Steve Roud was Local Studies Librarian for the London Borough of Croydon and served as Honorary Librarian of the Folklore Society for over fifteen years. He has been researching British folklore for over thirty years and is the joint author of the Oxford Dictionary of English Folklore, plus other books on traditional drama and folk song, and the Penguin Guide to the Superstitions of Britain and Ireland, which won the Katharine Briggs Folklore Award in 2004. His publications include London Lore (2008) and The Lore of the Playground (2010). He also compiles the Folk Song Index and the Broadside Index, two internationally acclaimed computer databases of traditional folk and popular song. He lives in Sussex.

Steve Roud

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David Bellos

The full story of one of France's greatest cinema legends, a clown whose film-making innovation was to turn everyday life into an art form. 
 
Jacques Tati's Monsieur Hulot, unmistakable with his pipe, brolly and striped socks, was a creation of slapstick genius that made audiences around the world laugh at the sheer absurdity of life. This biography charts Tati's rise and fall, from his earliest beginnings as a music hall mime during the Depression, to the success of Jour de Fête and Mon Oncle, to Playtime, the grandiose masterpiece that left the once celebrated director bankrupt and begging for equipment to complete his final films. 
 
Analysing Tati's singular vision, Bellos reveals the intricate staging of his most famous gags and draws upon hitherto inaccessible archives to produce a unique assessment of his work and its context for film lovers and film students alike.

Jacques Tati

Simon Amstell

'A beautiful and clever book about being human' Russell Brand 
 
COMEDY. TRAGEDY. THERAPY. 
 
Simon Amstell did his first stand-up gig at the age of thirteen. His parents had just divorced and puberty was confusing. Trying to be funny solved everything. 
 
HELP is the hilarious and heartbreaking account of Simon’s ongoing compulsion to reveal his entire self on stage. To tell the truth so it can’t hurt him any more. Loneliness, anxiety, depression – this book has it all. And more. 
 
From a complicated childhood in Essex to an Ayahuasca-led epiphany in the Amazon rainforest, this story will make you laugh, cry and then feel happier than you’ve ever been.

Help

John Kelly

In Enniskillen, Co. Fermanagh, in the seventies, nothing happens. Every day. Teenagers Declan Lydon and his trusted friend Spit Maguire stand under lampposts waiting to be overtaken by some hormonal storm, to be enveloped by strange women, to finally make some connection with the glorious, glamorous world they know is out there somewhere. Their salvation comes through music. When, miraculously, Thin Lizzy come to town, Declan goes in to the concert in his brown cardigan and emerges wearing a black leather jacket... 
 
Sophisticated Boom Boom is a tender, hilarious account of the agonies and absurdities of growing up in a backwater of pebbledash and Space Invaders. Crucially, though, this is a love letter to the period and the place, and to the liberating, healing power of music that galvanises and transforms.

Sophisticated Boom Boom

Jimmy McDonough

Neil Young is one of rock and roll's most important, influential and enigmatic figures, an intensely reticent artist who has granted no writer access to his inner sanctum - until now. Shakey is the whole story of Young's incredible life and career: from his childhood in Canada to the founding of folk-rock pioneers Buffalo Springfield; the bleary conglomeration of Crazy Horse and the monstrous success of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young; to the depths of the Tonight's the Night depravity and the Geffen years; and Young's unprecedented nineties 'comeback'. 
 
Shakey (the title refers to one of Young's many aliases) is also the compelling human story of a lonely kid for whom music was the only outlet, a driven yet tortured figure who controlled his epilepsy via 'mind over matter', an oddly passionate model train mogul who, inspired by his own son's struggle with cerebral palsy, became a major activist in the quest to help those with the condition. 
 
This long-awaited, unprecedented story of a rock 'n' roll legend is uniquely told through the interwoven voices of McDonough - biographer, critic, historian, obsessive fan - and the ever-cantankerous (but slyly funny) Young himself.

