Peter Hook Says Bernard Sumner's Book About New Order Is 'Shit'

Ex-New Order bassist Peter Hook has dismissed former bandmate Bernard Sumner's 2014 book Chapter & Verse: New Order, Joy Division & Me as "shit" in an interview with The Music's Bryget Chrisfield.

Talking about the progress of his own tome about his time with the seminal '80s outfit — which he, Sumner and Stephen Morris formed following the dissolution of Joy Division, and with whom he played until his somewhat acrimonious departure in 2007, not long before Sumner reformed New Order without him — Hook admitted that he's "got a long way to go yet" before his version of events hits shelves, but he nonetheless had the time to read what Sumner had to say.

"Bernard's book that he put out was so shit!" Hook told The Music. "It was just crap, you know, it was awful, and I think that really he did himself a great disservice because what he did in New Order was amazing, and yet he played it down in his book about New Order.

"The book, to be honest, was more a slag-off of me than it was about all the wonderful things he achieved in New Order, which I will take as a compliment.

"I mean, his focus, to me, his book seems to be more about justifying why he started New Order without me, rather than about the wonderful things he achieved with New Order. And, again, it bore as much attention to facts as bloody Harry Potter. I think Harry Potter was actually more factual."

However, at least it would seem that Hook has walked away from his hate-reading session with a lesson or two up his sleeve: "Because of the startling lack of detail in his book, it's made me focus more, shall we say, on detail," he said. "Then, I'm tryin'a think, 'Well, is this too detailed?' I'm tryin'a find a happy medium."