By day Percy Monkman (1892 to 1986) worked in the same Bradford bank for 40 years, ending up as chief cashier. Everything else about Percy was totally unconventional. By night, at weekends, on holidays he transformed himself into an entertainer, actor, artist and cartoonist whose work was regularly acclaimed by the public and held in great respect by colleagues. Percy was highly creative, talented and energetic, a man who achieved high standards in all his artistic activities. The eldest of five boys, he was born into a humble working-class family and attended school until he was nearly 14. After a couple of office jobs, at 16 he passed a banking examination and started to work at Becketts Bank (later acquired by the Westminster Bank). Unexpectedly, the First World War gave Percy an opportunity for a new life that he grasped firmly with both hands. He spent much of the war as a comedian in an entertainment troupe that ran concert party shows for soldiers just behind the front line. Back in civilian life he continued his entertainment career with great success throughout the interwar years. In the Second World War he was back at entertaining the troops, this time groups of returning servicemen across Yorkshire. In 1935 Percy joined the Bradford Civic Playhouse and became a fixture in the cast for over 20 years. Here, in one of the best amateur theatres in the country, he played in many diverse productions, usually in comic roles. Alongside entertaining and acting, Percy developed his third creative passion of watercolour painting. He took advantage of every opportunity to paint, usually landscapes of the Yorkshire Dales. When he retired from the bank in 1952, he was able to devote all his time to this passion, which he described as 'fanatic, dedicated and impulsive'. Largely self-taught, he believed strongly in being part of a community of like-minded painters so that he could learn from them. The Bradford Arts Club gave him this network for all his adult life. He exhibited widely and sold most of his paintings. When the mood took him, he was also a talented cartoonist whose works were sometimes published. A committed family man, Percy also built a large number of life-long friends, who were a fascinating mixture of people from all walks of life, with similar passions for entertaining, acting and painting, often eccentrics and sometimes very well connected in Bradford society. His most significant friendship was with JB Priestley, his exact contemporary and England's most famous man of letters in the 20th century. Percy's extraordinary life of achievement is a unique record of social history, reflecting life in 20th century Bradford. Sadly, this is now largely a lost world. This affectionate and comprehensive biography by his grandson, illustrated with over 90 images, is both a visual delight and a joy to read, including high quality reproductions of some of Percy's most famous paintings.

In this remarkable, inspiring collection of essays, acclaimed writer and critic Olivia Laing makes a brilliant case for why art matters, especially in the turbulent political weather of the twenty-first century. Funny Weather brings together a career's worth of Laing's writing about art and culture, examining their role in our political and emotional lives. She profiles Jean-Michel Basquiat and Georgia O'Keeffe, reads Maggie Nelson and Sally Rooney, writes love letters to David Bowie and Freddie Mercury, and explores loneliness and technology, women and alcohol, sex and the body. With characteristic originality and compassion, she celebrates art as a force of resistance and repair, an antidote to a frightening political time. We're often told that art can't change anything. Laing argues that it can. Art changes how we see the world. It makes plain inequalities and it offers fertile new ways of living.

In a career that spanned nearly five decades, Dorothy Fields penned the words to more than four hundred songs, among them mega-hits such as "On the Sunny Side of the Street," "I Can't Give You Anything But Love," "The Way You Look Tonight," and "If My Friends could See Me Now." While Fields's name may be known mainly to connoisseurs, her contributions to our popular culture--indeed, our national consciousness--have been remarkable.
In I Feel a Song Coming On, Charlotte Greenspan offers the most complete, serious treatment of Fields's life and work to date, tracing her rise to prominence in a male-dominated world. Born in 1904 into a show business family--her father, Lou Fields, was a famed vaudeville comedian turned Broadway producer--Fields first teamed with songwriter Jimmy McHugh in the late 1920s and went on to a series of Hollywood collaborations with Jerome Kern, including the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers classic Swing Time. With her brother Herbert, she co-authored the books for several of Cole Porter's Broadway shows, as well as for Irving Berlin's phenomenally successful Annie Get Your Gun. More stage hits would follow, among them Redhead and Sweet Charity, as Fields remained active right up to her death in 1974. Fields's lyrics--colloquial, urbane, sometimes slangy, sometimes sensuous--won her high praise from later generation songwriters including Stephen Sondheim and Fred Ebb, and her stellar career opened a path for other women in her profession, among them Betty Comden, Dory Previn, and Marilyn Bergman.
Meticulously researched and filled with sharp insights, this lively biography not only illuminates Fields's life but also offers unique insights into the golden ageof popular song.

Eye-opening and candid, David Bailey's Look Again is a fantastically entertaining memoir by a true icon.

David Bailey burst onto the scene in 1960 with his revolutionary photographs for Vogue. Discarding the rigid rules of a previous generation of portrait and fashion photographers, he channelled the energy of London's newly informal street culture into his work. Funny, brutally honest and ferociously talented, he became as famous as his subjects.

Now in his eighties, he looks back on an outrageously eventful life. Born into an East End family, his dyslexia saw him written off as stupid at school. He hit a low point working as a debt collector until he discovered a passion for photography that would change everything. The working-class boy became an influential artist. Along the way he became friends with Mick Jagger, hung out with the Krays, got into bed with Andy Warhol and made the Queen laugh.

His love-life was never dull. He propelled girlfriend Jean Shrimpton to stardom, while her angry father threatened to shoot him. He married Catherine Deneuve a month after meeting her. Penelope Tree’s mother was unimpressed when he turned up on her doorstep. ‘It could be worse, I could be a Rolling Stone,’ Bailey told her. He went on to marry Marie Helvin and then Catherine Dyer, with whom he has three children.