Shakey

Neil Young's Biography

Simon Callow

A companion volume to Being an Actor, Callow's classic text about the experience of acting in the theatre, Shooting the Actor reveals the truth about film acting. The book describes his film work, from Amadeus to Four Weddings and a Funeral, from Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls to Shakespeare in Love. 
 
Its centrepiece is a hilarious and sometimes agonising account of the making of Manifesto, shot in the former Yugoslavia. When Callow first met the film's director Dušan Makavejev to discuss the movie, they both got on famously. Months later the two were barely speaking. Insightful and always entertaining, Shooting the Actor reveals more than any formal guide could about the process of film-making and the highly complex nature of being both actor and director.

Shooting the Actor

Jenny Landreth

'With spot-on injections of humour and a frequently raised sardonic eyebrow, joy and warmth shine from this fascinating and funny book' Jo Brand 
 
A joyful celebration of amateur theatre 
 
From the Mystery Plays of the Middle Ages, via the Georgian aristocrats who built opulent private theatres in their own homes, to the radical lefties taking political theatre to the streets, this is the story of amateur dramatics in Britain. We meet a cast of characters who tell us about the joy amateur theatre brings them and we follow the full arc of a production, from first auditions to last night party, with all the mishaps and forgotten lines that come in between. In a triumphant mix of memoir, social history and manifesto, Jenny Landreth opens our eyes to am-dram and shows us a vibrant world that is a crucial part of our culture.

Break a Leg

A memoir, manifesto and celebration of amateur theatre

Joseph O'Connor

The first novel by Joseph O'Connor, bestselling author of Star of the Sea and Shadowplay. 
 
Eddie Virago, proud owner of the last mohican haircut in Dublin, leaves his home town to find the fame and fortune he's convinced awaits in the wild world of the London rock scene. 
 
Things don't quite go as planned, however. He finds himself living in a ramshackle hotel with a girl he met on the ferry over, while a bewildering array of acid-house ravers, saloon-bar revolutionaries, music-business wideboys and media primadonnas all seem very anxious to help Eddie on his way... 
 
'Very funny... An immensely readable and entertaining book, full of truth about the world we live in' Sunday Independent 
 
'Clever, wry and often hilarious...with sardonic, very knowing digs at youthful pretension' Time Out

Cowboys and Indians

Gillian Lynne

London during the Blitz was a time of hardship, heroism and hope. 
 
For Gillian Lynne – a budding ballerina – it was also a time of great change as she was evacuated from war-torn London to a crumbling mansion, where dance classes took place in the faded ballroom. 
 
Life was hard, but her talent and dedication shone through and an astonishing journey ensued, which saw Gillian dancing a triumphant debut in Swan Lake, performing in the West End with doodlebugs falling and touring a devastated Europe entertaining the troops. 
 
A Dancer in Wartime paints a vivid and moving picture of what life was really like during the hard years of the Blitz and brings to life a lost world.

A Dancer in Wartime

The touching true story of a young girl's journey from the Blitz to the Bright Lights

Christopher Andrew

Julius Green

A vastly entertaining and unique history of the interaction between spying and showbiz, from the Elizabethan age to the Cold War and beyond. 
 
'A treasure trove of human ingenuity' The Times 
 
Written by two experts in their fields, Stars and Spies is the first history of the extraordinary connections between the intelligence services and show business. 
 
We travel back to the golden age of theatre and intelligence in the reign of Elizabeth I. We meet the writers, actors and entertainers drawn into espionage in the Restoration, the Ancien Régime and Civil War America. And we witness the entry of spying into mainstream popular culture throughout the twentieth century and beyond - from the adventures of James Bond to the thrillers of John le Carré and long-running TV series such as The Americans. 
 
'Thoroughly entertaining' Spectator 
 
'I found it extremely difficult to put this book down' Daily Telegraph

Stars and Spies

The Astonishing History of Espionage and Show Business

The story of Intelligence Operations…

At college in 1980s Luton, Robbie Goulding, an Irish-born teenager, meets the elusive Fran Mulvey, an orphaned Vietnamese refugee. Together they form a band. Joined by cellist Sarah-Thérèse Sherlock and her twin brother Seán on drums, The Ships in the Night set out to chase fame. But the story of this makeshift family is haunted by ghosts from the past. 
 
