While he is often unjustly overlooked as a mere adjunct to his more famous brothers Brian and Dennis, Carl was a major international rock star from his early teens.The proud owner of one of the greatest voices in popular music--one that graced some of the most important records of the pop era, including 'God Only Knows' and 'Good Vibrations'--Wilson was also one of the first musicians to bring the electric guitar to the forefront of rock'n'roll. His musical skills provided The Beach Boys' entree into the music business, from which he then stewarded their onstage journey through the ups and downs of the 60s to their comeback in the 70s and into the role of 'America's band' in the 80s. Along the way, Carl quietly endured his own battles with obesity, divorce, substance abuse, and ultimately terminal cancer, all the while working to protect his family's business and legacy. This major new biography reveals the true story of modern rock'n'roll, lived from the center of the most important decades of popular music.

    More than just an engaging personal account, it's a story about personal growth, coming of age, and the real power of punk and hardcore. Gain an insider's look at a truly influential underground movement.

    When he died suddenly at the age of sixty-five in October 2004, millions mourned the loss of this quirky, influential figure. This highly successful biography by Michael Heatley, now in paperback, traces Peel's fascinating life from boyhood and adolescence to his early counter-culture days on pirate radio, and charts his lengthy maverick career at Radio One up to his later years where he found a new audience on Radio Four's popular Saturday morning show, Home Truths.

    Now he has written his own insightful account of the British counterculture in the 1960s and ‘70s. With a continuing commitment to the tradition of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, he recounts a rollercoaster odyssey - sometimes violent and often hilarious.

    Jimmy Nail has been a household name since Auf Wiedersehen, Pet hit our screens in the 1980s. since then, his career as an actor and a musician has put on him on the silver screen alongside Madonna and given him a No. 1 hit single. Success on this astonishing scale was beyond the wildest dreams of the working class lad whose harsh childhood and brutal schooling put him on a collision course with Strangeways. But a short spell in prison helped propel Nail onwards and upwards. With the support of his friends and family, it wasn't long before Jimmy's unique talents and single-minded determination brought him attention of a different kind - and changed his life for ever. In A Northern Soul, Jimmy Nail tells his own vivid story in this intriguing, inspiring and sometimes confounding account of how one man rose to fame and fortune by refusing to be anything but himself.

    His passion for the game is at the fore on the BBC 's number one cricket podcast and 5Live show, Tailenders, which he co-presents with Greg James and Jimmy Anderson. It's Always Summer Somewhere is his funny, heartbreaking and endlessly engaging love letter to the game.Felix takes us through his life growing up in South West London and describes how his story is forever punctuated and given meaning by cricket. Through his own exploits as a slow left arm spinner of 'lovely loopy stuff', to the tragic illness of his mother, life with The Maccabees and his cricket redemption, Felix touches on both the comedic and the tragic in equal measure. Throughout, there's the ever-present roller coaster of following the England cricket team. The exploits of Tufnell (another bowler of 'lovely loopy stuff'), Atherton, Hussain et al, are given extra import through the eyes of a cricket-obsessed youth. Felix meets them at each signposted moment to find out what was really behind those moments that gave cricket fans everywhere sporting memories that would last forever, sending the book into an exploration of grief, transgenerational displacement and how the people we've known and things we've loved culminate and take expression in our lives. It's Always Summer Somewhere is an incredibly honest detail of a life lived with cricket. It offers a sense of genuine empathy and understanding not just with cricket fans, but sports and music fans across the world, in articulating our reasons for pouring so much meaning into something that we simply cannot control.Culminating in the heart-stopping World Cup Final in 2019, the book finally answers that question fans have so often asked...what is it about this game?

    The book unveils a truth of universal importance, namely, by helping others in need we can become their miracles.

    I've tried to imagine myself sitting down with you explaining what I was thinking and feeling during those times. I hope this book will give you a behind-the-scenes view of my journey into a place where I finally found what had been missing in my life for all those years: music.'Endearingly written with disarming honesty and filled with exclusive new and unseen photographs on and offstage, Happy Days takes you closer to Olly than you've ever been before.

