Dave Gibbons

John Gibbons is an environmental journalist and commentator who has been speaking about climate change in Ireland for over a decade. The Lie of the Land is his first book.

John Gibbons

Stella Gibbons was born in London in 1902. She went to the North London Collegiate School and studied journalism at University College, London. She then worked for ten years on various papers, including the Evening Standard. Stella Gibbons is the author of twenty-five novels, three volumes of short stories, and four volumes of poetry. Her first novel Cold Comfort Farm (1932) was an immediate success and won the Femina Vie Heureuse Prize for 1933. Among her works are Nightingale Wood (1938), The Bachelor (1944), Westwood (1946), and Starlight (1967). She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1950. Stella Gibbons died in 1989.

Stella Gibbons

Edward Gibbon

Lewis Grassic Gibbon

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Mitch Benn

Robin Ince

Music, mayhem and madness from Mitch Benn and Robin Ince 
 
There can be only one parody musical master, and Mitch Benn thinks it’s him. Although Richard Stilgoe may have something to say about that… 
 
Laugh out loud as Mitch sets out on a musical journey through the showbiz glitz and backstage litter of pop music. Teaming up with Mitch is comedian Robin Ince, and between them they delve into the world of super fans, the glamorous trappings and excesses of pop-star life and its highs and lows. Along with special guest presenters, they wonder if you really can manufacture greatness, why pop stars need fans, and the art of self-promotion. Can death revive a rock star's career? How many people does it take to make something a music 'scene'? And is heavy metal getting soft? 
 
Mitch’s music-master credentials are tested in every episode as he performs a newly written song, hoping to prove he is indeed the world’s greatest musical satirist. Robin Ince’s trademark cynicism and occasional appearances as Satan make this a fast-paced, hilarious show full of musical mastery, mayhem and laughs. When, in search of global superstardom, the duo try and take their show on a world tour, things only get funnier. 
 
Mitch Benn has been a regular voice on BBC Radio 4’s The Now Show and has toured extensively as a comedian in the UK and internationally. Co-writer Robin Ince is a comedian and radio presenter, perhaps best known for his comedy science radio show The Infinite Monkey Cage, which he presents with Professor Brian Cox. 
 
If you’re a fan of Alex Horne Presents The Horne Section or Mark Watson Makes The World Substantially Better, you’ll love this anarchic mix of music and comedy. Listen for the first time to all three series – you won’t be able to resist tapping your foot to the beat… 
 
Written by Mitch Ben and Robin Ince 
Produced by Adam Bromley 
 
Featuring: 
Mitch Benn 
Robert Ince 
Alfie Joey 
Tash Baylis 
Kirsty Newton 
Jane Perry 
Craig Campbell 
Tom Price 
Lloyd Langford 
Steven Kynman 
Brendon Burns 
 
With special guest: 
Richard Stilgoe 
 
First Broadcast BBC Radio 4, 19 February 2004 – 4 July 2006 
 
©2024 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (P)2024 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

Mitch Benn’s Crimes Against Music: The Complete Series 1-3

A BBC Radio Comedy Series

Nicola Slade

Gone are the days when recording an album required a large, expensive recording studio and piles of ultra hi-tech equipment. Lily Allen's myspace video netted her no.1 in the UK singles chart and an NME nomination, folk singer Seth Lakeman made an album in his kitchen for £300 and has been nominated for a Mercury Prize. And of course, there's the Arctic Monkeys - winners of a Mercury Prize, a Brit Award and two NME awards, who marketed their album through demo tapes and file sharing. 
 
Nicola Slade shows how anyone can record and mix killer music from the comfort of their bedroom. The author explains what hardware, software and mixing equipment is required, and includes a history of the digitisation of music, advice on marketing and promoting your music and contributions from DIY music artists who have made it big.

How to Make Music in Your Bedroom

Henry Rollins

Using his trademark wit, insight and verve, icon Henry Rollins shares journals from his gruelling world tours of 1997 and 1998, as well as a record of the fulfilment of his longstanding dream to journey through Africa. He takes us on a rollercoaster of highs and lows, frustrations and exhilaration - from roving gangs of baboons in Kenya to haggling with immigration officials in Madagascar and his thoughts on meeting his childhood heroes, Black Sabbath - and finds a way to make his unique experiences accessible and meaningful to us all.

