Rob Young investigates how the idea of folk has been handed down and transformed by successive generations - song collectors, composers, Marxist revivalists, folk-rockers, psychedelic voyagers, free festival-goers, experimental pop stars and electronic innovators.

In a sweeping panorama of Albion's soundscape that takes in the pioneer spirit of Cecil Sharp; the pastoral classicism of Ralph Vaughan Williams and Peter Warlock; the industrial folk revival of Ewan MacColl and A. L. Lloyd; the folk-rock of Fairport Convention, Sandy Denny, Nick Drake, Shirley Collins, John Martyn and Pentangle; the bucolic psychedelia of The Incredible String Band, The Beatles and Pink Floyd; the acid folk of Comus, Forest, Mr Fox and Trees; The Wicker Man and occult folklore; the early Glastonbury and Stonehenge festivals; and the visionary pop of Kate Bush, Julian Cope and Talk Talk, Electric Eden maps out a native British musical voice that reflects the complex relationships between town and country, progress and nostalgia, radicalism and conservatism.

An attempt to isolate the 'Britishness' of British music - a wild combination of pagan echoes, spiritual quest, imaginative time-travel, pastoral innocence and electrified creativity - Electric Eden will be treasured by anyone interested in the tangled story of Britain's folk music and Arcadian dreams.

A LOUDER THAN WAR BOOK OF THE YEAR A riveting journey into the psyche of Britain through its golden age of television and film; a cross-genre feast of moving pictures, from classics to occult hidden gems, The Magic Box is the nation's visual self-portrait in technicolour detail. 'The definition of gripping. Truly, a trove of wyrd treasures.' BENJAMIN MYERS 'A lovingly researched history of British TV [that] recalls the brilliant, the bizarre and the unworldly.' GUARDIAN 'A reclamation, not just of a visual 'golden age', but of Britain as a darkly magical place.' THE SPECTATOR 'A feat of argument, description and affection.' FINANCIAL TIMES 'Young unearths the ghosts of TV past - and Britain's dark psyche.' HERALD 'Highly entertaining . . . [A] fabulous treasure trove.' SCOTSMAN 'Young is a phenomonal scholar.' OBSERVER 'Impassioned.' THE CRITIC Growing up in the 1970s, Rob Young's main storyteller was the wooden box with the glass window in the corner of the family living room, otherwise known as the TV set. Before the age of DVDs and Blu-ray discs, YouTube and commercial streaming services, watching television was a vastly different experience. You switched on, you sat back and you watched. There was no pause or fast-forward button. The cross-genre feast of moving pictures produced in Britain between the late 1950s and late 1980s - from Quatermass and Tom Jones to The Wicker Man and Brideshead Revisited, from A Canterbury Tale and The Go-Between to Bagpuss and Children of the Stones, and from John Betjeman's travelogues to ghost stories at Christmas - contributed to a national conversation and collective memory. British-made sci-fi, folk horror, period drama and televisual grand tours played out tensions between the past and the present, dramatised the fractures and injustices in society and acted as a portal for magical and ghostly visions. In The Magic Box, Rob Young takes us on a fascinating journey into this influential golden age of screen and discovers what it reveals about the nature and character of Britain, its uncategorisable people and buried histories - and how its presence can still be felt on screen in the twenty-first century. '[A] forensic dissection . . . this tightly packed treatise takes pains to illustrate how what we view affects how we view ourselves.' TOTAL FILM

Marathon Man is a truly remarkable book that will inspire all who read it to know that they can take on the biggest challenges in their lives and overcome them. It all began when Rob's fiancee, exasperated as he sat slumped in front of the television watching the London marathon, bet him 20p that he'd never complete even one such race. Watching the 40,000 competitors as they raised over GBP53 million for charity, Rob decided to take things a little bit further. Despite never having run a marathon before, he set out to achieve an astonishing new record: he would run more than 365 marathons in a year. So it was that Marathon Man UK was born. This book not only tells the incredible story of Young's quest, during which he broke numerous world records, but also provides vital lessons in how to motivate yourself to achieve your goals and essential tips (learned the very hard way) in how to run and keep on going. He takes the reader on a vivid journey through some of the most beautiful scenery, as they join him in some of the toughest marathons and ultra-marathons in the UK. After suffering horrendous abuse as a child, Young has developed a determination that few can match. It enabled him to complete 370 marathons in the year and to win the Race Across USA (competing with a group of elite marathon-runners) by 30 hours. As Paula Radcliffe commented: 'This is amazing!' Marathon Man shows exactly why and how he achieved it.

