Ben Saunders, one of the world’s leading polar explorers, skied to both the North and South Poles solo and speaks about the time he ran out of food and wanted to give up. Melanie McGrath talks about what she has learned from being paralysed in a riding accident. Kate Leaver is an author and journalist writing about women, pop culture and mental health at Glamour UK, Vice and  Guardian – and she has recovered from anorexia, and describes her difficult experiences and the complexities with finding a good relationship with food in a world obsessed with diet culture. Irenosen Okojie a novelist and short story writer writes about the crippling anxiety with being faced with a blank page, and of feeling other. It’s her brother’s death that is the subject of Cathy Rentzinbrink’s piece, whilst Rory Bremner speaks about life with ADHD.

This is a powerful book, full of heart tugging stories and narratives of strength. Struggle and strife isn’t billed us something to yearn for, it’s not that great people are built only in great despair. But more a tale of how we all have our difficulties, and it’s in the process of going through clarity can come and growth can be achieved. What doesn’t kill you can indeed make you stronger.

Growing up in the eighties and nineties, all James Cook wanted to do was write and be in a band. Leaving suburbian Hitchin in Hertfordshire for the dizzy heights of London, he spent over a decade trying his hardest to make it, to the detriment of his bank balance, health, social life and sanity. Over time he found that ‘Proper job versus an insane artistic project that has become increasingly indefensible to friends, girlfriends and every other member of the family.’

James and his brother Jude enjoyed brief success in their band The Flamingoes, although signing to The Label was fraught with difficulties. The drummer Simon Gilbert went on to play with Suede. The record industry doesn’t always reward commitment.

James doesn’t try to be too erudite or obscure, picking out bands that only he, a muso, would know. This jaunt takes us through Bond tunes (John Barry), Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, Nirvana, Suede, The Beatles, and Pulp. We explore the rock’n’roll legacy and the Britpop letdown. Recent history – the eighties, New Labour, the welfare state – underpins the story.

There’s a tinge of sadness to the stories told. We don’t queue up for hours to buy the latest record, having saved our cash for the weeks before. There’s no need to get our news from the music press, when we can just go on social media. He doubts whether we’ve had a youth movement like Britpop since, or that we will do again.

Although this is a personal memoir, there are many opportunities for connection. It’s open, rather than insular. It’s a love letter to music as a movement, as well as the songs that shaped this particular music lover. Through specific, reverent and potent prose James Cook tells us about his favourite music, and through the process invites us to consider our own. To consider the music we love and the music that has shaped us. Our memory songs.

Memory Songs was published by Unbound. On the Unbound website, authors share the ideas for the books they want to write directly with readers. If enough people support the book by pledging for it in advance, it gets published.