John Barry emerged as the UK's most eminent film composer and here is an opportunity to discover exactly how he reached this position by way of a thorough dissection of his early years throughout which he was to rely heavily on a steady influx of talented musicians, all of whom feature prominently in these pages. 2017 saw the 60th year since the formation and launch of 'The John Barry Seven' and the book includes personal anecdotes from past members across the full spectrum of the band's eight year existence, tales of an often perilous life on the road and appearing and or backing Britain's earliest generation of pop idols - Tommy Steele, Jackie Dennis, Marty Wilde and in particular Adam Faith, whose career was inextricably linked to the Seven's. Covered in depth are the numerous recording sessions undertaken for EMI's Parlophone and Columbia labels at Abbey Road Studios, plus precisely how the band faced up to the challenge posited by the emerging Beat group phenomenon. Reads how the stellar careers of both John Barry and Les Reed were shaped by being in the band. With a plethora of photographs of onstage concerts, tour images, concert programmes and posters, record sleeves, band-related adverts and several historic documents some written by John Barry himself, the postscript reveals what happened to the various members of the Seven once they left. On the day that Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit Earth, the band were playing the Top Hat Ballroom in Northern Ireland and Londonderry City Hall travelling in a hired VW van rather than a Vostok 1 spaceship. Jimmy Stead clearly remembers the remoteness and primitive nature of some of the destinations. Superbly detailed, hugely nostalgic from the skiffle, rock 'n' roll, beat era from December 1957. With selected diary of events, discography, bibliography and index, 350 very large pages, well illustrated.

Sub-titled 'Action, Time, Vision, Music, Film and TV 1975-1986' from Slade in Flame to Absolute Beginners, this carefully researched exploration of transgressive films touches on the career of David Bowie, dystopias, the Joan Collins' oeuvre, black cinema, the origins and impact of punk music, political films, comedy, how Ireland and Scotland featured on our screens, and the rise of Richard Branson and a new, commercial mainstream. The book describes over 100 film and TV productions in detail, together with their literary, social and musical influences during a time when profound changes shrank the size of the UK cinema in the industry. So, what happened to British cinema and TV when swinging London ended? Jam-packed with trivia and amusing anecdotes, the main box office smashes of the period were respectable US entertainments like Jaws, Grease and ET while the UK clung on to the increasingly threadbare Bond franchise with The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker. Led Zeppelin's 'The Song Remains the Same' hit the cinema screens in 1976 and the British film industry spluttered on with the occasional Carry Ons and Hammers until 1978-9, soft porn like Confessions and Adventures (discontinued circa 1978), war films, period dramas and tiny BFI-funded experimental productions. Elegant period dramas began with A Bridge Too Far 1977, Chariots of Fire 1981, Gandhi 1982 and Greystoke: Legend of Tarzan 1984, all of which did well. Television suffered too despite being the alleged cause of films' collapse. From 1972, BBC 2 ran the Old Grey Whistle Test presented by Bob Harris, part DJ and part community activist (he was one of the founders of Time Out magazine). Meanwhile, Top of the Pops was becoming increasingly tawdry. The story of live music during this period was equally patchy with few large scale festivals after 1972 and on the music scene there were established 60s acts, MOR plus of course Hawkwind, David Bowie and Roxy Music and in the cinema in 1982 Pink Floyd's The Wall. The Rocky Horror Picture Show (75), The Man Who Fell to Earth (76), The Long Good Friday (79), and This Is Spinal Tap (84) all appeared at this time, and one area that certainly held sway was comedy. A fantastically nostalgic collection, 261pp in paperback with 16 pages of colour photos and posters. Nostalgic collage on the inside covers of this softback.

This New York Times Best Book of the Year is sub-titled 'Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany's, and the Dawn of the Modern Woman'. Truman Capote's film Breakfast at Tiffany's is brought into focus in a book rich in incident and set among the glitterati of America's most glamorous era with juicy film gossip and behind-the-scenes insight on how Audrey Hepburn and designer Hubert de Givenchy created Holly Golightly's iconic style and that little black dress. Wasson goes beyond the legend to explore the woman and the film that captured the imagination of the nation in 1961, when the staid propriety of the Eisenhower years gave way to the glamorous modernity of the Kennedys. With a colourful cast of characters including Truman Capote, Edith Head, Givenchy, 'Moon River' composer Henry Mancini and of course the iconic Audrey Hepburn herself, Wasson in his exquisite portrait of Audrey Hepburn peels back her sweet façade to reveal a much more complicated and interesting woman and he captures a fascinating turning point in American history and a transformation of notions of fashion, film, sex and culture. It is worth reading just to find out exactly what went into making the amazing party scene; this is an enjoyable and informative book, everything a film book ought to be. 231pp, paperback, photos.

