But few people ever really glimpsed the man behind the glittering faÇade.      Mercury was the first major rock star to die from AIDS. Now, twenty years after his death, those closest to him are finally opening up about this pivotal figure in rock n’ roll. With unprecedented access to Mercury’s tribe, rock journalist Lesley-Ann Jones has crafted the definitive account of Mercury’s legendary life. Jones details Queen’s slow but steady rise to fame, and Mercury’s descent into dangerous, pleasure-seeking excesses. Jones doesn’t shy away from Mercury’s often colorful lifestyle—this was, after all, a man who once declared, “Darling, I’m doing everything with everyone.”     In her journey to understand Mercury, Jones traveled to London, Zanzibar, and India—talking with everyone from Freddie’s closest friends, to the sound engineer at Band Aid (who was responsible for making Queen louder than the other bands), to second cousins halfway around the world, an intimate and complicated portrait emerges. Meticulously researched, sympathetic yet not sensational, Mercury offers an unvarnished, revealing look at the extreme highs and lows of life in the fast lane.      Freddie Mercury will be the subject of a major motion picture titled Mercury, slated for 2012 production, produced by Graham King, starring Sacha Baron Cohen. This book is a key source for the film. Mercury is the most compelling, up-to-date portrait of an enigmatic entertainer who thrilled audiences around the world with a magnetism matched by few performers.

    From humble beginnings in New York, Burns and Allen went on to become much-loved stars of stage, radio, television, and the big-screen, one of the few entertainers to be successful in each venue. The book begins with Burns' childhood and early struggles in vaudeville before he meets Gracie Allen. Burns then details his efforts to win her affections; their marriage and adoptions of two children; radio, film, and TV productions (including the script of a 1955 show for their television series). Included are 16 pages of illustrations. George Burns, born in 1896, passed away at age 100 in 1996. Gracie Allen preceded him in death, passing away in 1964.

    Since the age of twenty-one, Paul McCartney has lived one of the ultimate rock-n-roll lives played out on the most public of stages. Now, Paul's story is told by rock music's foremost biographer, with McCartney's consent and access to family members and close friends who have never spoken on the record before. Paul McCartney reveals the complex character behind the favßade and sheds new light on his childhood -- blighted by his mother's death but redeemed by the father who introduced him to music. This is the first definitive account of Paul's often troubled partnership with John Lennon, his personal trauma after the Beatles' breakup, and his subsequent struggle to get back to the top with Wings -- which nearly got him murdered in Africa and brought him nine days in a Tokyo jail. Readers will learn about his marriage to Linda, including their much-criticized musical collaboration, and a moving account of her death. Packed with new information and critical insights, Paul McCartney will be the definitive biography of a musical legend.

    But that November 1, her life was shattered when her roommate, British student Meredith Kercher, was murdered in their apartment. Five days later, Amanda was taken into custody and charged by the Italian police; her arrest and the subsequent investigation ignited an international media firestorm. Overnight, this ordinary young American student became the subject of intense scrutiny, forced to endure a barrage of innuendo and speculation. Two years later, after an extremely controversial trial, Amanda was convicted and imprisoned. But in 2011 an appeals court overturned her conviction and vacated the charges. Free at last, she immediately returned home to the U.S., where she has remained silent, until now.

    From Detroit to Hollywood, here is the story of the music great who changed American popular culture with artists such as Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross, the Jacksons, Stevie Wonder, and more. 32 pages of photos.

    At 5' 11' (8 stone, 32 inch chest, 27 inch waist), in trademark suit jacket, skin-tight drainpipes and dark glasses, with jet-black back-combed hair and mouth full of gold teeth, John Cooper Clarke is instantly recognisable. As a writer his voice is equally unmistakable.This memoir covers an extraordinary life, filled with remarkable personalities: from Nico to Chuck Berry, from all the great punks to Bernard Manning, and on to more recent fans and collaborators Alex Turner and Plan B. John also reveals his boggling encyclopaedic knowledge of 20th-century popular culture, from Baudelaire to Coronation Street. Inimitable and iconic, his book will be a joy for lifelong fans and for a whole new generation.

    That's the day she filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump over a nondisclosure agreement negotiated before the election but never signed.How did Stormy Daniels become the woman willing to take on a president? What is it like to be reviled by some, held up as a beacon of hope by others, and to be an object of fascination to all?In this book, Stormy Daniels tells her whole story for the first time: about how she came to be a leading actress and director in the adult film business, the full truth about her journey from a rough childhood in Louisiana onto the national stage, and everything about the events that led to the nondisclosure agreement and the behind-the-scenes attempts to intimidate her.Stormy is funny, sharp, warm, and impassioned by turns. Her story is a thoroughly American one, of a girl who loved reading and horses and who understood from a very young age what she wanted―and who also knew she'd have to get every step of the way there on her own.People can't stop talking about Stormy Daniels. And they won't be able to stop talking about her fresh, surprising, completely candid, nothing-held-back book.

