Mick Jagger

For more than a quarter of a century, Philip Norman's internationally best-selling Shout! has been unchallenged as the definitive biography of the Beatles. Now, at last, Norman turns his formidable talent to the Beatle for whom belonging to the world's most beloved pop group was never enough. Drawing on previously untapped sources, and with unprecedented access to all the major characters, here is the most complete and revealing portrait of John Lennon that is ever likely to be published.

Since the age of 20, 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 façade and sheds new light on his childhood - blighted by his mother's death but redeemed by the father who introduced him to music.

With the Rolling Stones, Keith Richards created the riffs, the lyrics and the songs that roused the world, and over four decades he lived the original rock-and-roll life: taking the chances he wanted, speaking his mind, and making it all work in a way that no one before him had ever done. Now, at last, the man himself tells us the story of life in the crossfire hurricane. And what a life....

There's only one book that ever truly got inside the Beatles, and this is it. During 1967 and 1968, Hunter Davies spent 18 months with the Beatles at the peak of their powers as they defined a generation and rewrote popular music. As their only-ever authorised biographer, he had unparalleled access - not just to John, Paul, George, and Ringo, but to friends, family, and colleagues. He collected a wealth of intimate and revealing material that makes this the classic Beatles book - the one all other biographers look to.

Oliver Reed may not have been Britain's biggest film star - for a period in the early 70s he came within a hairsbreadth of replacing Sean Connery as James Bond - but he is an august member of that small band of people, like George Best and Eric Morecambe, who transcended their chosen medium, became too big for it even, and grew into cultural icons. For the first time Reed's close family has agreed to collaborate on a project about the man himself.

Eric Clapton is far more than a rock star. Like Dylan and McCartney, he is an icon and a living legend. He has sold tens of millions of records, played sell-out concerts all over the world, and been central to the significant musical developments of his era. His guitar playing has seen him hailed as "God". Now, for the first time, Eric tells the story of his personal and professional journeys in this pungent, witty, and painfully honest autobiography.

He is one of the greatest musical talents Britain has ever produced. But even as the principle songwriter and lead guitarist for The Who, it would be unjust to define Pete Townshend’s life simply through his achievements with bandmates Daltrey, Moon, and Entwistle. Noting that he has sold over 100 million records over a 50-year period goes some way to quantifying his accomplishments, but numbers only scratch the surface of his contribution to popular culture.

Beginning in London's postwar East End, Kenney's story takes us through the birth of the Mod revolution, the mind-bending days of the late 1960s and the raucous excesses of the '70s and '80s. In a career spanning six decades, Kenney was at the epicentre of many of the most exciting moments in music history and has experienced everything the industry has to offer. He jointly created some of the world's most loved records, hung out with the Stones, the Beatles, David Bowie, Keith Moon and Rod Stewart, and suffered the loss of close friends to rock 'n' roll excess and success.   

Charles Casillo studies Monroe’s life through the context of her times - in the days before feminism. Before there was adequate treatment for bipolar disorder. Starting with her abusive childhood, this biography exposes how - in spite of her fractured psyche - Marilyn managed to transform each celebrated love affair and each tragedy into another step in her journey towards immortality. Casillo fully explores the last two years of her life, including her involvement with both John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert, and the mystery of her last day.    

This book traces the entire arc of Ringo's remarkable life and career, from his sickly childhood to his life as the world's most famous drummer to his triumphs, addictions, and emotional battles following the breakup of the Beatles. Born in 1940 as Richard Starkey in the Dingle, one of Liverpool's most gritty, rough-and-tumble neighborhoods, he rose from a hardscrabble childhood marked by serious illnesses, long hospital stays, and little schooling to emerge, against all odds, as a locally renowned drummer.

Roger Daltrey is the voice of a generation. That generation was the first to rebel, to step out of the shadows of the Second World War...to invent the concept of the teenager. This is his story, from his birth at the height of the Blitz, through tempestuous school days to his expulsion, age 15, for a crime he did not commit (though he was guilty of many other misdemeanours he'd got away with). Thanks to Mr Kibblewhite, his draconian headmaster, it could all have ended there. The life of a factory worker beckoned. But then came rock and roll....

The age of the rock star, like the age of the cowboy, has passed. Like the cowboy, the idea of the rock star lives on in our imaginations. What did we see in them? Swagger. Recklessness. Sexual charisma. Damn-the-torpedoes self-belief. A certain way of carrying themselves. Good hair. Interesting shoes. Talent we wished we had. What did we want of them? To be larger than life but also like us. To live out their songs. To stay young forever. No wonder many didn't stay the course.

The Beatles have been at the top for 50 years, their music remains exciting, their influence is still huge, their acclaim and achievements cannot be surpassed. But who really were the Beatles, and how did they and everything else in the 1960s fuse so explosively? Mark Lewisohn's three-part biography is the first true and accurate account of the Beatles, a contextual history built upon impeccable research and written with energy, style, objectivity and insight.

Robin by Dave Itzkoff shows how Robin Williams struggled mightily with addiction and depression - topics he discussed openly while performing and during interviews - and with a debilitating condition at the end of his life that affected him in ways his fans never knew. Drawing on more than a hundred original interviews with family, friends and colleagues, as well as extensive archival research, Robin is a fresh and original look at a man whose work touched so many lives.

Respected arts commentator Paul Morley, one of the team who curated the highly successful retrospective exhibition for the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, David Bowie Is..., constructs the definitive story of Bowie that explores how he worked, played, aged, structured his ideas, invented the future, and entered history as someone who could and would never be forgotten.