    . ."When Esther McKay, an idealistic young constable with the NSW police, entered the tough, male-dominated world of forensic investigation, she was determined to hold her own. She soon found herself at deeply confronting crime scenes, often working alone and without supervision. After years of long, lonely, exhausting days and nights, and following a particularly harrowing high-profile case involving the disappearance of two young boys, Esther had a break-down and was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. This is Esther's story. Powerful, moving and unforgettable, Crime Scene takes us inside the life of a forensic investigator, and reveals as never before the extraordinary demands and dangers of forensic work.

    There's nothing cool about Céline Dion, and nothing clever. That's part of her appeal as an object of love or hatred — with most critics and committed music fans taking pleasure (or at least geeky solace) in their lofty contempt. This book documents Carl Wilson's brave and unprecedented year-long quest to find his inner Céline Dion fan, and explores how we define ourselves in the light of what we call good and bad, what we love and what we hate.

    G. Wells was an international phenomenon, the only writer of his time who could command an audience with both Roosevelt and Stalin. His circle of friends included George Bernard Shaw, Rudyard Kipling, G. K. Chesterton, Somerset Maugham and, of course, the young Rebecca West, with whom he had a long-term affair — perhaps the most tempestuous and sparkling literary liaison of the century. Equally illustrious was his circle of enemies, including the indomitable Hilaire Belloc, who destroyed Wells in a vicious and public argument. Unlike any previous biographer, Michael Coren shows that while many have considered Wells to be on the side of the angels, he was in fact invariably on the wrong side in the major political and literary debates of the age. Drawing on eye-opening new material, The Invisible Man delves deep into the paradoxes that characterized Wells — the utopian visionary and staunch advocate of women’s suffrage who was also a misogynistic womanizer; the epitome of liberal tolerance who was also a social engineer and thoroughgoing anti-Semite. Wells has hitherto remained untouched by charges of anti-Semitism, but Coren reveals for the first time his disturbing views on ‘the Jewish problem’ (for instance, he called Jews ‘termites in the civilized world’), views he defended vehemently even through the 1930s. The avuncular author of Kipps and The Time Machine is depicted, shockingly, as one who advocated concentration camps, racial eugenics and the incarceration or execution of those who did not ‘fit in’. The Invisible Man is one of those iconoclastic biographies that change our perception of their subjects for ever. Praise for Michael Coren: ‘An elegantly written biography’ The Times Michael Coren is a journalist and author, who wrote the highly acclaimed Gilbert: The Man Who Was G. K. Chesterton and a biography of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

    

    His guitarist is trying to get them all killed. Fans are stealing his things. Mechanics are rebuking his lifestyle. Even his own fragile, uptight psyche is antagonizing him. But despite having every odd stacked against him, Project 86's frontman is living the dream and loving it. In It's All Downhill From Here, Andrew Schwab chronicles the highs and lows, the struggles and triumphs of this underground, independent rock band's rocky road to stardom. From a hostage situation on their first day on the road, to a drummer's crushed hand, a haunting female fan and an '80s rocker's halitosis problem, Schwab tells it like it is, with biting wit and rock star charm. This insider's look at the real life of a rock band not only reaffirms that everyone's human, but makes you hungry for a dream of your own to chase after.

    You'd expect a drummer to have better timing. Yes, he parted ways before The Patrol became the Stone Roses. Yes, he turned down The Smiths because he didn't like Morrissey's voice. Right place, right time, wrong choices. Timing is everything.But the beat goes on and while Simon Wolstencroft can see what might have been, cultivating bitterness bears no fruit. And 'Funky Si' has tasted the nectar. Spending an unlikely 11 years in The Fall and hooking up with his old mate Ian Brown during his solo days, 'You Can Drum But You Can't Hide' reflects on a life driven by a passion for playing. Taking you from the warehouses of Manchester and the beaches of Rio de Janeiro to the high rises of Tokyo, this book hands you a backstage pass to an evocative age that restored pride to the city of Manchester. With humour and detail, Si recounts a fascinating tale of drumming and drugs, friendships and fall outs, but, above all, a love of music.

    With ten months to live, he decided to accept his imminent death and went on the road. His calm, philosophical response made him even more beloved and admired. And then the strangest thing happened: he didn't die. Don't You Leave Me Here is the story of his life in music, his life with cancer, and his life now - in the future he never thought he would see.