Smile, You're Travelling

Adrian Smith

Updated for paperback with a brand new chapter on Parrot Cay Island. 
 
 Legendary Iron Maiden guitarist takes you to the final frontier of fishing. 
 
 Welcome to the world of Adrian Smith, playing onstage to millions of fans - while behind the scenes he explores far-flung rivers, seas and lakes, waterways and weirs, in a fearless quest for fishing nirvana. 
 
 Hooked on the angling adrenaline rush since first catching perch from East London canals on outings with his father, Adrian grew up to be in one of the most successful rock bands in history. On tour, his gear went with him. The fish got bigger. The adventures more extreme. 
 
 In Monsters of River and Rock you'll hear about his first sturgeon: a whopping 100-pounder from the roaring rapids of Canada's Fraser River that nearly wiped him out mid-Maiden tour. Then there's the close shave with a shark off the Virgin Islands whilst wading waist-deep for bonefish. Not to mention an enviable list of specimen coarse fish from the UK. 
 
 Come to the riverbank with Adrian and cast a line on the wild side. 
 
'Outstanding' - Times Radio 
 'Writes beautifully' - The Sun 
 'Beautifully written account' - Guardian 
 'Essential reading' - The Music Radar 
 'Candid wit and cracking anecdotes' - Classic Rock magazine

Monsters of River and Rock

My Life as Iron Maiden’s Compulsive Angler

Simon Goddard

Steven Patrick Morrissey is one of the most original and controversial voices in the history of popular music. With The Smiths, he led the most influential British guitar group of the 1980s, his enigmatic wit and style defining a generation. As a solo artist, he has continued to broach subjects no other singer would dare. 
 
Worshipped by some, vilified by others, Morrissey is a unique rock and roll creation. The 300,000 words of Mozipedia make this the most intimate and in-depth biographical portrait of the man and his music yet. Bringing together every song, album, collaborator, key location, every hero, book, film and record to have influenced his art, it is the summation of years of meticulous research. Morrissey authority Simon Goddard has interviewed almost everybody of any importance, making Mozipedia the last word on Morrissey and The Smiths.

Mozipedia

The Encyclopaedia of Morrissey and the Smiths

Morrissey

<a href="https://shop.penguin.co.uk/collections/book-bundles-modern-classics/?&amp;utm_source=Penguin.co.uk&amp;utm_medium=Linked_text&amp;utm_campaign=Penguin_Modern_Classics_Series_26_06">Choose 3 timeless classics for only £21 over on the Penguin Shop</a>

Steven Patrick Morrissey was born in Manchester on May 22nd 1959. Singer-songwriter and co-founder of the Smiths (1982-1987), Morrissey has been a solo artist for twenty-six years, during which time he has had three number 1 albums in England in three different decades. 
 
Achieving twelve Top 10 albums (plus nine with the Smiths), his songs have been recorded by David Bowie, Nancy Sinatra, Marianne Faithfull, Chrissie Hynde, Thelma Houston, My Chemical Romance and Christy Moore, amongst others. 
 
An animal protectionist, in 2006 Morrissey was voted the second greatest living British icon by viewers of the BBC, losing out to Sir David Attenborough. In 2007 Morrissey was voted the greatest northern male, past or present, in a nationwide newspaper poll. In 2012, Morrissey was awarded the Keys to the City of Tel-Aviv. 
 
It has been said 'Most pop stars have to be dead before they reach the iconic status that Morrissey has reached in his lifetime.' 
 
Autobiography covers Morrissey's life from his birth until the present day.

Autobiography

Rick Wakeman

What do Postman Pat, Tommy Cooper, Norman Wisdom and George Best have in common with being abandoned in a Costa Rican jungle after a severe bout of flatulence? Indeed, how are they also connected to trying to buy an Australian brewery just to get a beer, owning twenty-two cars, an American soccer team and a Swiss mail-order pornography company? 
 
The common feature is of course a certain Richard Wakeman. 
 
The Further Adventures of a Grumpy Old Rock Star takes you, the privileged reader, on a trip of absurd excess, a cultural car crash of side-splitting hilarity and an unforgettable glimpse (again) into the life of one of Britain's most legendary showmen, rock stars and all-time great raconteurs.