This is the authoritative book on sea level rise and its coastal consequences. On Shismaref Island in Alaska, homes are being washed into the sea. In the South Pacific, small island nations face annihilation by encroaching waters. In coastal Louisiana, an area the size of a football field disappears every day. For these communities, sea level rise isn't a distant, abstract fear: it's happening now and it's threatening their way of life. In "The Rising Sea", Orrin H. Pilkey and Rob Young warn that many other coastal areas may be close behind. Prominent scientists predict that the oceans may rise by as much as seven feet in the next hundred years. That means coastal cities will be forced to construct dikes and seawalls or to move buildings, roads, pipelines, and railways to avert inundation and destruction. The question is no longer whether climate change is causing the oceans to swell, but by how much and how quickly. Pilkey and Young deftly guide readers through the science, explaining the facts and debunking the claims of industry-sponsored 'sceptics'. They also explore the consequences for fish, wildlife - and people. While rising seas are now inevitable, we are far from helpless. By making hard choices - including uprooting citizens, changing where and how we build, and developing a coordinated national response - we can save property, and ultimately lives. With unassailable research and practical insights, "The Rising Sea" is a critical first step in understanding the threat and keeping our heads above water.

Rob Young's Electric Eden: Unearthing Britain's Visionary Music is a seminal book on British music and cultural heritage, that spans the visionary classical and folk tradition from the nineteenth-century to the present day. 'A thoroughly enjoyable read and likely to remain the best-written overview for a long time.' GUARDIAN 'A perfectly timed, perfectly pitched alternative history of English folk music . . . wide-ranging, insightful, authoritative, thoroughly entertaining.' NEW STATESMAN 'A stunning achievement.' SIMON REYNOLDS 'A masterpiece.' CAUGHT BY THE RIVER 'Excellent . . . blissfully quotable.' NEW YORK TIMES 'An authoritative account.' THE TIMES 'Consistently absorbing.' INDEPENDENT 'An impassioned and infectious rallying cry of a book.' SUNDAY TIMES In this groundbreaking survey of more than a century of music making in the British Isles, Rob Young investigates how the idea of folk has been handed down and transformed by successive generations - song collectors, composers, Marxist revivalists, folk-rockers, psychedelic voyagers, free festival-goers, experimental pop stars and electronic innovators. In a sweeping panorama of Albion's soundscape that takes in the pioneer spirit of Cecil Sharp; the pastoral classicism of Ralph Vaughan Williams and Peter Warlock; the industrial folk revival of Ewan MacColl and A. L. Lloyd; the folk-rock of Fairport Convention, Sandy Denny, Nick Drake, Shirley Collins, John Martyn and Pentangle; the bucolic psychedelia of The Incredible String Band, The Beatles and Pink Floyd; the acid folk of Comus, Forest, Mr Fox and Trees; The Wicker Man and occult folklore; the early Glastonbury and Stonehenge festivals; and the visionary pop of Kate Bush, Julian Cope and Talk Talk, Electric Eden maps out a native British musical voice that reflects the complex relationships between town and country, progress and nostalgia, radicalism and conservatism. An attempt to isolate the 'Britishness' of British music - a wild combination of pagan echoes, spiritual quest, imaginative time-travel, pastoral innocence and electrified creativity - Electric Eden will be treasured by anyone interested in the tangled story of Britain's folk music and Arcadian dreams. 'A treat.' TIME OUT 'Young is a fine writer.' MOJO 'Young's immense narrative is both educative and gripping.' UNCUT 'A multitudinous, fascinating and beautifully written account.' TLS

'A real treat for Can fans.' Spectator

All Gates Open is the definitive story of the most influential and revered avant-garde band of the late twentieth century: Can.

In part one, Rob Young gives us the full biography- an in-depth and exhilarating history of the band.

In part two, Irmin Schmidt presents an oral history of Can, drawing on extensive interviews with many musicians who cite the band as an influence, including Bobby Gillespie and Mark E. Smith.

An essential book for Can fans, All Gates Open is illustrated throughout with previously unseen art, photographs and ephemera from the band's archive.

