Overblown, repetitious, pretentious guff +1 - Rated 
Previous reviewer Valdemar had it spot on with the review of this book. In fact it took most of the words from my mouth...
If your looking for a book about Joy Division or someone writing about Joy Division then click 'Add to Basket' on another product because this is simply a book, albeit a very detailed book, about Paul Morley.
I am just about intelligent enough to understand and appreciate great use of language. When it's used in the correct context it's a delightful change to a lot of modern day material. However this collection of ego musings is patchy, drawn out and adds very little to my knowledge or interest in the band. In fact I learnt nothing about Joy Division from this book and coming from someone who is researching this band at a very early stage that does not bode well for similar fans, many of whom will be coming to the band due the the increasing resonance of the legacy in these modern times.
Much of the book is spent justifying or explaining/repeating the columns and reviews that follow on. Morley praises and promotes himself and his pieces up so much that by the time the actual review arrives I have already read everything in his pre-amble and I am simply to tired to wade through it all again. The jacket describes how these are Morley's 'complete writings' on Joy Division, but I am struggling to remember if there were more than about 10 actual articles in this book. For someone who wrote so 'extensively' about the band there seem very little in this collection that is actually about the band. Yes their time was short but if there was so little within that time to extend further on then why bother?
After the frankly painful chapter about when Morley views Curtis' body laid out, I found myself both angry at this author for wasting my time and money and skipped through the rest of the book to cheery-pick the small parts that are actually about the band or it's closest family. There are some nice bits about Tony Wilson and the production of Anton Corbijns 'Control' towards the end but after that the book went straight in my charity shop pile. My final thought was surely there is a more humane end for trees?
Much like many a fellow reviewer on Newsnight Review, Morley spends so much time and energy over-analysing every last thought and feeling about himself and the situation, he takes all the spirit, interest and Joy out of the subject. This book leaves me with the impression that this is nothing more than a barely restructured University dissertation to impress his tutors and prove to his fellow artists what a talented, tortured writer Morley is.
I am not witty or intellectual enough to conceal the phrases 'nicely timed', 'cash in' and 'exploitation' into something more deep and profound via the use of several hundred pages but I know a man who can.
Exceptional - Rated 
This book is the prefect overview of Joy Division's brief, but overwhelmingly influential existence and Paul Morley is the only person outside of the band who could possibly have written it.
Like his prose, Morley's credentials are impeccable - he was offered the opportunity to produce the group's earliest demo, championed them from their inception and was Factory founder Anthony Wilson's personal choice to biograph the band.
Like the group he so often wrote about, Paul Morley quickly developed a unique style - anyone who buys a book written by this author expecting to read a series standard recountments of gigs and recording sessions is as misguided as anyone buying a Joy Division album and expecting to hear ordinary pop songs. The very point about both Joy Division and Morley is that they are unique creative forces.
Like any anthology, `Piece By Piece' contains some repetitious elements. Just as Joy Division recorded progressively more subtle and complex versions of their songs, so Morley's writing expanded and developed to provide a unique series of snapshots of a work in progress. Most satisfyingly, Morley has framed his older pieces with a contemporary perspective that ensures that this book is a cohesive whole. He has thought seriously about the implications of his corpus of work and it has paid off handsomely.
Unless Bernard, Peter or Stephen opts to write their own books, this is the final word on Joy Division.
Overblown, repetitious, pretentious guff - Rated
Joy Division is probably more important to me than any other group, but the band are ill-served by this hastily assembled mix of Morley's flat, prosaic early writing, and, worse still, his pompous later musings - his attempt to mimic the style of JG Ballard's Atrocity Exhibition is particularly risible. His specialty is to say something vacuous and then paraphrase himself three times. Many of the pieces are repetitious, some barely mention the band at all. What they have in common is that they are chiefly about the writer himself.
I've enjoyed some of Morley's writing in the past, and found his Words and Music book largely infuriating, but with some glimmer of wit, but this is a waste of time. There is more of worth in the 2-3 pages Simon Reynolds writes about the band in the brilliant Rip It Up... than there is in this entire book.
A unique insight - Rated
This is a marvelous account of Joy Division's brief but significant career, chronicled by the writer most closely associated with the group.
Over the last thirty years Paul Morley has accumulated an impressive corpus of writing about Joy Division - and this book collects it all, arranged in the most effective manner to evoke the time, the place and those involved.
This is not a dreary procession of dull facts and descriptions of guitar solos - 'Joy Division: Piece By Piece' gets inside, beneath and around its subject matter in a manner that no other contemporary music writer but Paul Morley could achieve.
Neither is it packed with photographs that we've seen time and time again. This is a book about words, thoughts, feelings and a moment that passed far too quickly.
The best rock journalism of it's era - Rated
Joy Division were the most significant band of the post punk era and Paul Morley the most accomplished music journalist of the period.
Collecting Morley's writing on the band together is a wonderful idea, although I am a little surprised that it hasn't been done before. Like Martin Hannet's production on the Manchester quartet's recordings, Morley's rich prose enhances and highlights the significance of this groundbreaking group.
Morley's insistance on using the full spectrum of language and syntax may go over some reader's heads, but he is a master craftsman and the topography of his development can be charted in this fascinating book.
In an era that sees books by so many writers who have little connection or empathy with their subject matter, it is refreshing to discover a book about a group written by the most appropriate person to chronicle their history.
This is not only a book for fans of Joy Division, it is also recommended for anyone who appreciates well constructed descriptions and prescient observations that sit well among the best music journalism ever committed to print.
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