Further Adventures of a Grumpy Old Rock Star

Jason Hazeley

Joel Morris

These delightful books are the latest in the series of Ladybird books which have been specially planned to help grown-ups with the world about them. 
 
The large clear script, the careful choice of words, the frequent repetition and the thoughtful matching of text with pictures all enable grown-ups to think they have taught themselves to cope. The subject of the books will greatly appeal to grown-ups. 
 
The eight books in the series feature original Ladybird artwork alongside brilliantly funny, brand new text. The other books in the series are: 
 
- The Ladybird Book of Mindfulness 
 
- The Ladybird Book of Sheds 
 
- The Ladybird Book of The Hipster 
 
- The Ladybird Book of the Mid-Life Crisis 
 
- The Ladybird Book of the Hangover 
 
- The Ladybird Book of Dating 
 
- How it Works: The Husband 
 
- How it Works: The Wife

*A HILARIOUS, BRAND NEW BOOK IN THE PHENOMENAL LADYBIRDS FOR GROWN UPS SERIES FOR AUTUMN 2017* 
 
People at Work: The Rock Star - a nugget of wisdom from bestselling authors Jason Hazeley and Joel Morris. 
 
This delightful book is the latest in the series of Ladybird books which have been specially planned to help grown-ups with the world about them. 
 
The large clear script, the careful choice of words, the frequent repetition and the thoughtful matching of text with pictures all enable grown-ups to think they have taught themselves to cope. Featuring original Ladybird artwork alongside brilliantly funny, brand new text.

People at Work: The Rock Star

Josie da Bank

Rob da Bank

Get wild. Get messy. 'Dad dance' like no one’s watching. Nourish your body and mind. Let go of the reins and the routines. Make memories and have some serious fun. 
 
From the co-founders of the award-winning family festival, Camp Bestival at Home is the perfect handbook for parents who want to bring the magical ethos of the festival home. 
 
Packed with activities, recipes and ideas to keep the whole family inspired all year round, why not get back to nature and stargaze. For kids with endless energy, you could organise a kitchen disco or put on a show. Go foraging, learn circus skills and face painting, or make festive decorations. And relax after all the activity with a family feast, plus some yoga for the grown-ups. 
 
Written and illustrated by Camp Bestival co-founders Josie and Rob da Bank, with contributions from celebrity friends and festival regulars Fatboy Slim, Sara Cox, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Fearne Cotton and Jo Whiley.

Camp Bestival at Home

Have a Family Festival Every Day

Kathy Acker

'Acker gives her work the power to mirror the reader's soul' William S. Burroughs 
 
'Kathy Acker's writing is virtuoso, maddening, crazy, so sexy, so painful, and beaten out of a wild heart that nothing can tame. Acker is a landmark writer' Jeanette Winterson 
 
This is the story of Janey, who lived in a locked room, where she found a scrap of paper and began to write down her life. It's a story of lust, sex, pain, youth, punk, anarchy, gangs, the city, feminism, America, Jean Genet and the prisons we create for ourselves. A heady, surreal mash-up of coming-of-age tale, prose, poetry, plagiarism and illustration, Kathy Acker's breakthrough 1984 novel caused huge controversy and made her an avant-garde literary icon. 
 
Published to coincide with the 20th anniversary of Kathy Acker's untimely death, Blood and Guts in High School is published for the first time in Penguin Classics, acknowledging the profound impact she has had on our culture, and alongside the authors her work pulsates with the influence of: William S. Burroughs, Cervantes and Charles Dickens, among others.

Blood and Guts in High School

Will Smith

Mark Manson

The Instant Sunday Times Bestseller 
The Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller 
 
PRAISE FOR WILL 
'The best memoir I ever read' Oprah Winfrey 
'If you read one book this year, make it this one' Jay Shetty 
'Incredible' Idris Elba 
'The book is awesome. So candid and considered...fascinating' Chris Evans 
'A triumph...really inspiring, so well written, vulnerable and deep. I highly recommend it' Mindy Kaling 
'It's fantastic...very moving' Zoe Ball 
'Incredibly honest...inspiring' Greg James 
'A wild ride' New York Times 
'Raw, comedic, inspirational' GQ 
 
One of the most dynamic and globally recognized entertainment forces of our time opens up fully about his life, in a brave and inspiring book that traces his learning curve to a place where outer success, inner happiness, and human connection are aligned. Along the way, Will tells the story in full of one of the most amazing rides through the worlds of music and film that anyone has ever had. 
 
