No Walls and the Recurring Dream: A Memoir

by Ani DiFranco

Hardcover, 2019

Call number

BIO DIF

Collection

Publication

Viking (2019), 320 pages

Description

"A memoir by the celebrated singer-songwriter and social activist Ani DiFranco. In her new memoir, Ani DiFranco recounts her early life from a place of hard-won wisdom, combining personal expression, the power of music, feminism, political activism, storytelling, philanthropy, entrepreneurship, and much more into an inspiring whole. In these frank, honest, passionate, and often funny pages is the tale of one woman's eventful and radical journey to the age of thirty. Ani's coming of age story is defined by her ethos of fierce independence -- from being an emancipated minor sleeping in a Buffalo bus station, to unwaveringly building a career through appearances at small clubs and festivals, to releasing her first album at the age of 18, to consciously rejecting the mainstream recording industry and creating her own label, Righteous Babe Records. In these pages, as in life, she never hesitates to challenge established rules and expectations, maintaining a level of artistic integrity that has impressed many and antagonized more than a few. Ani continues to be a major touring and recording artist as well as a celebrated activist and feminist, standing as living proof that you can overcome all personal and societal obstacles to be who you are and to follow your dreams." --… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member jphamilton
Ani DiFranco has been on the music scene for some time, and she has always been original and independent. My preference is for her more rock influenced music, rather than the more jazz flavored stuff. Those older albums with all that heavy bass were great, as they hit your body much like the sonic
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waves of classic reggae. I saw her perform many years ago in Sacramento, around the time some of her lesbian fans were angry at her for having a boyfriend. She was true to her feelings and took no shit from anyone.

Oh, this is supposed to be about a book. I learned a great deal about her as a person and a musician, one who put her first album out at age eighteen and famously created her own independent record label, Righteous Babe Records. Early on, she became an emancipated minor and started her career working countless small clubs and performing on the festival scene.

Rejecting the mainstream accepted way of doing most anything, became her style as an activist, entrepreneur, and performer. In short, DiFranco is a force, true to herself, and constantly questioning society’s norms. She wrote a great deal about the different influences on her music. Eclectic would be an excellent descriptive term for Ani and her music. I would bet that many of her fans would never have heard of her close friend the musician Utah Phillips, if she hadn’t valued his friendship so much and shared the stage with him.

Books by popular musicians are on a broad spectrum, from intelligent and insightful, to wild stories of touring and some mindless mouth-breathers. Be assured that DiFranco knows her way around using words and making her point. I was very impressed by the person behind the music, the one who was revealed by this book. True to form, she’s got the smarts, and she is strongly opinionated, talented, very human, and caring. Need to read a bold book about a truly original woman, just open this book’s cover.
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LibraryThing member jennybeast
It took me a bit to get into this, and I did appreciate that the audio book was read by Ani herself. There was a ton in here -- some of it troubling, some of it very her, some of it fascinating. I was hoping to know more about her more recent life. I found parts of it inspiring and parts of it
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problematic. Rambling and ranting. Also strongly opinionated, and attempting amends. She comes across as a real person, warts and all, and I was interested enough to stick with it.

Also, I genuinely have no idea how to rate this one.
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LibraryThing member mandarella
Just like Ani's music - this book is thought-provoking, a bit rambly at times, deeply personal, and beautifully written.

Awards

ALA Over the Rainbow Book List (Longlist — Non-Fiction — 2020)

Pages

320

ISBN

0735225176 / 9780735225176
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