Spanning 25 years, The Thrill of it All rewinds and fast-forwards through an evocative soundtrack of struggle and laughter. Infused with blues, ska, classic showtunes, New Wave and punk, using interviews, lyrics, memoirs and diaries, the tale stretches from suburban England to Manhattan’s East Village, from Thatcher-era London to the Hollywood Bowl, from the meadows of the Glastonbury Festival to a wintry Long Island, culminating in a Dublin evening in July 2012, a night that changes everything. 
 
A story of loyalties, friendship, the call of the muse, and the beguiling shimmer of teenage dreams, this is a warm-hearted, funny and deeply moving novel for anyone that’s ever loved a song.

The Thrill of it All

Zawe Ashton

'Entertaining...revealing, shocking' BERNARDINE EVARISTO 
 
'Sublime' CANDICE CARTY-WILLIAMS 
 
Actor and director Zawe Ashton brings us a unique look at life, work and the absurdities of today's world 
 
Zawe Ashton has been acting since she was six. She has played many different roles, from 'cute little girl' to 'assassin with attitude', Oscar Wilde's Salome to St Trinian's schoolgirl by way of Fresh Meat's Vod. 
 
In Character Breakdown, Zawe scrolls through a version of her life. Or is it a version of her art? Or something in between. In it, she encounters glamour, horror, absurdity and questions like: is a life spent more on performance than reality any life at all? 
 
'Smart, funny, vivid, honest, dark, timely' The Times 
 
'A smart, funny and well-written take-down of modern showbiz' Elizabeth Day, author of How To Fail 
 
Selected by Bernardine Evaristo as one her 20 books by Black British Womxn Writers

Character Breakdown

Peter Doggett

Read the definitive biography of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, whose music and career illuminate the legacy of 1960s counterculture. 
 
Between 1969 and 1974, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young were the most successful, influential and politically potent rock band in America. More than any of their peers, they channelled and broadcast all the radical anger, romantic idealism and generational angst of their era. The vast emotional range of their music, from delicate acoustic confessionals to raucous counter-culture anthems, was mirrored in the turbulence of their personal lives. 
 
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young is the first major biography of a band whose first two albums are undisputed rock classics, and which continues to attract a large and loyal following to their sporadic reunions. At the same time, Peter Doggett illuminates the pivotal years of 1960s counterculture through the story of four of its key protagonists, whose music, beliefs and relationships with each other chronicle both its trajectory and its legacy. 
 
'A fascinating, rip-roaring and timely re-telling of a corner of music history' Frank Turner

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

The definitive biography

Tim Thornton

By the time most people hit 30, they've managed to do one of the following things: 
1. Grow up 
2. Quit idolising rock stars 
3. Move on a bit from the music they were obsessed with at the age of 17. 
 
Clive Beresford has failed to do all three. But that's about to change. 
 
One unremarkable Saturday morning Clive sees the biggest alternative-pop star of them all walking down the high street with his dry-cleaning: Lance Webster, disgraced ex-singer of Thieving Magpies ('the biggest British band to emerge from the late-eighties indie-boom' Rolling Stone). Clive hatches a ramshackle plan to befriend his idol and grab the scoop of a lifetime - why did Webster burn out? The ensuing chaos forces both men to revisit the sweat, feedback, T-shirts, stage-dives, hitch-hikes, snakebites and hangovers of British alternative rock at the start of the nineties; to quote Lance Webster himself, 'before Britpop came along and fucked everything up'...

The Alternative Hero

Michael Holroyd

Henry Irving - a merchant's clerk who became the saviour of British theatre - and Ellen Terry, who made her first theatre appearance as soon as she could walk, were the king and queen of the Victorian stage. Creatively interdependent, they founded a power-house of arts at the Lyceum Theatre, with Bram Stoker as business manager, where they recast Shakespeare's plays on an epic scale and took the company on lucrative and exhilarating international tours. 
 