He is also a film and documentary director, has shot numerous commercials and has never stopped working. A born storyteller, his autobiography is a memorable romp through an extraordinary career.

When Michael K. Williams died on 6 September 2021, he left behind a career as one of the most electrifying actors of his generation. From his star turn as Omar Little in The Wire to Chalky White in Boardwalk Empire to Emmy-nominated roles in HBO's The Night Of and Lovecraft Country, Williams inhabited a slew of indelible roles that he portrayed with a rawness and vulnerability that leapt off the screen. Beyond the nominations and acclaim, Williams played characters who connected, whose humanity couldn't be denied, whose stories were too often left out of the main narrative. At the time of his death, Williams had nearly finished a memoir that tells the story of his past while looking to the future, a book that merges his life and his life's work. Mike, as his friends knew him, was so much more than an actor. In Scenes from My Life, he traces his life in whole, from his childhood in East Flatbush and his early years as a dancer to his battles with addiction and the bar fight that left his face with his distinguishing scar. He was a committed Brooklyn resident and activist who dedicated his life to working with social justice organisations and his community, especially in helping at-risk youth find their voice and carve out their future. Williams worked to keep the spotlight on those he fought for and with, whom he believed in with his whole heart. Imbued with poignance and raw honesty, Scenes from My Life is the story of a performer who gave his all to everything he did-in his own voice, in his own words, as only he could.

Rihanna invites you into her world with this stunning visual autobiography.

From her Barbados childhood to her worldwide tours, from iconic fashion moments to private time with friends and family, the book showcases intimate photographs of her life as an artist, performer, designer, and entrepreneur. Many of these images have never before been published.

This large-format book is 504 pages with 1,050 color images on 3 paper stocks and 7 single- and double-page gatefolds, 9 bound-in booklets, 1 tip-in sheet, and a double-sided, removable poster.

From one of the most iconic actors in the history of film, an astonishingly revelatory account of a creative life in full.

To the wider world, Al Pacino exploded onto the scene like a supernova. He landed his first leading role, in The Panic in Needle Park, in 1971, and by 1975, he had starred in four movies—The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, Serpico, and Dog Day Afternoon—that were not just successes but landmarks in the history of film. Those performances became legendary and changed his life forever. Not since Marlon Brando and James Dean in the late 1950s had an actor landed in the culture with such force.

But Pacino was in his midthirties by then, and had already lived several lives. A fixture of avant-garde theater in New York, he had led a bohemian existence, working odd jobs to support his craft. He was raised by a fiercely loving but mentally unwell mother and her parents after his father left them when he was young, but in a real sense he was raised by the streets of the South Bronx, and by the troop of buccaneering young friends he ran with, whose spirits never left him. After a teacher recognized his acting promise and pushed him toward New York’s fabled High School of Performing Arts, the die was cast. In good times and bad, in poverty and in wealth and in poverty again, through pain and joy, acting was his lifeline, its community his tribe.

Sonny Boy is the memoir of a man who has nothing left to fear and nothing left to hide. All the great roles, the essential collaborations, and the important relationships are given their full due, as is the vexed marriage between creativity and commerce at the highest levels. The book’s golden thread, however, is the spirit of love and purpose. Love can fail you, and you can be defeated in your ambitions—the same lights that shine bright can also dim. But Al Pacino was lucky enough to fall deeply in love with a craft before he had the foggiest idea of any of its earthly rewards, and he never fell out of love. That has made all the difference.

Discover the untold stories of rock history from Earl Slick, David Bowie's legendary guitarist.

From working with John Lennon to the New York Dolls, dive into 50 years of rock 'n' roll adventures.

Every great rock singer needs a great guitarist by their side . . .

Earl Slick started with the best: aged 22 he was hired by David Bowie to play guitar on 1974’s Diamond Dogs tour. He never looked back.

Gracing classic Bowie albums like Young Americans and Station to Station, Slick was also in John Lennon’s band at the time of the former Beatle’s tragic murder.

Other collaborators include Mick Jagger, The Cure, Buddy Guy and Eric Clapton.

Through it all, on tour and in the studio, he lived the rock ‘n’ roll life to the hilt – until it nearly killed him.

Guitar puts us in the room and on the stage with rock’s greatest stars as Earl Slick reveals how music history was made – one lick at a time.

Wild and Crazy Guys is the larger-than-life story of the much-loved Hollywood comedy stars that ruled the 1980s.

As well as delving behind the scenes of classic movies such as Ghostbusters, Beverly Hills Cop, The Blues Brothers, Trading Places and dozens more, it chronicles the off-screen, larger-than-life antics of Bill Murray, Eddie Murphy, Chevy Chase, Steve Martin, John Candy et al. It’s got drugs, sex, punch-ups, webbed toes and Bill Murray being pushed into a swimming pool by Hunter S Thompson, while tied to a lawn chair.

It’s akin to Peter Biskind’s Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, following the key players through their highs and lows, and their often turbulent relationships with each other. Nick de Semlyen has already interviewed pretty much all the big names for Empire, as well as directors such as Walter Hill, John Landis and Carl Reiner, and is sitting on lots of unseen material.

Taking you on a trip through the tumultuous ’80s, Wild And Crazy Guys explores the friendships, feuds, triumphs and disasters experienced by these iconic funnymen. Based on candid interviews from the stars themselves, as well as those who entered their orbit, it reveals the hidden history behind the most fertile period ever for screen comedy.