Will Smith's transformation from a fearful child in a tense West Philadelphia home to one of the biggest rap stars of his era and then one of the biggest movie stars in Hollywood history, with a string of box office successes that will likely never be broken, is an epic tale of inner transformation and outer triumph, and Will tells it astonishingly well. But it's only half the story. 
 
Will Smith thought, with good reason, that he had won at life: not only was his own success unparalleled, his whole family was at the pinnacle of the entertainment world. Only they didn't see it that way: they felt more like star performers in his circus, a seven-days-a-week job they hadn't signed up for. It turned out Will Smith's education wasn't nearly over. 
 
This memoir is the product of a profound journey of self-knowledge, a reckoning with all that your will can get you and all that it can leave behind. Written with the help of Mark Manson, author of the multi-million-copy bestseller The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, Will is the story of how one exceptional man mastered his own emotions, written in a way that can help everyone else do the same. Few of us will know the pressure of performing on the world's biggest stages for the highest of stakes, but we can all understand that the fuel that works for one stage of our journey might have to be changed if we want to make it all the way home. The combination of genuine wisdom of universal value and a life story that is preposterously entertaining, even astonishing, puts Will the book, like its author, in a category by itself. 
 
'The Hollywood star's autobiography is full of indiscretions, drug-fuelled escapades and terrible parenting. Who could ask for more?' Telegraph 
'Candid ... digs into the life events which fine-tuned Smith's weapons-grade charisma and steely determination' Observer 
'I absolutely loved it...no holds barred...I felt as if Will Smith was talking to me. It's a testament to him and to his family' Lorraine Kelly

Will

The Sunday Times Bestselling Autobiography

Sam Lee

'Wondering and wonderful. The nature book of the year.' JOHN LEWIS-STEMPEL 
 
'This lovely book is almost as thrilling as the bird's immortal song - balm for a troubled soul and a glimpse of paradise.' JOANNA LUMLEY 
______________________________ 
Come to the forest, sit by the fireside and listen to intoxicating song, as Sam Lee tells the story of the nightingale. 
 
Every year, as darkness falls upon woodlands, the nightingale heralds the arrival of Spring. Throughout history, its sweet song has inspired musicians, writers and artists around the world, from Germany, France and Italy to Greece, Ukraine and Korea. 
 
Here, passionate conservationist, renowned musician and folk expert Sam Lee tells the story of the nightingale. This book reveals in beautiful detail the bird's song, habitat, characteristics and migration patterns, as well as the environmental issues that threaten its livelihood. 
 
From Greek mythology to John Keats, to Persian poetry and 'A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square', Lee delves into the various ways we have celebrated the nightingale through traditions, folklore, music, literature, from ancient history to the present day. The Nightingale is a unique and lyrical portrait of a famed yet elusive songbird. 
______________________________ 
'Sam Lee has brought the poetic magic that has long enchanted so many of his musical fans into the written word. Allow yourself to glimpse the world Sam sees, to be part of his love affair with the nightingale, and you will no doubt be delighted.' LILY COLE 
 
'A wonderful book.' STEPHEN MOSS 
 
'A magical marriage of the lyrical and practical: a book that makes us want to seek out the nightingale and then reveals how we can.' TRISTAN GOOLEY

The Nightingale

‘The nature book of the year’

Gruff Rhys

In 1792, John Evans, a young farmhand from Wales, travelled to America to discover whether there was, as widely believed, a tribe of Welsh-speaking native Americans still walking the great plains. 
 
In 2012, Gruff Rhys set out on an 'investigative concert tour' in the footsteps of John Evans, with concerts in New Orleans, Baltimore, St Louis, and more. 
 
American Interior is the story of these journeys. It is also an exploration of how wild fantasies interact with hard history and how myth-making can inspire humans to partake in crazy, vain pursuits of glory, including exploration, war and the creative arts.