This New York Times Best Book of the Year is sub-titled 'Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany's, and the Dawn of the Modern Woman'. Truman Capote's film Breakfast at Tiffany's is brought into focus in a book rich in incident and set among the glitterati of America's most glamorous era with juicy film gossip and behind-the-scenes insight on how Audrey Hepburn and designer Hubert de Givenchy created Holly Golightly's iconic style and that little black dress. Wasson goes beyond the legend to explore the woman and the film that captured the imagination of the nation in 1961, when the staid propriety of the Eisenhower years gave way to the glamorous modernity of the Kennedys. With a colourful cast of characters including Truman Capote, Edith Head, Givenchy, 'Moon River' composer Henry Mancini and of course the iconic Audrey Hepburn herself, Wasson in his exquisite portrait of Audrey Hepburn peels back her sweet façade to reveal a much more complicated and interesting woman and he captures a fascinating turning point in American history and a transformation of notions of fashion, film, sex and culture. It is worth reading just to find out exactly what went into making the amazing party scene; this is an enjoyable and informative book, everything a film book ought to be. 231pp, paperback, photos.

Sub-titled 'The History of the Grand Hotel Et Des Palmes, Palermo', here are the rooms and public spaces of the hotel that have witnessed events that have shaped 20th century Sicily, from the suicide of a poet, to political intrigues and a clandestine Mafia meeting. Arthur Miller, Sophia Loren, and Maria Callas were all guests, and when Visconti was filming The Leopard in Sicily, the entire cast - notably Burt Lancaster, Claudia Cardinale and Alain Delon - visited the hotel. Lancaster even dined with a Baron who had made the hotel his home for reasons shrouded in mystery. Less illustrious guests have included the occultist Aleister Crowley, Lucky Luciano and other Mafiosi. Even Giulio Andreotti, the former Italian Prime Minister, who stood trial for complicity on the murder of a journalist and Mafia association in the 1990s, opted for the hotel's Belle Epoque opulence. The hotel truly has a long and venerable history. It started out as a private residence for the Ingham-Whitakers, the Anglo-Sicilian family of Marsala wine fame, before being sold to the hotelier Enrico Ragusa in 1874. Wagner was one of the most eminent early guests, looking for inspiration to finish his last opera, Parsifal. A few days after its completion, a nervous Renoir arrived to paint his portrait. Months later Guy de Maupassant asked to see Wagner's former suite so that he might detect 'a little of his personality'. The novelist and poet Raymond Roussel arrived in the 1930s, but was destined to leave in a coffin. A richly researched 164 page book with colour and other illustrations totalling 15 of this historic hotel.

'She was so naïve, so sweet and so eager to succeed that my heart went out to her at once.' Miss Sniveley told Norma Jeane that a full page photograph in the Blue Book Models Catalogue would cost her $25 and if she wanted to attend a three-month modelling course that would be another $100. And being already married aged 19 also went against her early career prospects. But Miss Emeline Sniveley saw potential and kept records and correspondence throughout their professional relationship and beyond. On the eve of Marilyn Monroe's funeral, Sniveley gave an interview from her office talking about the beautiful girl she had discovered, and the talented woman she had become, before announcing rather dramatically that she was closing the lid on the archive that day to 'lock it away forever'. The archive was found and bought by Astrid Franse in 2012 and with the bestselling biographer Michelle Morgan they draw on this collection of never-before-seen early photographs of Norma Jeane, documents, letters, archive photographs. The pretty young brunette slowly became a blonde posing in the gardens of the Ambassador Hotel, modelling a calf length coat in Photoplay magazine, looking like a businesswoman in a striped jacket and skirt, and always wanting to be an actress. Hard at work to further Norma Jeane's acting and modelling career, Miss Sniveley in 1946 had her appear in a copy of Laff magazine, and as a result she gained the attention of producer Howard Hughes who was in hospital recovering from a plane crash. The resulting screen test in colour produced wonderful results and Marilyn was signed to a starlet's contract for a salary and training in the studio workshops. Ben Lyon took an interest in the young model and chose the name Marilyn for her. 'She was thrilled to death' he said. With many rare and unusual photos, some possibly for early Fox publicity, one showing Marilyn lying in a haystack with a large cowboy hat next to her and there are notes on her field trips as a model, wading through a creek in a white bikini and relaxing times with friends in Las Vegas where she was employed to entice punters to the gambling tables. 'A daily swim, indoors or out, helps starlet Marilyn Monroe keep her figure trimmed for the camera's revealing lens.' And there are extraordinary pictures of Jayne Mansfield meeting her former boss who she held in high regard, Miss Sniveley. Miss Sniveley wrote copious amounts of notes about the photos Marilyn had posed in and kept lists of the photographers and descriptions of their work, presented here in a big accessible softback with dozens of photos, many in colour, and archive letters in facsimile. 240pp, 19.4 x 26.3cm.
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The legendary mid-sixties partnership of Joan Baez with Bob Dylan, "the voice and the poet", is often thought to have been dominated by Dylan's musicianship and personality, but the author of this absorbing book suggests the opposite was true. Joanie rose to fame through her involvement with the civil rights movement, appearing on stage with Martin Luther King at the age of 17, and consolidating that success the following year, 1958, with her legendary performance at the Newport Folk Festival. When the family moved from California to the east, Joan enrolled at Boston University, though she was soon performing regularly at Club 47 which she helped to put on the map. She signed up with Vanguard rather than Columbia to avoid the glitter and fuss of the more established label, and colleagues remember Joan's sincerity and "unphoniness" in this early period. In the early sixties she was touring black colleges with unsegregated audiences, and in 1963 she started singing with Dylan, some of whose songs she had covered, at the Monterey Folk Festival. Their legendary Newport performance, preserved on grainy footage, established Dylan's stardom as it had Joan's four years earlier. Baez and Dylan continued to sing together in 1964, but in 1965 the cracks in their partnership became apparent, with jealousies arising and Dylan's insisting that he did not want to engage in active politics. In the late sixties Joan was arrested and imprisoned twice for protests over Vietnam, and with her sisters she modelled the poster "Girls say yes to boys who say no" - encouraging men to refuse the draft. At this time Joan married and became a mother. Baez continued to pursue a politically engaged career, visiting Sarajevo and other war zones, and giving her farewell concert in 2019. A fascinating read. 224pp, discography, black and white photos.