In his masterly new biography, award-winning writer Michael Holroyd explores their public and private lives, showing how their artistic legacy and their brilliant but troubled children came to influence the modern world.

A Strange Eventful History

The Dramatic Lives of Ellen Terry, Henry Irving and their Remarkable Families

Ian McEwan

Charles Frieth, pre-eminent composer, conductor and prodigious womaniser, is preparing for a performance of one of his early works, and the world premiere of Demonic Aubade. Obstinate and myopic, he is oblivious to the growing turmoil around him; his wife's poor health and sadness; the exhausted efforts of his secretary, and the destructive passion of his housekeeper, Maria. 
 
As the first performance draws near, the maestro is suddenly awoken to the chaos, and as Charles struggles to regain control of his life, a terrible tragedy begins to unfold.

For You

The Libretto for Michael Berkeley's Opera

Colin Grant

Discover the untold history of reggae legends of Bob Marley and the original Wailers. 
 
The perfect must-read if you loved the film One Love. 
 
Over one dramatic decade, a trio of Trench Town R&amp;B crooners, Peter Tosh, Bunny Wailer and Bob Marley, swapped their 1960s Brylcreem hairdos and two-tone suits for 1970s battle fatigues and dreadlocks to become the Wailers - one of the most influential groups in popular music. Now one of our best and brightest non-fiction writers examines the story of the influential reggae band. 
 
Charting their complex relationship, their fluctuating fortunes, musical peak, and the politics and ideologies that provoked their split, Colin Grant shows us why they were not just extraordinary musicians, but also natural mystics. And, following a trail from Jamaica through Europe, America, Africa and back to the vibrant and volatile world of Trench Town, he travels in search of the last surviving Wailer. 
 
'In Grant's hands life in Trench Town in the 1960's is energetic and theatrical, rich in comedy and tragic irony...This brilliant book is not just about Jamaica, but about ourselves' Guardian

I & I: The Natural Mystics

Marley, Tosh and Wailer

Salman Rushdie

‘The first great rock ’n’ roll novel in the English language’ The Times 
 
On Valentine’s Day, 1989, Vina Apsara, a famous and much-loved singer, disappears in a devastating earthquake. 
 
Her lover, the singer Ormus Cama, cannot accept that he has lost her, and so begins his eternal quest to find her and bring her back. His journey takes him across the globe and through cities pulsating with the power of rock ’n’ roll, to Bombay, London and New York. 
 
But around the star-crossed lover and his quest, the uncertain world itself is beginning to tremble and break. Cracks and tears are appearing in the very fabric of reality, and exposing the abyss beyond. And Ormus has to confront just how far he is willing to go for love.

The Ground Beneath Her Feet

Andrew Loog Oldham

In 1963, in a south London hotel, Andrew Loog Oldham discovered an unknown rhythm and blues band called the Rolling Stones and became their manager and producer; by 1967 they had achieved worldwide celebrity, been arrested in a notorious drugs raid and split with the manager that made them. 2Stoned is the remarkable record of these years, when Oldham's radical strategies transformed them into the Greatest Rock 'n' Roll Band That Ever Drew Breath. 
 
In his first book, Stoned, Oldham recorded his early years and the meeting with the Stones that changed all their fates; 2Stoned is the story of what followed.

2Stoned

Jarvis Cocker

The Sunday Times bestselling hit memoir from Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker. 
 
'It's real gold... its storytelling first class' Sunday Times 
 
What if the things we keep hidden say more about us than those we put on display? 
 
We all have a random collection of the things that made us - photos, tickets, clothes, souvenirs, stuffed in a box, packed in a suitcase, crammed into a drawer. When Jarvis Cocker starts clearing out his loft, he finds a jumble of objects that catalogue his story and ask him some awkward questions: 
 
Who do you think you are? 
 
