2026 has been a year of great music books, and another contender for that list has arrived. Soundgarden founding member and guitarist Kim Thayil gives us “A Screaming Life: Into the Superunknown with Soundgarden and Beyond,” out on June 9. “A Screaming Life” isn’t a massive tome, but it still manages to dive deep when it matters, and also when you least expect it to.
Memoir is challenging for many reasons, with the decision of how much intricate detail of one’s life and work to include at the top of that list. It’s a difficult line to walk if you want to be a decent human being — obviously, people writing tell-all memoirs understand that they’ve decided to open all the doors and air all the dirty laundry, no matter how it impacts people on the periphery. People want dirt, and it’s easy to give it to them.
