Sting has endorsed this book in extremis and therefore he must account for why his lyrics are so banal and why a song such as, say, Don't Stand So Close to Me has the words "Don't stand" repeated no fewer than 21 times.
But it also mentions Vladimir Nabokov, so it must be clever and intelligent then, eh? That's the problem with Sting. On the rather dubious grounds that he once used "Nabokov" in a lyric of breathtaking ordinariness, he has long been considered one of the pop and rock world's more literate and poetic lyricists. This is a book for people who believe in that particular piece of self-indulgence.
Simon & Schuster, 296pp, RRP$45 (hb)