American Interior

The quixotic journey of John Evans, his search for a lost tribe and how, fuelled by fantasy and (possibly) booze, he accidentally annexed a third of North America

The Quixotic Journey of John Evans

Tony Fletcher

To this day, they were, their fans believe, the best band in the world. Critics and sales figures told a similar story. Yet for all their brilliance and adoration – their famously energetic live shows routinely interrupted by stage invasions – The Smiths were continually plagued by their reticence to play the game, and by the time of 1987’s Strangeways Here We Come, they had split. 
 
Tony Fletcher’s A Light That Never Goes Out – part celebration, part paean – moves from Manchester in the nineteenth-century to the present day to tell the complete story of The Smiths. The product of extensive research and unprecedented access, it will serve to confirm The Smiths as one of the most important and influential rock groups of all time.

A Light That Never Goes Out

The Enduring Saga of the Smiths

April Carter

This is the cake pop book you&rsquo;ve been waiting for: not a cute panda or robot in sight, but jam-packed with hilarious projects on how to turn your favourite pop icons into edible treats.Featuring basic cake pop recipes accompanied by step-by-step pictures on how to construct your celeb of choice, Top of the Cake Pops with have even novice bakers whipping up a star-studded line-up of cakes on sticks.Dazzle your friends with the likes of Mochadonna, Vanilli Allen, Lady Goo Goo, Crumbye West, Nutter Butter Bieber and more. With easy-to-follow instructions, and hints and tips on how to get the likeness spot-on, this book will put the POP back into cake pops.

Top of the Cake Pops

Recipes to Turn Your Favourite Pop Stars into Cakes on Sticks

Howard Sounes

**** COMPELLING - The Sunday Telegraph 
 
CONTROVERSIAL ... Sounes' book pushes the standard Reed narrative - The New York Times 
 
Lou Reed, who died in 2013, was best known to the general public as the grumpy New Yorker in black who sang 'Walk on the Wild Side'. To his dedicated admirers, however, he was one of the most innovative and intelligent American songwriters of modern times, a natural outsider who lived a tumultuous and tortured life. 
 
In this in-depth, meticulously researched and very entertaining biography, respected biographer Howard Sounes examines the life and work of this fascinating man, from birth to death, including his time as the leader of The Velvet Underground - one of the most important bands in rock'n'roll. 
 
Written with a deep knowledge and understanding of the music, Sounes also sheds entirely new light on the artist's creative process, his mental health problems, his bisexuality, his three marriages, and his addictions to drugs and alcohol. 
 
In the course of his research, Sounes has interviewed over 140 people from every part of Lou Reed's life - some of whom have not spoken publicly about him before - including music industry figures, band members, fellow celebrities, family members, former wives and lovers. 
 
This book brings Lou Reed and his world alive.

Notes from the Velvet Underground

The Life of Lou Reed

Graeme Lawson

Wonderfully engaging, expansive and ambitious, Sound Tracks tells the history of our relationship with music in sixty detective stories, each focusing on the discovery of a musical instrument - or its fragments - in archaeological digs around the world. Taking us from the present day - finding a 100-year-old wax cylinder recording on a flea market - all the way back to the dawn of time - the thrilling discovery of a prehistoric flute - long-lost music is itself reconstructed as we enter the worlds of those who created it. 
 
We feel the delight of a child in Peru in 700 AD, playing with a water-filled pot designed to chirp like a bird; we appreciate the difficult task of a soldier sending signals by trumpet to the next watchtower on Hadrian's Wall; we can almost hear the sounds of the sixty-four bells buried in a tomb in China in the 5th century BC. 
 
Graeme Lawson takes us on a grand tour of the world's greatest musical discoveries, revealing that music is part of human DNA - not just in its role as pastime, entertainment or religious expression but also as a medium in which we commemorate our pasts, communicate with each other, and shape our identities, relationships and communities. 
 
Written with verve and passion and brimming with astonishing insights, Sound Tracks is an enthralling alternative history of humanity in which the silences of the past are filled with a wonderful treasure hoard of forgotten sounds and voices.