Sub-titled 'The Story of the James Bond Producers', Albert R. "Cubby" Broccoli, and Harry Saltzman, who remain the most successful producing partnership in cinema history. Together they were responsible for the phenomenally successful James Bond series, and separately, they brought kitchen sink drama to the screen, made a star out of Michael Caine in the Harry Palmer films and were responsible for the children's classic Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. But their relationship was fraught almost from the very beginning with such contrasting personalities and their interactions often spun out of control. They managed to drive away their coveted star Sean Connery and ultimately each other. Broccoli was feted as Hollywood royalty whereas Saltzman ended up a forgotten recluse. The book charts their changing fortunes and the clashing personalities of two Titans of the big screen. "We fight with the distributors, we fight with the agents and we fight with each other" Harry Saltzman once said. Cubby was the large warm, Italian New Yorker and Harry, a tough pugnacious Canadian - together they created fireworks and chemistry that gelled. Cubby was the calmer of the two, the diplomat, while Harry did most of the dirty work, laying down the law. Great cinematic history, and tons of name dropping. Illustrations, 287 pages.

On November 18, 1928, the world's most famous mouse made his very first public debut. Today, we celebrate 90 plus years of Mickey Mouse in one of the most expansive illustrated publications on the Disney universe. Starting with the first sketches of a character who was almost named Mortimer, we trace the career of Walt Disney's and Ub Iwerks's most famous creation, one met with an explosion of worldwide popularity preceded only by the earlier successes of Charlie Chaplin. This edition is derived from the XXL book that was produced with unlimited access to Disney's vast historical collections as well as public and private collections. The authors bring Mickey's success story to life: concept art, story sketches, background paintings, and animation drawings as well as historical photographs trace the origins and evolution of such timeless favourites as Steamboat Willie, The Band Concert, and Brave Little Tailor. They also follow Mickey as he builds on this legendary library of short cartoons by appearing in two historic feature-length films, Fantasia and Fun and Fancy Free. Unfinished projects, many of them presented for the first time through original storyboard drawings, unveil a Mickey that might have been. Extensive archival research sheds new light on little-known chapters of Mickey's career, such as his pioneering radio shows, the origins of the Mickey Mouse Club, and his use as a patriotic icon during World War II. Along the way, we encounter the work of Ub Iwerks, Win Smith, Ferdinand Horvath, Fred Moore, Floyd Gottfredson, Carl Barks, Manuel Gonzales, Paul Murry, Romano Scarpa, Giorgio Cavazzano, Byron Erickson, César Ferioli, and Noel Van Horn. Today, 90 years after his creation, Mickey remains as lovable and popular as ever. Let's pay the ultimate tribute to the little fellow, his legend, and his legacy. 496 colour-packed pages. 25 x 34cm, heavy at over 3kg. New from Taschen.

The great actor Brian Cox is a gifted storyteller with a sharp eye and caustic wit and he drops in some big Hollywood names in his brutally honest account of his own failings and his love of acting and the profession. It is a treat and a privilege to be invited into his world as he pushes and pulls the rabbit out of the hat, switching from anecdote to diatribe to honest self-reflection and back to his original story before he interrupted himself. 'The affect is of undiminished curiosity and passion for life and work.' From Roman general Titus Andronicus with the RSC to media magnate Logan Roy in HBO's Succession, Brian Cox has made his name as an actor of unparalleled distinction and versatility. Growing up in Dundee, he lost his father when he was just eight years old and was brought up by his three elder sisters in the aftermath of his mother's nervous breakdowns and ultimate hospitalisation. After joining the Dundee Repertory Theatre at the age of 15, Cox could say the rest is history, but that is to overlook the enormous graft that has gone into making the legend we known today. A rags-to-riches seminal autobiography which captures his distinctive voice and his very soul. 374pp, colour photos. Large softback.