wasn’t True’. Both were masterful evocations of their era, Johnstone’s book of 1970’s Edinburgh and its fertile post-punk scene, and Wynn of his upbringing in Los Angeles and his group The Dream Syndicate. We, however, felt that Johnstone just had the edge in his untangling of some of the truths amongst the many myths surrounding the seminal but enigmatic group Josef K and his depiction of four ordinary young men out of which the extraordinary came. Worthy runner-ups are the black watch’s John Andrew Fredrick’s ‘The King of Go:od Intentions’, the final volume in his satire about the rise and fall of indie rock band The Weird Sisters; Alan Edwards ‘I’ll Be There’ about his career as a music PT in the 60’s and 70’s glory years of rock and pop, and Mark Plotnik and Jim Surrmaria’s words and photos book ’70s Chicagoland Rock Concerts’.