David Byrne complains when people wonder what he’s done since Talking Heads. Well, he’s turned a building into a musical instrument and written a disco opera about Imelda Marcos.

To those who grew up in the post-punk era, listening to his songs, it’s really no surprise that he’s an artist and writer as well as a musician — most recently in partnership with Brian Eno. But it comes as more of a surprise, since he lives in New York, that he’s designed a series of bicycle racks.

His latest book, Bicycle Diaries (Faber, £14.99) is not really about cycling, but a diary of his travels, mostly by aeroplane. It turns out that he always takes his folding bike and has cycled all over the world in the past 30 years.

One minute he’s cycling from Shepherd's Bush to Whitechapel, then he’s meditating about what it means to be a creative person; whether artists are releasing pent-up emotion or creating new emotions for the purposes of art. There’s also a lot about how the motor car is crushing communities as well as cyclists under its wheels, about the history of urban planning and the lessons we can learn from places like Colombia.