    Check your judgments at the curtain. Close your eyes. Listen: you can hear the voices of the visitors who sat here before you: some of the most twisted, drug-addled, deviant, lonely, lost, brilliant characters ever to be caught on film. What do you have to offer the booth?

    The photo is a perfect tribute to the fun, irreverent brand of pop music that the Go-Go’s created, but it also conceals the trials and secret demons that the group—and, in particular, Belinda Carlisle—struggled with. Leaving her unstable childhood home at the age of eighteen, Belinda battled serious weight issues and grappled with her confusion about being deserted by her biological father. This talented but misguided teen found solace in the punk rock world that so openly welcomed misfits—even though acceptance had its price.Not long after forming, the Go-Go’s became queens of the L.A. punk scene. With a chart-topping debut album, Belinda found herself launched to international superstardom—and with that fame came more access to A-list parties, and even more alcohol and drugs to fuel Go-Go’s mania. Inevitably, Belinda began to self-destruct. This spellbinding and shocking look at her rise, fall, and eventual rebirth as a wife, mother, and sober artist will leave you wistfully fantasizing about the eighties decadence she epitomized, but also cringing at the dark despair hidden behind her charming smile. Lips Unsealed is ultimately a love letter to music and the story of a life that, though deeply flawed, was, and is still, fully lived.

    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.

    Founded by Jerry Dammers, their fusion of punk, reggae, and ska created a new musical fashion—spearheaded by their own Two Tone record label—that stood for unity and racial harmony in a polarized society. This musical odyssey with The Specials moves from their early days on Coventry's punk circuit, to their chart-storming success with singles like Too Much Too Young and the eerily prescient Ghost Town, released as the race riots of 1982 saw Toxteth and Brixton go up in flames. Written with wry humor, this affectionate look at a band whose sublime music remains influential today is a must for all fans of The Specials.

    Drawing on new documentary information, the author recreates the often grueling conditions of an early rock and roll tour, and provides new facts about "the day the music died." With 50 photos.

    Influenced in equal parts by the consciousness-expanding ambitions of Timothy Leary and the cerebral humor of Douglas Adams, in "Infinite Tuesday," Nesmith spins a spellbinding tale of an unexpected life, in which stories about meeting John Lennon, or recording with Nashville greats, or inventing the music video trace an arc from Hollywood to Silicon Valley, illuminating a remarkable mind along the way.

    Lennon was quickly embraced by radicals and revolutionaries, the hippies and Yippies at odds with the establishment. Settling in Greenwich Village, the heart of Manhattan's counterculture, the former Beatle was soon on the frontlines of the antiwar movement, and championing a range of causes and issues. Seen as a savior by a generation in need of cultural heroes, Lennon was just as passionately hounded by a government eager to find enemies within. The FBI and White House considered Lennon a threat; a plan was devised to deport the singer prior to the election as a "strategic counter-measure" to preserve Richard Nixon's presidency in 1972.The Walrus and the Elephants is told by the unlikely cast of friends, including the musicians of Elephant's Memory, who were among the few with a chance to see the man behind the Beatle. Exclusive interviews include writer and feminist leader Gloria Steinem; congressional black caucus cofounder Ron Dellums; "Chicago Seven" veteran Rennie Davis; immigration attorney Leon Wildes; and legendary poet-activist John Sinclair, whose imprisonment for marijuana--a ten-year sentence for two joints--kicked off Lennon's American journey.It was a busy year of making albums, controversial TV appearances and what would be Lennon's last full-length concert at Madison Square Garden; it was a time of great change in America, the confrontations that began brewing in the sixties reaching an end for many movements . . . and the beginning of a new era. John Lennon fought for peace and was treated with scorn by some, suspicion by others--including a government wishing to silence the singer. The Walrus and the Elephants is a look back by those who fought the fight; he was a dreamer, but he wasn't the only one.

    Life on Planet Rock describes how Lonn Friend, the editor of RIP, became the Zelig-like chronicler of the biggest musical moments of that time from introducing Guns N Roses (in nothing but a top hat, underwear, and cowboy boots) to sitting in during the making of Metallica s Black Album. Life on Planet Rock provides revealing portraits of artists as varied as Kurt Cobain, Gene Simmons, Alice Cooper, Axl Rose, James Hetfield, Steven Tyler, and many more. Part oral history, part candid and humorous memoir, it is a wormhole back to a fast-moving time in music that saw tastes flash from new wave to hair metal to grunge, told as only someone who was there through it all could tell it."