Are clothes important? 
 
Why are there so many pairs of broken glasses up here? 
 
From a Gold Star polycotton shirt to a pack of Wrigley's Extra, from his teenage attempts to write songs to the Sexy Laughs Fantastic Dirty Joke Book, this is the hard evidence of Jarvis's unique life, Pulp, 20th century pop culture, the good times and the mistakes he'd rather forget. 
 
This is not a life story. It's a loft story. 
 
'Nostalgic, playful and beautifully designed' Daily Mail 
 
'Brilliant...lurid, entertaining' Daily Telegraph 
 
'Terrific... Very funny' Guardian 
 
* A Book of the Year in the Daily Telegraph, Financial Times, Daily Mail and Uncut *

Good Pop, Bad Pop

Nicholas Hytner

The Sunday Times Bestseller 
 
This is the inside story of twelve years at the helm of Britain’s greatest theatre. 
 
It is a story of lunatic failures and spectacular successes such as The History Boys, War Horse and One Man, Two Guvnors; of opening the doors of the National Theatre to a broader audience than ever before, and changing the public’s perception of what theatre is for. It is about probing Shakespeare from every angle and reinventing the classics. About fostering new talent and directing some of the most celebrated actors of our times. Its cast includes the likes of Alan Bennett, Maggie Smith, Mike Leigh, Daniel Day-Lewis, Michael Gambon and Helen Mirren. 
 
Intimate, candid and insightful, Balancing Acts is a passionate exploration of the art and alchemy of making theatre.

Balancing Acts

Behind the Scenes at the National Theatre

Howard Goodall

The dramatic story of five key turning points in a thousand years of Western music - discoveries that changed the course of history. 
 
Who first invented 'Doh Re Mi...'? 
 
What do we mean by "in tune"? 
 
Looking back down the corridor of a thousand years, Howard Goodall guides us through the stories of five seismic developments in the history of Western music. His "big bangs" may not be the ones we expect - some are surprising and some are so obvious we overlook them - but all have had an extraordinary impact. 
 
Goodall starts with the invention of notation by an 11th-century Italian monk, which removed the creation of music from the hands of the players to the pens of the composers; moves on to the first opera; then to the invention of the piano, and ends with the story of the first recording made in history. 
 
Howard Goodall has the gift of making these complicated musical advances both clear and utterly fascinating. Racy and vivid in a narrative full of colourful characters and graphic illustrations of technical processes, he also gives a wonderful sense of the culture of trial and error and competition, be it in 11th-century Italy or 19th-century America, in which all progress takes place. 
 
Big Bangs opens a window on the crucial moments in our musical culture - discoveries that made possible everything from Bach to the Beatles - and tells us a riveting story of a millennium of endeavour.

Big Bangs

Johnny Rogan

NOW UPDATED WITH A NEW EPILOGUE 
 
In the summer of 1964, aged twenty, Ray Davies led the Kinks to fame with their number one hit ‘You Really Got Me’. Within months, they were established among the pop elite, swamped by fans and fast becoming renowned for the rioting at their gigs. 
 
But Ray’s journey from working-class Muswell Hill to the Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame was tumultuous in the extreme, featuring breakdowns, bitter lawsuits, spectacular punch-ups and a ban from entering the USA. His relationship with his brother Dave is surely the most ferocious and abusive in music history. Based on countless interviews conducted over several decades, this richly detailed and revelatory biography presents the most frank and intimate portrait yet of Ray Davies.

Ray Davies

A Complicated Life

David Malouf

Perfectly preserving the tone and mood of the novel whilst condensing it into two acts, David Malouf, with the gift for language already evident from his novels and poetry, presents afresh the timeless story of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, one of the most enduring literary classics of all time. The love between Jane and Mr Rochester, and the mystery of the woman behind the locked door, are here set to music in the opera composed by Michael Berkeley.

