It's typical of Bruford -- and of this book -- that he eschews the temptation for some natty play on words involving sticks or skins or some such and chooses the title "The Autobiography". If you're looking for tittle-tattle about the personalities of 70s rock and 80s/90s/00s jazz, this is the wrong place. Instead the book starts off with an honest attempt to describe the challenges, rewards, and everyday struggles of a musician who, over 40 years, has chosen to play to audiences of 20,000 and also to audiences of 200. It ends with a good 50 pages explaining how, after all those years, Bruford has had enough -- in fact, more than enough. He's fallen out of love with his profession and seems genuinely ill at ease that he can't impress (and I'm not making this up) a Wimbledon Estate Agent at a party. What drives him, he says, is the gaining the respect of his peer group, which includes other professional drummers, but also, bizarrely, home counties airheads. I was disappointed, too, that he made no comparison between his experience and that of his 30-year-old son, also a professional drummer. Evidently he wanted to protect the family's privacy. ( )