Sound Tracks

A Musical Detective Story

Uncovering Our Musical Past

Muriel Burgess

Shirley Bassey is one of the all-time greats of the entertainment business. She has sold more records than any other British female singer and still commands massive audiences around the world. Now, after a career spanning decades, her life story can be told: the story of a triumph over enough tragedies to last several lifetimes. The personal hardships that have fuelled the emotionalism of her songs have never before been revealed. Here her poverty-stricken childhood in Wales is detailed: how her mother struggled to bring up seven children on Income Support after their Nigerian father was deported; how she worked in a saucepan factory when her first struggles for stardom were halted by her pregnancy at sixteen. Shirley had a series of tortured loves: she married a homosexual Cockney who died of an overdose; she had a highly publicised affair with actor Peter Finch; and her second marriage, to an Italian, also failed. The shocking death of her second daughter, Samantha, just before her 21st birthday caused Shirley to lose her voice for nearly a year. Behind the showbiz glamour and consummate professionalism lies a fiercely resilient and independent woman.

Shirley

Simon Napier-Bell

Pop manager extraordinaire Simon Napier-Bell had had enough. He'd had enough of pop groups. He'd had enough of the constant grief at home with his two ex-boyfriends bickering and bleeding him dry; and most of all he'd had enough of the music biz. But then he fell in love with a new passion - the Far East; and a dynamic new duo - George and Andrew - jointly called Wham! Soon, in an audacious attempt to have the best of both worlds, he found himself offering to arrange for Wham! to be the first ever Western pop group to play in communist China - a masterstroke of PR which, in one swift stroke, would make them one of the biggest groups in the world. 
 
What follows is an exciting, unpredictable and hilarious romp around the more curious corners of the world as Napier-Bell dives into the unknown, attempting to achieve the unachievable. We soon find ourselves in the company of a wonderful cast of petulant pop stars, shady international 'businessmen', and a hilarious confusion of spies, students and institutionalised officials and ministers as he edges ever closer to inadvertently becoming one of the first Westerners to break down the walls of communist China.

I'm Coming To Take You To Lunch

A fantastic tale of boys, booze and how Wham! were sold to China

London 1962. Five young hooligans have formed a band and are on a collision course with the austere and intolerant values of post-war Britain. From their beginning in a scummy flat off the Kings Road to the notorious Redlands scandal, this is the anarchic rollercoaster ride of the Stones’ first five years. 
 
We follow our heroes in a rags-to-riches romp of sex, scandal, mischief and uproarious behaviour as they challenge the establishment, invent the archetype of the rebellious, parent-scaring rock star lothario and, eventually, receive their comeuppance from the powers that be. 
 
Presented with the audacious wit and bawdy humour of a vintage novel, complete with Dickensian illustrations, Rollaresque celebrates the young Stones in the grand English literary tradition of lovable rogues. This is the music biography reinvented as a ripping yarn.

Rollaresque

The Rakish Progress of The Rolling Stones

Sarah Harding

Sunday Times Bestseller 
 
'I can't rewrite history; all I can do is be honest and wear my heart on my sleeve. It's really the only way I know. I want to show people the real me. Or perhaps remind them. Because, somewhere - amongst the nightclubs, the frocks and hairdos, the big chart hits, and the glamour of being a popstar - the other Sarah Harding got utterly lost. She's the one who's been forgotten. And all I want is for you to hear her out.' 
 
Sarah Harding is best known as the wild member of Girls Aloud, whose reputation for partying, drinking and dating made her a tabloid favourite. But where does the celebrity Sarah Harding end and the real Sarah begin? 
 
Faced with a devastating cancer diagnosis that turned her life upside down, Sarah has decided that now is the time to write her story. Her truth. 
 
This is Sarah Harding in her own words.

Hear Me Out

Sheku Kanneh-Mason

Rekha Salin

Little Sheku LOVED music. He loved to hear the beautiful sounds that flowed from his cello as his bow danced across the strings. And he loved finding music in unexpected places... 
 
Little Sheku can't wait to play his cello in a concert with the animal orchestra. But when they discover a dragon has stolen the conductor, Little Sheku and the animals must embark on a music-filled adventure to the dragon's cave. Will they rescue the conductor in time to finish the concert? 
 
From globally renowned, award-winning cellist, Sheku Kanneh-Mason, comes this magical, musical picture book adventure that will inspire a love of music in readers of three and up. 
 
Sheku's lyrical writing weaves musicality into every sentence, drawing on his life-long love of the cello to tell his tale. Rekha Salin's stunning illustrations send music springing and singing from every page.

