Reckless

Winner Of The Baillie Gifford Prize 2020 A Spectator Book of the Year * A Times Book of the Year * A Telegraph Book of the Year * A Sunday Times Book of the Year From the award-winning author of Ma'am Darling: 99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret comes a fascinating, hilarious, kaleidoscopic biography of the Fab Four. John Updike compared them to 'the sun coming out on an Easter morning'. Bob Dylan introduced them to drugs. The Duchess of Windsor adored them. Noel Coward despised them. JRR Tolkien snubbed them. The Rolling Stones copied them. Loenard Bernstein admired them. Muhammad Ali called them 'little sissies'. Successive Prime Ministers sucked up to them. No one has remained unaffected by the music of The Beatles. As Queen Elizabeth II observed on her golden wedding anniversary, 'Think what we would have missed if we had never heard The Beatles.' One Two Three Four traces the chance fusion of the four key elements that made up The Beatles: fire (John), water (Paul), air (George) and earth (Ringo). It also tells the bizarre and often unfortunate tales of the disparate and colourful people within their orbit, among them Fred Lennon, Yoko Ono, the Maharishi, Aunt Mimi, Helen Shapiro, the con artist Magic Alex, Phil Spector, their psychedelic dentist John Riley and their failed nemesis, Det Sgt Norman Pilcher. From the bestselling author of Ma'am Darling comes a kaleidoscopic mixture of history, etymology, diaries, autobiography, fan letters, essays, parallel lives, party lists, charts, interviews, announcements and stories. One Two Three Four joyfully echoes the frenetic hurly-burly of an era.

In the space of just five years, Twice have taken the K-Pop world by storm. With hundreds of millions of views on YouTube, a sell-out world tour and record-breaking album sales under their belts, Twice have well and truly earned their place in the K-Pop hall of fame. And they’re only just getting started. Twice: The Story of K-Pop’s Greatest Girl Group tells the amazing story behind one of the most-loved groups of our time. Covering their triumphs and setbacks, the making of everyone’s favourite tracks – including ‘Like Ooh-Aah’, ‘Cheer Up’ and ‘Likey’ – and their unique sense of style, this in-depth, unofficial guide is the perfect gift for any Twice fan. With dedicated profiles of each band member, Twice looks at how these talented and unique superstars have grown, and what’s to come in their bright future.

A stunning collection of poems from one of the most revered rap artists in the world, Tupac Shakur, now the subject of the major motion picture, All Eyez On Me. His talent was unbounded, a raw force that commanded attention and respect. His death was tragic - a violent homage to the power of his voice. His legacy is indomitable - remaining vibrant and alive. Here now, are Tupac Shukar's most honest and intimate thoughts conveyed through the pure art of poetry - a mirror into his enigmatic life and its many contradictions. Written in his own hand at the age of nineteen, they embrace his spirit, his energy and his ultimate message of hope. These poems, which Tupac wrote from the heart, will encourage people to take the first steps necessary to see his literary importance, as well as have us acknowledge the life struggles of black men. There is no better way to get inside the mind of an artist than to examine his artistic expressions: sharing his sensitivity, insight, revolutionary mind, fears, passions, and sense of humour, Tupac's stature and recognition as a rapper is clear and unequivocal. The Rose that Grew from Concrete now also confirms his place amongst the best writers and poets of his generation.

The Philosophy of Modern Song is Bob Dylan’s first book of new writing since 2004’s Chronicles: Volume One — and since winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016. Dylan, who began working on the book in 2010, offers his extraordinary insight into the nature of popular music. He writes over 60 essays focusing on songs by other artists, spanning from Stephen Foster to Elvis Costello, and in between ranging from Hank Williams to Nina Simone. He analyses what he calls the trap of easy rhymes, breaks down how the addition of a single syllable can diminish a song and even explains how bluegrass relates to heavy metal. These essays are written in Dylan’s unique prose. They are mysterious and mercurial, poignant and profound, and often laugh-out-loud funny. And while they are ostensibly about music, they are really meditations and reflections on the human condition. Running throughout the book are nearly 150 carefully curated photos as well as a series of dream-like riffs that, taken together, resemble an epic poem and add to the work’s transcendence. In 2020, with the release of his outstanding album Rough and Rowdy Ways, Dylan became the first artist to have an album hit the Billboard Top 40 in each decade since the 1960s. The Philosophy of Modern Song contains much of what he has learned about his craft in all those years and, like everything that Dylan does, it is a momentous artistic achievement.

'I was 22 years old, a hard-on with a pulse: wretched, vice-ridden, too much to burn and not enough minutes in a hour to do so' The action begins in West Des Moines, Iowa, where Corey Taylor, frontman of heavy metal bands Slipknot and Stone Sour, systematically set about committing each of the Seven Deadly Sins. He has picked fights with douche bags openly brandishing guns. He has set himself on fire at parties and woken up in dumpsters after cocaine binges. He lost his virginity at eleven. He got rich and famous and immersed himself in booze, women, and chaos until one day he realised, suddenly, that he didn't need any of that at all. Now updated with a brand new chapter, Seven Deadly Sins is a brutally honest look at 'a life that could have gone horribly wrong at any turn', and the soul-searching and self-discovery it took to set it right.