A colorful collection of pieces considering the enigmatic genius of Scott Walker

Scott Walker's long and diverse career is one of the strangest life stories in pop music. In this collection of newly commissioned writings on his music, life, and cultural importance, music writers and critics explain how the smash-hit teen idol of the 1960s progressed via the dark side of show business to compose, in his later years, a string of uncompromising and cutting-edge music that reflects the horror and torment of the modern world. Covering his entire career, it features "30th Century Man" director Stephen Kijak on filming Scott; David Toop and Chris Sharp ponder" The Drift"; Nina Power, Derek Walmsley, Damon Krukowski, and Brian Morton consider Scott's other solo albums; while Amanda Petrusich journeys through his mid-1970s "country" records. Ian Penman meditates upon the reluctant TV star; David Stubbs looks at his soundtrack and choreography work; and Biba Kopf and Anthony Reynolds reassess the Walker Brothers, while Rob Young contributes a biographical overview. Overturning myths and getting to the heart of Walker's incredible diverse body of recorded work, this is the most incisive study yet of this great American artist and iconic vocalist.

A "Kirkus Reviews" Best Nonfiction of 2011 title

In the late 1960s, with popular culture hurtling forward on the sounds of rock music, some brave musicians looked back instead, trying to recover the lost treasures of English roots music and update them for the new age. The records of Fairport Convention, Pentangle, Steeleye Span, and Nick Drake are known as "folk rock" today, but Rob Young's epic, electrifying book makes clear that those musicians led a decades-long quest to recover English music--and with it, the ancient ardor for mysticism and paganism, for craftsmanship and communal living.
It is a commonplace that rock and R&B came out of the folk and blues revivals of the early 1960s, and Young shows, through enchanting storytelling and brilliant commentary, that a similar revival in England inspired the Beatles and Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and Traffic, Kate Bush and Talk Talk. Folklorists notated old songs and dances. Marxists put folk music forward as the true voice of the people. Composers like Benjamin Britten and Ralph Vaughan Williams devised rich neo-traditional pageantry. Today, the pioneers of the "acid folk" movement see this music as a model for their own.
""

"Electric Eden "is that rare book which has something truly new to say about popular music, and like Greil Marcus's "Lipstick""Traces," it uses music to connect the dots in a thrilling story of art and society, of tradition and wild, idiosyncratic creativity.

On Shishmaref Island in Alaska, homes are being washed into the sea. In the South Pacific, small island nations face annihilation by encroaching waters. In coastal Louisiana, an area the size of a football field disappears every day. For these communities, sea level rise isn't a distant, abstract fear: it's happening now and it's threatening their way of life.
In "The Rising Sea," Orrin H. Pilkey and Rob Young warn that many other coastal areas may be close behind. Prominent scientists predict that the oceans may rise by as much as seven feet in the next hundred years. That means coastal cities will be forced to construct dikes and seawalls or to move buildings, roads, pipelines, and railroads to avert inundation and destruction.
The question is no longer whether climate change is causing the oceans to swell, but by how much and how quickly. Pilkey and Young deftly guide readers through the science, explaining the facts and debunking the claims of industry-sponsored "skeptics." They also explore the consequences for fish, wildlife--and people.
While rising seas are now inevitable, we are far from helpless. By making hard choices--including uprooting citizens, changing where and how we build, and developing a coordinated national response--we can save property, and ultimately lives. With unassailable research and practical insights, "The Rising Sea" is a critical first step in understanding the threat and keeping our heads above water.

Since it was founded in 1982, The Wire magazine has covered a vast range of alternative, experimental, underground and non-mainstream music. Now some of that knowledge has been distilled into The Wire Primers a comprehensive guide to the core recordings of some of the most visionary and inspiring, subversive and radical musicians on the planet, past and present. Each chapter surveys the musical universe of a particular artist, group or genre by way of a contextualizing introduction and a thumbnail guide to the most essential recordings. A massive and eclectic range of music is celebrated and demystified, from rock mavericks such as Captain Beefheart and The Fall; the funk of James Brown and Fela Kuti; the future jazz of Sun Ra and Ornette Coleman; and the experimental compositions of John Cage and Morton Feldman. Genres surveyed and explained include P-funk, musique concrete, turntablism, Brazilian Tropicalia, avant metal and dubstep. The Wire Primers is a vital guide to contemporary sounds, providing an accessible entry point for any reader wanting to dig below the surface of mainstream music.