Little Sheku and the Animal Orchestra

Tim Burgess

The Charlatans. Madchester. Britpop. Taking on the world. Here are the highs, the lows, the joys, the agonies, and the stories of what it's like to be in a rock band, as told by front man and survivor, Tim Burgess. 
 
'Like the best bits of every cautionary rock star tale . . . There is armed robbery and smuggling. There is serious fraud. There are near and actual death experiences, divorce, industrial cocaine consumption and magnificent cameos from Madonna, Alan McGee, Ronnie Wood, Joe Strummer, LA drug dealer Harry The Dog, and Joaquin Phoenix. A minor classic' Q Magazine

Telling Stories

Robbie Robertson

'Intense, exciting, delirious' THE TIMES 
'Thrilling, beautiful, honest' TELEGRAPH 
'A wild ride' ROLLING STONE 
 
For four decades, Robbie Robertson produced music for Martin Scorsese's films, a relationship that began when Robertson convinced Scorsese to direct The Last Waltz, the iconic film of the Band's farewell performance at the Winterland Ballroom on Thanksgiving 1976. 
 
The closing of the Band's story with that landmark concert thrust Robertson into a new and uncertain world. With his relationship with his bandmates deteriorating and his marriage collapsing, Robertson arrived on Scorsese’s Beverly Hills doorstep only to find his friend in similar straits. Before the night was out, Scorsese had invited him to move in. Both men, already culture-transforming stars before the age of thirty-five, stood at a creative precipice, searching for the beginning of a new phase of life and work. As their friendship deepened into a career-altering collaboration, their shared journey would take them around the world and down the rabbit hole of American culture in the long hangover of the seventies. Buffeted on either side by temptation and paranoia, veering closer to self-destruction than either wanted to admit, together they had devoted themselves to a partnership defined by equal parts admiration and ambition. 
 
With a cast of characters featuring Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel, Federico Fellini, Sophia Loren, Sam Fuller, Liza Minelli, Tuesday Weld, and many more, Insomnia is an intimate portrait of a remarkable creative friendship between two titans of American arts, one that would explore the outer limits of excess and experience before returning to tell the tale.

Insomnia

Sean Magee

‘For seventy years now Desert Island Discs has managed that rare feat – to be both enduring and relevant. By casting away the biggest names of the day in science, business, politics, showbiz, sport and the arts, it presents a cross-sectional snapshot of the times in which we live. As the decades have passed, the programme has kept pace; never frozen in time yet always, somehow, comfortingly the same.’ Kirsty Young 
 
BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs celebrates its seventieth birthday in 2012. Since the programme’s deviser Roy Plomley interviewed comedian Vic Oliver in January 1942, nearly 3,000 distinguished people from all walks of life have been stranded on the mythical island, accompanied by only eight records, one book and a luxury. 
 
Here the story of one of BBC Radio 4’s favourite programmes is chronicled through a special selection of castaways. 
 
Roy Plomley, inventor of the programme as well as its presenter for over forty years, quizzes the young Cliff Richard about ‘these rather frenzied movements’ the 1960s pop sensation makes on the stage. Robert Maxwell tells Plomley’s successor Michael Parkinson that ‘I will have left the world a slightly better place by having lived in it.’ Diana Mosley assures Sue Lawley that Adolf Hitler was ‘extraordinarily fascinating’ and had mesmeric blue eyes. And Johnny Vegas tugs Kirsty Young’s heart-strings with his account of a childhood so impoverished that family pets were fair game: ‘My dad had always claimed that rabbits were livestock, but we’d never eaten one before.’ 
 
Desert Island Discs is much more than a radio programme. It is a unique and enduringly popular take on our lives and times – and this extensively illustrated book tells in rich detail the colourful and absorbing story of an extraordinary institution.

Desert Island Discs: 70 Years of Castaways

Alice Montgomery

What happens to the boy next door when he becomes part of the planet's hottest boy band? 
 
 When Harry Styles auditioned for the X-Factor, little did he know he'd soon be leaving behind school, his Saturday bakery job, obscurity and an ordinary life. One Direction made it to the final and won a record deal, and it wasn't long before Harry's face covered bedroom walls up and down the country. 
 
 But how did Harry cope with his new-found fame? And what happens when you take America by storm in a 'British Invasion'? 
 
