Book 40 - Leonard Cohen "The Flame"

Leonard Cohen "The Flame" (Canongate Books)



As the title indicates, this book embraces poems and selections from the notebooks Cohen kept all his life, but is also illustrated with many of his self-portraits. Satisfyingly, it concludes the speech he made in 2011 when accepting the Prince of Asturias award in Spain, in which he explains how a young Spaniard taught him to play guitar. It's a fabulous collection of Cohen's distinctive dark love.

I started by listening to an audio version before obtaining a print copy that I could peruse at my own pace. Either is highly recommended.

If I didn't have your love

If the sun would lose its light
And we lived an endless night
And there was nothing left
That you could feel
That’s how it would be
What the world would seem to me
If I didn’t have your love
To make it real


I highly recommend it to any Cohen music fan.