Beatles Biography Acquired By Bodley Head And Harper Studio
You Never Give Me Your Money: Moguls, Monsters and Moptops – The Amazing 40-Year Battle For The Beatles by Peter Doggett has been acquired by Will Sulkin at Bodley Head / Random House (UK), and Bob Miller and Julia Cheiffetz at HarperStudio (US). This is a Beatles book with a unique perspective: it concentrates on the untold story of the Beatles after the Beatles broke up, which in cultural and historical terms is in many ways the most interesting period of their biography. The story focuses on their savage legal battles with each other, financial entanglements, abortive attempts at reunion, up-and-down solo careers and the battle of each to rise above his past and, finally, to become the foremost curator of the Beatles legacy (with a little help from his friends).
It’s a gripping tale which has a lot to say about what it means to live with an enduring and almost mythical reputation, the aftermath of sixties idealism, and how pop music has fared at the hands of posterity. The story comes right up to date, and is ultimately about nothing less than the battle for the soul of the Beatles. Publication will be in April 2010, the 40th anniversary of the Beatles’ break-up.
Other New Publications From Our Authors
September
ROBYN YOUNG
Requiem
Hodder & Stoughton
The legend finally comes home. This is the third and concluding part of the Brethren trilogy, one of the most successful debuts in British fiction of recent years. The trilogy has been acquired in nineteen countries to date, and sales figures are already well in excess of 500,000 copies. Requiem begins in 1295 AD. The Christian empire in the Holy Land lies in ruins, and Templar Knight Will Campbell is at a crossroads. He has sworn to uphold the principles of the Anima Templi, a secret brotherhood within the Order whose aim is peace, a goal which seems ever more impossible. The Temple has forged an alliance with Will's enemy, King Edward of England, vowing to help him wage war on Scotland. This pact against his homeland means Will now faces a bitter choice: to stay with the Temple and fight another war he doesn't believe in, or to break his vows and forge his own path to peace, even if that too means fighting - for the Scots. Will is unaware that an even more ominous threat is rising, for there is a warrior king on the throne of France whose desire for supremacy knows no bounds and who will stop at nothing to fulfil his twisted ambitions. The fight for the Holy Land has ended. The Temple's last battle has just begun.
Graham Coster at Aurum Press in the UK has commissioned Mojo and Q magazines’ contributing editor Mark Blake to follow his bestselling biography of Pink Floyd, Pigs Might Fly, with a new biography of rock band Queen. "Queen have never had the great book written about them that their extraordinary and colourful history deserves", said Coster, "and Mark will certainly write the definitive account". Publication is scheduled for Autumn 2010. Aurum acquired World English language rights.
LORNA MARTIN
Woman On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown (paperback edition)
John Murray
Lorna Martin's life is in chaos. She is embroiled in a dysfunctional relationship and is close to quitting her job as a journalist. Having missed three flights in ten days, she finds herself seeking solace in the airport bar at 7am. On top of all that, she's the only woman she knows in her mid-thirties without a partner, a mortgage or even a cat. Egged on by her friends, she signs up for some intensive therapy.
What follows is a glorious journey of self-discovery. For Lorna, therapy involves owning up to feeling jealous of her baby nephew and admitting that she's secretly expecting The One to come and save her. And she still can't stop herself from sabotaging her prospects with a certain Doctor McDreamy. But with support (and not a little exasperation) from her friends and long-suffering sister, some serious setting-the-world-to-rights sessions involving too many bottles of wine, and the help of her inscrutable shrink, Lorna feels she might be getting her life together.
Revealing, intimate and highly entertaining, Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown is a must-read for any woman who loves the idea of being in love and worries about settling for second best. It has already sold in twelve countries.
PETER DOGGETT
There’s A Riot Going On
Canongate (US)
Between 1967 and 1973, political activists around the globe prepared to mount a revolution. While the Vietnam War raged, calls for black power grew louder and liberation movements erupted everywhere. Rock and soul music fuelled the revolutionary movement with anthems and iconic imagery. Soon the musicians themselves, from John Lennon and Bob Dylan to James Brown and Fela Kuti, were being dragged into the fray. Some joined the protestors on the barricades; some were persecuted for their political activism; some abandoned the cause and were dismissed as counter-revolutionaries.This collision of radical fervour and musical passion touched every facet of the revolution, and created a revolutionary tide that threatened to alter the face of global politics, before ebbing away under the pressure of government harassment and rampant egotism.
Peter Doggett provides the definitive account of this unique period in modern history. Based on interviews with many of the main protagonists, a decade of archive research, and the author’s 25-year career as a historian of popular music, it’s a compelling portrait of an era when revolutionaries turned into rock stars, and rock stars dressed up as revolutionaries.
October
MARTIN LAMPEN
The Knickerbocker Glory Years
Bloomsbury (UK)
Martin Lampen is thirty-two years old. And in every one of his thirty-two years of living and dining in Britain, he hasn't eaten a single truly great meal. Why should this be so? Is it linked to the fact that we Brits regard any artificial drink with pineapple or mango flavouring as 'tropical'? Could it be something to do with our penchant for crinkle-cut crisps? And just why are British breadcrumbs yellow in a way that no natural substance is?
Branded posh as a child for having a Club biscuit and a Mint Viscount in his packed lunch, Martin Lampen cannot promise to answer all of these complex cultural questions, but what he does give us is an indispensable and laugh-out-loud-funny A-Z guide to the not-so-wondrous world of British cuisine. All the joys and tragedies of British food are in here, from buffet cars and boil-in-the-bag gammon supreme to white wine sauce and Wagon Wheels. The book also contains tips on how to digest a scotch egg, how to converse at a dinner party - and which foods to avoid at all costs. This is a hilarious, nostalgic and irreverent look at British cuisine past and present in all its flavourless, stodgy splendour.
