Engelska

<b>'Fabulous... What a ghost story! A ripping read.' IAIN SINCLAIR, author of <i>London Orbital</i></b><br/><br/><b>'Vividly celebrates Bowie as not just a chameleonic visionary, but a nomadic one, a creature informed by place and circumstance.' STUART MACONIE</b><br/><b><br/><i>'Bowieland </i>will make you want to take your very own pilgrimage, accompanied by the great man's songs.' ALEXANDER LARMAN, <i>THE OBSERVER</i></b><br/><b><br/>'A sublime, time-travelling quest.' TIFFANY MURRAY, author of <i>My Family and Other Rock Stars</i></b><br/><b><br/>'A joyful and fascinating journey which anchors Bowie's genius in the pavements.' KEVIN LOADER, producer of <i>The Buddha of Suburbia<br/><br/></i></b><b>BOWIE IS STILL OUT THERE...</b><br/><br/>Following open heart surgery, Peter Carpenter was given one instruction - walk if you want to stay alive. So, when his hero died in 2016, he knew what he had to do. The figure who was to so many a companion and guide had left no single focal point for homage. To reconnect with him, Carpenter would take a walk into the past, to the places where David Jones became something more: David Bowie.<br/><br/>Leaving behind well-known shrines to Bowie, he journeyed through South London edgelands to obscurer haunts. Carpenter's quest, a series of happy accidents and chance meetings, took him to Bickley as well as Berlin and Brixton, to Eel Pie Island as well as Heddon Street and Beckenham.<br/><br/>Carpenter's perambulations echo Bowie's own wandering creative spirit. They reveal multiple influences, both conscious and unconscious, in Bowie's creative development. Ultimately, Carpenter reaches a fresh understanding of where Bowie sits in the culture, not as an outlier, but as part of a tradition, informed by those artists, poets and musicians who passed on their wisdom to him. A celebration of the revelatory powers of walking, and by no means just for Bowie obsessives, BOWIELAND opens up our geography in ways rarely seen or so well understood.

<b>A daring literary fusion of pop culture and feminism, <i>Swifterature</i> captures the special connection between English literature and the worldwide phenomenon of Taylor Swift. </b><br/><br/><i>Swifterature</i><i> </i>captures a unique fusion of different elements: fandom, feminism, and a defense of both literature and popular culture.<br/><br/> The narrative is split into thirteen chapters that use Swift's lyrics as departure points. The reader experiences the inspiring influence of English literature as Swift's lens breathes new vitality and urgency into older texts. McCausland also writes about her own experiences as she copes with intense media scrutiny and is forced to defend her academic integrity.<br/><br/> She argues that Swift, through her self-conscious engagement with classic works of literature and her extraordinary popularity, invites us to reflect not only on the culture of our past but also of our present. <i>Swifterature</i> shows how Swift's place on the world's stage can teach us about many things, from feminism to politics, nature to childhood. In the process the book makes a compelling case that studying Taylor Swift also turns us into better readers, not only of literature but of ourselves and each other.

The Cure's story is a fantastical pop fable, but their trajectory has not been one of unbroken success. Along the way, their uneven, uneasy pop odyssey has taken in fierce intra-band tensions and fall-outs, numerous line-up changes and even a bitter court case that saw original group members feuding over payments and ownership of the band's name. <br/><br/>There has been alcoholism, substance abuse and countless long, dark nights of the soul, many of which have been translated into luscious dark-rock symphonies. From gawky teenage art-punks in Crawley to gnomic, venerable rock royalty with 30 million record sales to their name, their journey has been a scarcely believable, vivid pop hallucination. <br/><br/>This fully updated edition includes a deep dive into the band's long-awaited 14th studio album released in 2024: Songs of a Lost World.

George Michael hated having his photo taken, which makes this stunning collection of images spanning over 20 years such an unusual and beautiful tribute to one of the most consummate performers the music world has ever seen.<br/><br/>Brian Aris first met George when he shot him and his Wham! colleague Andrew Ridgeley in 1984. He gained George's trust and subsequently took some of the most iconic shots of the star that provide an illuminating document of a complex character.<br/><br/>With text documenting George's life and Brian's memories of his sessions and meetings with the star, together with iconic images, contact sheets and previously unseen images, this is a beautiful tribute to pop's most likeable and talented singer.

<b>PICTURING PRINCE </b>sees the late icon's former art director, <b>STEVE PARKE</b>, revealing stunning intimate photographs of the singer from his time working at Paisley Park. At least half of the images in the book are exclusively published here for the first time; most other images in the book are rare to the public eye.<br/><br/>Alongside these remarkable images are fifty engaging, poignant and often funny written vignettes by Parke, which reveal the very human man behind the reclusive superstar: from shooting hoops to renting out movie theatres at 4am; from midnight requests for camels to meaningful conversations that shed light on Prince as a man and artist.<br/><br/><b>STEVE PARKE</b> started working with Prince in 1988, after a mutual friend showed Prince some of Steve's photorealistic paintings. He designed everything from album covers and merchandise to sets for Prince's tours and videos. Somewhere in all of this, he became Paisley Park's official art director. He began photographing Prince at the request of the star himself, and continued to do so for the next several years. The images in this book are the arresting result of this collaboration.

Thanks to a thrown beer bottle and a fan letter to a P.O. box, Melissa Auf der Maur's first band scored an opening slot for the Smashing Pumpkins in her bohemian home town, Montreal. Sensing Melissa's talent, Billy Corgan recommended her to Courtney Love. Whisked from her local scene, Melissa joined Hole just after the deaths of Kurt Cobain and Hole's prior bassist, Kristen Pfaff, with the just-widowed Courtney Love at the centre of it all.<br/><br/>That was only the beginning of Melissa's journey through alternative rock, a trip she undertook alongside 90s luminaries including Rufus Wainwright, Michael Stipe and her former boyfriend, Dave Grohl. <i>Even the Good Girls Will Cry</i> is a vivid dispatch from the last analogue decade, capturing that bygone era in all its messy, angsty glory.