Author:Robert Kerbeck

Kerbeck’s story mixes something fairly familiar – actor wanabee who doesn’t make the grade, with something I’d never seen written about before – making money by “rusing” major corporations; conning them into handing over details of their top performing employees and selling this data to head hunting firms. On paper, it may sound a bit niche, but after a slightly slow start, Kerbeck’s punchy, no nonsense story telling makes it a real page turner.

Kerbeck knew he didn’t want to join his father’s car dealership. He sought creativity over commerce. Despite being a natural at selling cars, he set his sights on becoming an actor. To keep a roof over his head while he waits for his big break, instead of bartending or waiting at tables, he accepts a gig working for a woman who employs a couple of actors. Their job is to ring Wall Street firms and talk them in to handing over the names, job titles and performance figures of people working in their biggest revenue generating departments. This data on so called “passive candidates” carries a premium value because it features people who aren’t already on headhunters books and their performance figures come from » Continue Reading.

Author:Stevie Van Zandt

It’s hard to think of another musician who has had a life quite as varied as Stevie Van Zandt. An autodidact with a low boredom threshold who seems to have barely had a day off in 50 years makes for an autobiography that amuses as much as it confuses and ultimately entertains and exhausts in equal measure. Despite the help of an editor it seems more downloaded than written – I’d be fascinated to see earlier drafts. “I need to work constantly. I simply cannot function at the normal speed of this planet. The minute I stop moving I start dying…. I do what I have to do and then try to get paid for it after the fact”.

He recounts his many re-inventions (he’s undergone more career regenerations than Dr Who) and although it’s an interesting journey, it’s a largely commercially unsuccessful one. “I became the only artist in the modern history with a touring party of 35 and absolutely no hits” but manages laugh, reflecting that at least he no-one goes home disappointed having not heard their favourite song. It’s clearly something that bugs him. Globally recognised for when contributing to the work of others » Continue Reading.

Author:Peter and Steph Shilton

Football players abuse of alcohol has a long and unfortunate history, whether it’s Booby Moore (described by Matt Dickinson in his biography of Moore as “the world’s smartest, neatest, tidiest drunk”) or others like Jimmy Greaves and George Best whose problems were openly acknowledged. The reach of gambling addiction into the game is a more recent revelation, with ex players such as Paul Merson, Keith Gillespie and John Hartson speaking about the damage it has done to them. Although Shilton had admitted gambling problems in the past, the primary reason for writing “Saved” was to tell the story of how he finally faced into a 45 year gambling addiction and became sober.

A chance meeting in 2012 with Steph, the woman who would become Shilton’s second wife turned out to be the catalyst for his sobriety. It’s a positive story albeit told with some repetition as they each take turns, a chapter at a time, to tell their side of events. It’s the core of the first section of the book and there’s candour and humility that’s genuinely commendable. The Shilton’s are understandably passionate about wanting gambling reform, and their story is most powerful when » Continue Reading.

Author:Tom Gatti

Everyone has “that” album don’t they. The one that defines that critical point in their life, soundtracks those transformational times. Simon Bates “Our Tune”. But longer. Here Tom Gatti (Deputy Editor of the New Statesman and a former editor of the Saturday Review section of the Times) collects together fifty articles previously published in the NS where a variety of journos / authors / poets tell us about “their” album. What could be more enticing? Top quality wordsmiths setting out what made their ears tingle. We are promised “an intoxicating mix of memoir and music writing, spanning the golden age of vinyl and the streaming era, and showing how a single LP can shape a writer’s mind.”

Across the 50 writers contributing mini essays are some names I knew and a lot I didn’t. The Word alumni are well represented via David Hepworth (“Sail Away” – Randy Newman), Mark Ellen (“The B-52’s” – B-52’s) and Kate Mossman (“The Rhythm of the Saints” – Paul Simon). There’s also Will Self, Billy Bragg, David Mitchell, Alan Johnson, Clive James, Iain Rankin, Neil Gaiman, Tracey Thorn and Neil Tennant. Plus a much longer list of writers which mostly made obvious my » Continue Reading.

Author:Jimmy Page

Of all the occupations that lend itself to careful archiving, rock star isn’t an obvious contender. Particularly the life of someone who allegedly embraced wanton debauchery with as much enthusiasm as Jimmy Page. How could he possibly have found the time I hear you ask. Well, it seems somehow he did.

Back in 2014 “Jimmy Page” arrived – a sumptuous 500 page high quality photograph laden autobiography, more coffee table than book. But such is the range and depth of Jimmy’s archive, this second volume presents “the detail behind the detail”. And he’s not kidding.