Jane Eyre

Werner Herzog

Werner Herzog is the undisputed master of extreme cinema: building an opera house in the middle of the jungle; walking from Munich to Paris in the dead of winter; descending into an active volcano; living in the wilderness among grizzly bears - he has always been intrigued by the extremes of human experience. 
 
From his early movies to his later documentaries, he has made a career out of exploring the boundaries of human endurance: what we are capable of in exceptional circumstances and what these situations reveal about who we really are. But these are not just great cinematic themes. During the making of his films, Herzog pushed himself and others to the limits, often putting himself in life-threatening situations. 
 
As a child in rural Bavaria, a single loaf of bread had to last his family all week. The hunger and deprivation he experienced during his early years perhaps explain his fascination with the limits of physical endurance.All his life, Herzog would embrace risk and danger, constantly looking for challenges and adventures. 
 
Filled to the brim with memorable stories and poignant observations, Every Man for Himself and God against All unveils the influences and ideas that drive his creativity and have shaped his unique view of the world. This book tells, for the first time, the story of his extraordinary and fascinating life.

Every Man for Himself and God against All

A Memoir

Marybeth Hamilton

Everyone knows the story of the Delta blues, with its fierce, raw voices and tormented drifters and deals with the devil at the crossroads at midnight. In this compelling book, Marybeth Hamilton radically rewrites that story. 
 
Archaic and primeval though the music may sound, the idea of something called 'Delta blues' emerged in the late twentieth century, the culmination of a longstanding white fascination with 'uncorrupted' black singers, untainted by the city, by commerce, by the sights and sounds of modernity. 
 
Written with exquisite grace and sensitivity, at once historically acute and hauntingly poetic, the book is an extraordinary excavation of the blues mystique and provides a deeper understanding of the place of blues within wider American culture.

In Search Of The Blues

Black Voices, White Visions

Jean Stein

West of Eden is the definitive story of Hollywood, told, in their own words, by the people on the inside: Lauren Bacall, Arthur Miller, Dennis Hopper, Frank Gehry, Ring Lardner, Joan Didion, Stephen Sondheim – all interviewed by Jean Stein, who grew up in the Forties in a fairytale mansion in the Hollywood Hills. 
 
The book takes us from the discovery of oil in the Twenties with the story of the tycoon Edward Doheny (There Will Be Blood) and traces the growth of corruption through the syndicates, the mob, and the movie studios – from the beginnings of the film industry to the end, with News Corp. and Rupert Murdoch (who bought the Stein mansion in 1985). 
 
West of Eden is about money, power, fame and terrible secrets: the doomed Hollywood of the late Fifties, early Sixties – ‘the rotten heart of paradise’. Like her last book, the best-selling Edie, this is an oral history told through brilliantly edited interviews. As this is Hollywood, it’s a book full of sex, drugs and celebrity glamour; but because it’s built from the firsthand accounts of people who were actually there, many of them writers, actors and artists, it’s also strangely claustrophobic, seductive, and completely compelling.

West of Eden

Nick Coleman

***ONE OF BILLBOARD'S TOP TEN MUSIC BOOKS OF 2018*** 
 
‘A brilliant book about singing… I have been talking to Nick Coleman about music, in person and in my head, for forty years now. [With Voices] you have the opportunity to hear what I have heard. I hope you take it’ Nick Hornby in The Believer 
 
What happens when we fall in love with a voice; the siren call of someone singing? 
 
 The history of post-war popular music is traditionally told sociologically or in terms of musicological influence and innovation in style. Voices takes a different tack. In ten discrete but cohering essays Coleman tackles the arc of that history as if it were an emotional experience with real psychological consequences – as chaotic, random, challenging and unpredictable as life itself. 
 
 Voices is the story of what it is to listen and learn. Above all, it is a story of what it means to feel.

Voices

How a Great Singer Can Change Your Life

A brilliant biography of the young Orson Welles, from his prodigious childhood and youth, his triumphs with the Mercury Theatre, to the making of Citizen Kane. Vivid, vastly entertaining, this is the definitive Welles biography.

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