 With gorgeous green eyes and curls that send girls wild, Harry has found himself surrounded by beautiful women. But what's the truth behind the rumours? Here, his relationships with Caroline Flack, Taylor Swift and the married Lucy Horobin are laid bare. 
 
 And what next for Harry and 1D? This book will give you the low down on how Harry and the boys are set to take on the world.

Harry Styles

James Young

A marvellously funny and sharply observed account of a journey to Russia by one of Britain's most talented young writers. Moscow - a labyrinth where the humans try to keep one step ahead of the roaches. Everyone on the move, some in search of the quick buck, and others just trying to survive. All dazzled by the neon glare of the western dream. The soviet monolith has broken down in tribalism, tribes who go to war not just on the streets but in overheated rooms, with drugs, vodka and Cindy Crawford carrier bags. James Young gives an unparalleled account of today's Moscow from the bottom side up. He takes us on a odyssey through this strange no man's land where East meets West, where the old certainties have gone, the KGB men wear Italian suits, the Mafia tycoonskis style themselves on the Godfather flicks and the rest are queuing to change dollars.

Moscow Mule

Andrew Matheson

**MOJO MAGAZINE'S BOOK OF THE YEAR** 
 
The Hollywood Brats are the greatest band you’ve never heard of. 
 
Recording one near-perfect punk album in 1974, they were tragically ahead of their time. 
 
With only a guitar, a tatty copy of the Melody Maker and his template for the perfect band, Andrew Matheson set out, in 1971, to make musical history. His band, The Hollywood Brats, were pre-punk prophets – uncompromising, ultra-thin, wild, untameable and outrageous. But thrown into the crazy world of the 1970s London music scene, the Brats ultimately fell foul of the crooks and heavies that ran it and an industry that just wasn’t ready for them. 
 
Directly inspiring the London SS, the Clash, Malcolm McLaren and the Sex Pistols, The Hollywood Brats imploded too soon to share the glory. Punk’s answer to Withnail and I, Sick On You is a startling, funny and brilliantly entertaining period memoir about never quite achieving success, despite flying so close to greatness.

Sick On You

The Disastrous Story of The Hollywood Brats

The Disastrous Story of Britain’s Great Lost Punk Band

Shaun Ryder

Shaun Ryder has lived a life of glorious highs and desolate lows. As lead singer of the Happy Mondays, he turned Manchester into Madchester, combining all the excesses of a true rock'n'roll star with music and lyrics that led impresario Tony Wilson to describe him as 'the greatest poet since Yeats'. The young scally who left school at fifteen without ever learning his alphabet had come a very long way indeed. Huge chart success and a Glastonbury headline slot followed, plus numerous arrests and world tours - then Shaun's drug addiction reached its height, Factory Records was brought to its knees and the Mondays split. 
 
But was this the end for Shaun Ryder? Not by a long shot. Two years later he was back with new band Black Grape, and their groundbreaking debut album topped the charts in possibly the greatest comeback of all time. Even his continuing struggle with drugs did not stem the tide of critically acclaimed tracks and collaborations as he went on to prove his musical genius time and again. And then there was the jungle... 
 
Rock'n'roll legend, reality TV star, drug-dealer, poet, film star, heroin addict, son, brother, father, husband, foul-mouthed anthropologist and straight-talking survivor, Shaun Ryder has been a cultural icon and a 24-hour party person for a quarter of a century. Told in his own words, this is his story.

Twisting My Melon

Mark E. Smith

Still going after thirty years, The Fall are one of the most distinctive British bands, their music - odd,spare, cranky and repetitious - an acknowledged influence on The Smiths, The Happy Mondays, Nirvana and Franz Ferdinand. And Mark E. Smith IS The Fall - 47 members have come and gone over the years yet he remains its charismatic leader, a professional outsider and all-round enemy of compromise, a true enigma. There have been a number of biographies of the legendary Smith, but this is the first time he has opened up in a full autobiography. For the first time we get to hear his full, candid take on the ups and downs of a band as notorious for its in-house fighting as for its great music; and on a life that has endured prison in America, drugs, bankruptcy, divorce, and the often bleak results of a legendary thirst.

Renegade

The Lives and Tales of Mark E. Smith

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