"Keith Richards' 'Life': Sex, Drugs And Brown Sugar" from NPR's Arts & Life by MICHAEL SCHAUB

Rock and roll, by its nature, doesn't have many rules; if it did it wouldn't be rock and roll. It does have, however, an unwritten code, and this is part of it: real rockers never quit. Retirement isn't hardcore, which explains why the Rolling Stones haven't called it quits after nearly 50 years as, arguably, the world's second most famous band. Keith Richards, the legendary founding guitarist of the Stones, is 66, but don't mistake his new memoir for a valedictory. It's more like a statement of purpose; a lead-off track, not a final cut. "I can't retire until I croak," he writes — more than once — in Life. It seems like as safe a bet as you're ever going to find in rock. Rock and roll, after all, is his first love. Early in Life, Richards describes his first guitar, "a gut-string job," given to him by his mother when he was 15: "I took it everywhere and I went to sleep with my arm laid across it." It's the kind of honest, guileless moment that makes this book so charming, so unexpectedly moving. Richards might epitomize the popular idea of the rock lifestyle more than any other living artist — and he doesn't shy away from admitting his deep affections for women and drugs — but he's at his best, unsurprisingly, when he's rhapsodizing about rock. "[W]hen it works, baby, you've got wings," he writes. "It's flying without a license."

Read an excerpt of the book here. There was also this NPR WHYY Fresh Air show, with Richards. See also: What Would Keith Richards Do?: Daily Affirmations from a Rock and Roll Survivor, Stone Me: The Wit and Wisdom of Keith Richards, Keith Richards: The Biography, Keith Richards: Satisfaction