Even if, like me, you’re not a Led Zep aficionado, this tome still draws you in. There’s not just all the guitars – the first Hoffer, the twin necks, the black Les Paul Custom with the Bigsby arm (and the loan agreement that he bought it on) – there’s the entire set up for the recording of “Whole Lotta Love” (guitars, tape echo and cabinets), diaries, jackets, tour carnets, studio logs, posters, trousers, contracts and page after er… page of pictures. There’s even the banjo he played on “Gallows Pole”, the guitar he used on the “Death Wish” soundtrack and handwritten notes » Continue Reading.

Author:David Hepworth

With his fifth book in as many years, its apparent that Hepworth’s mix of opinionated argument underwritten by detailed research topped up with some good natured mocking of his subjects is proving popular. This time, Hep turns sets his sights on the ebb and flow of how British musicians changed American music but in turn how the biggest market in the world changed them.

For serious fans Hepworth’s research may not be breaking any new ground but the fun comes from how he stitches it all together, and focusing on just one artist is an oversubscribed market. Yes, there’s all the stuff we’ve heard before about the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show, how Brian Jones wanted to be called Elmo, but as familiar as this might be, it’s the picture that Hepworth paints around them that makes it an engaging read.

Starting from the premise that British groups gave the US the first real “bands”, replacing all the “Bobbies” that were at the top of the US charts at the time (Vee, Rydell, Vinton, Goldsboro, Darin), he manages to knit this to how The Dave Clark Five’s (leader Dave “untroubled by modesty from an early age”) barrack » Continue Reading.

Author:Nick Pettigrew

The success of Adam Kay’s “This Is Going To Hurt” (more than a year topping most book charts, TV series etc) has had publishers eagerly looking out for a successor, and the 14 way auction for the rights to “Anti-Social” suggests they thought they had found one.

You can see why. Author Nick Pettigrew was a 15 year veteran Anti-Social Behaviour Officer, a stand-up comedian with two Edinburgh Festival shows behind him and published in the Daily Telegraphy the Daily Mash. Ker-ching.

Pettigrew tries to tread a tightrope between looking for laughs in the absurdity of his day to day case load, and the innate misery and anguish that he and so many of his clients face. Unfortunately for my money he mostly falls off. So often, it just feels he’s trying too hard to milk laughs out of something that in so many respects just isn’t funny, relying on metaphors that feel strained and a distraction.

Which is a shame, because when not crowbarring in gags, Pettigrew offers up some erudite and powerful analysis of just how miserable life for some of the most disadvantaged in the UK has become. His explanations of why drug » Continue Reading.

Author:Dave Roberts

I picked this book up because a mate of mine hovered around the edges of Bromley’s first team many years ago (as a player that is. Not a stalker). I wasn’t aware that Dave Roberts had already documented his love affair with one of south London’s less finer clubs in “Bromley Boys”, which also became a film. As books go, it’s very much a read of two halves.

The premise is simple enough – starting in 1968, would the 14 year old Roberts ever see his team make it to Wembley? What would the next 50 years reveal? Well, at the risk of being a little unkind, it suggests that whilst the barrel wasn’t being scraped, it had certainly been heavily plumbed for “Bromley Boys” and “Home and Away” which charts his travels to non league grounds around the country.

Here and there it’s quite funny, and it’s always very self aware and depreciating- in fact at times too much so. The quirks of the hardcore fans, the dismal rivalries and the idiosyncrasies of non-league grounds, the mug collecting are bought to life and will raise a smile with anyone whose watched a sport away from the glamour » Continue Reading.

Author:Carrie Gracie

Few people battle their employer and force them into a highly embarrassing admission that they had paid them unfairly for years. Even fewer then continue to work for the same company and hand their £360k settlement to a charity. But that’s what Carrie Gracie did.

Gracie was BBC News’ first China editor, leaving the role after 4 years in 2018 having been balked and brushed off in her attempts to get a coherent explanation from the BBC as to why she was paid so much less than other editors such as Jon Sopel and Jeremy Bowen. It was an exceptionally courageous step – it must take a ferocious level of nerve and determination to render yourself unemployed, and take on one of the world’s biggest and best known media organisations. Particularly when it’s an organisation you otherwise respect and love working for, and know that your actions will be seized upon by the dullards who pounce upon every opportunity to eviscerate or argue for the elimination of the BBC.

Upfront, Gracie clarifies that her issue with the BBC was about unequal pay- “Pay discrimination is the gender pay gap’s dirty secret”. It’s also illegal, unlike gender pay gaps, » Continue Reading.