It’s impossible for us, on the outside, to understand the feelings that Miki must have about Nora when looking back for this memoir, but she does a very good job of letting us feel just a little bit of what she feels. I don’t want to be a drama queen but reliving the 30-year span of this book… let’s just say it’s been emotional. This all gave Berenyi an unusual childhood that could be described as bohemian, but ‘troubled’ might be a more accurate euphemism, especially when her grandmother came into the picture, bringing abuse and cruelty into the equation. After a difficult time in my life in the early 1990s, my musical tastes blossomed exponentially and Lush was one of the bands that really appealed to me. Her Japanese mother was in the James Bond film You Only Live Twice and became an agent for photographers in LA, where Berenyi spent frequent holidays.

Anderson is happiest in the studio with a compliant producer, finding the best ways of assembling the songs, and finds the tours (especially of the USA) draining, whilst Berenyi much prefers getting out and playing live to crowds. Overall the book is fascinating, eruditely-written, constantly amusing and jam-packed with interesting trivia: Emma Anderson dated My Bloody Valentine's Kevin Shields before Lush formed; Lush and Ministry formed a strong-if-unlikely alliance during the Lollapalooza tour and got up to mutually-supported mayhem; Berenyi once got back from tour to find an uncommunicative Richard Ashcroft pouring over music demos for A Northern Soul with her then-boyfriend; Blur and Pulp were both Lush support bands before becoming Britpop giga-stars. Neuware - The extraordinary and searingly honest personal story of musician Miki Berenyi, revealing the highs and lows of navigating the madness of the '90s music industry.

The Britpop years, and the lad culture that grew around it, are brilliantly eviscerated in a five-page rant in which Liam Gallagher and former Loaded editor James Brown, among others, don’t exactly emerge covered in glory. Fingers Crossed provides a salutary corrective to a much mythologised musical era; it's often extremely funny.

I don’t think I have ever read such a self-aware account of a person’s foibles, failings and habits anywhere, Berenyi is relentless when turning the spotlight on herself, which sometimes makes for uncomfortable reading but at the same time makes you love her for being her. Talented and exuberant the band became hot property as they moved from pub gigs to Shoegaze icons and finally Britpop darlings.If you’re expecting Fingers Crossed to be a rollercoaster ride of rock ‘n’ roll excess, you might be disappointed, but that’s more about your inflexibility than any failing the part of the author. She is resilient and matter-of-fact, but lays bare the compound pain when her coping strategies were misunderstood. Lush also had a rockier side which put them in a good position when they were unexpectedly recruited by Perry Farrell to open the second-ever Lollapalooza tour in 1992, giving them a small but intense following in the United States, not to mention a hair-raising series of anecdotes about playing alongside Ministry, Pearl Jam and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers.