The Mammoth Book of the Beatles


Book Description

Over 30 landmark interviews, accounts, and memoirs of The Beatles and their entourage, recording how they inadvertently became counter-culture's figureheads and changed society.




The Mammoth Book of the Rolling Stones


Book Description

'The greatest rock 'n' roll band in the world!' This vainglorious introduction given to The Rolling Stones on stage by an excitable roadie was almost immediately accepted as a simple statement of fact. It was already evident that Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Co. were, as their first manager Andrew Loog Oldham had claimed, 'a way of life'. The Stones' defiance of convention made them the figureheads of a questioning new generation, and drove the Establishment to imprison them. This enduring rebel aura and the unmistakeable craft evident in classic records such as Satisfaction, Honky Tonk Women and Brown Sugar ensured subsequent generations of diehard fans, establishing the band as the biggest box office attraction the world has ever seen. The Mammoth Book of The Rolling Stones provides a comprehensive collection of reviews, analysis, interviews and exposés - both archive and contemporary, favourable and critical, concise and epic - of these extraordinary cultural icons as they pass the astonishing milestone of 50 years as rock's pre-eminent band.




The Mammoth Book of Bob Dylan


Book Description

"Bob Dylan's impact on popular music has been incalculable. Having transformed staid folk music into a vehicle for coruscating social commentary, he then swept away the romantic platitudes of rock 'n' roll with his searing intellect.From the zeitgeist-encapsulating protest of Blowin' in the Wind' to the streetwise venom of Like a Rolling Stone', and from the stunning mid-sixties trilogy of albums Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde to Time Out of Mind, his stunning if world-weary comeback at the age of 56, Dylan's genius has endured, underpinned by the dazzling turn of phrase that has made him the pre-eminent poet of popular music.Because Dylan's achievements have no equal, his career is the most chronicled in rock history. Here, Sean Egan presents a selection of the best writing on Dylan, both praise and criticism. Interviews, essays, features and reviews from Dylan intimates and scholars such as John Bauldie, Michael Gray, Nat Hentoff and Jules Siegel are interspersed with new narrative and reviews of every single album to create a comprehensive picture of the artist whose chimes of freedom still resound."--Publisher description.




The Mammoth Book of Time Travel SF


Book Description

This thought-provoking collection not only takes us into the past and the future, but also explores what might happen if we attempt to manipulate time to our own advantage. These stories show what happen once you start to meddle with time and the paradoxes that might arise. It also raises questions about whether we understand time, and how we perceive it. Once we move outside the present day, can we ever return or do we move into an alternate world? What happens if our meddling with Nature leads to time flowing backwards, or slowing down or stopping all together? Or if we get trapped in a constant loop from which we can never escape. Is the past and future immutable or will we ever be able to escape the inevitable? These are just some of the questions that are raised in these challenging, exciting and sometimes amusing stories by Kage Baker, Simon Clark, Fritz Leiber, Christopher Priest, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Robert Silverberg, Michael Swanwick, John Varley and many others.




The Mammoth Book of Mindblowing SF


Book Description

Many readers are attracted to science fiction for that singular moment when a story expands your imagination, enabling you to see something in a new light. Not all SF works this way! This volume collects the very best of it that does, with 25 of the finest examples of mind-expanding and awe-inspiring science fiction. The storylines range from a discovery on the Moon that opens up vistas across all time to a moment in which distances across the Earth suddenly increase and people vanish. These are tales to take you from the other side of now to the very end of time - from today's top-name contributors including Stephen Baxter, Alastair Reynolds, Robert Silverberg, Gregory Benford and Robert Reed.




The Mammoth Book of the Mafia


Book Description

30 inside stories of the American Mafia, Sicilian Cosa Nostra, Camorra and 'Ndrangheta Images of life in the Mob pervade our film and TV screens, some glamorous, some horrific - what is the reality? Investigative journalist Roger Wilkes has put together the largest ever collection of insider stories from prominent ex-mafiosi, infiltrators and award-winning writers. It contains tell-all accounts by the likes of: Richard 'The Iceman' Kuklinski, the contract killer who claimed to have murdered over 200 people in a career lasting 43 years. Frankie Saggio, who 'freelanced' for all five of New York's Mafia families, narrowly escaping assassination before being busted for a major scam. Joey Black, the Hitman, chillingly professional murderer of 38 victims and regarded by many as the 'original Soprano'. Albert DeMeo, the son of a gangster, who later became a lawyer. 'Donnie Brasco', real name Joseph Pistone, the FBI agent, who worked undercover in the Bonanno and Colombo crime families in New York for six years. Tommaso Buscetta, the Sicilian mafioso, the first pentito, or informant, of real significance to break omertà. The two judges with whom he worked, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, were both later killed by the Mafia. This is the reality of the world of men you wouldn't want to cross.




The Complete Beatles Chronicle


Book Description

In 1979, Beatles expert Mark Lewisohn set about establishing a complete list of the group’s live appearances from 1957 through 1966, when they stopped giving concerts; the research took seven long years and was published as the book The Beatles Live! Shortly thereafter, EMI Records invited Lewisohn to be the only person outside of the Beatles and their production staff to go into Abbey Road and listen to the entire collection of Beatles session tapes and to interview practically everyone involved in their making. The result was published in 1988 as The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, and sold over 150,000 copies. This book artfully combines and updates all the vital material in Lewisohn’s earlier two books with his definitive account of the Beatles’ work in radio, television, film, and video to create a complete day-by-day summary of the group’s entire oeuvre. First published in 1992, The Complete Beatles Chronicle has become the Beatles Bible, the one book no fan can live without, and a perfect companion to the bestselling Beatles Anthology, which recounted their story in their own words.




The Mammoth Book of Merlin


Book Description

A superb collection of stories of magic and adventure from the golden age of Arthurian legend by bestselling writers. Enter into the darker realms of the age of the Knights of the Round Table, when magic held sway and Merlin vied with Arthur's heroic new world. Included are: Jane Yolen on Merlin's youth and coming of age; Marion Zimmer Bradley on Nimuë, Merlin's lover and doom; Charles de Lint on Merlin's influence through the centuries; Darrell Schweitzer on the legends of Merlin's birth; plus stories by Tanith Lee, Peter Tremayne, Phyllis Ann Karr, Jennifer Roberson, and many others. There is also a detailed introduction by Mike Ashley on the mystery and magic of Merlin and his world.




The Mammoth Book of Sex, Drugs & Rock 'n' Roll


Book Description

Over 60 gripping accounts tracking the dark side of rock 'n' roll from the early days of the drugs-and-drink culture, and the birth of rock 'n' roll, through The Beatles, Stones, Sex Pistols, Madonna, Kurt Cobain and Oasis, to Amy Winehouse, Pete Doherty and other stars of the current rock-music scene. From trashed hotel rooms to cars in swimming pools, all rock 'n' roll's excesses are here, including murder and sexual deviancy, surprising brushes with the law that the stars thought they'd kept quiet, early and tragic deaths, drug overdoses, robbery, mis-marriages and groupies by the truckload




The Mammoth Book of On The Edge


Book Description

No one sees clearer than an individual whose life is hanging by the finger tips on the edge of an abyss. Probing the furthest reaches of human daring and endurance, here are 28 of the great first-hand accounts of extreme mountaineering, from legendary names. Written by the bestselling author of Meadowland and The Running Hare, Featuring: ·Heinrich Harrer - first conqueror of the notorious Eigerwand. ·Robert Bates - the classic account of the ill-fated American 1953 expedition to K2. ·Maurice Herzog - his unstoppable ascent of Annapurna at the cost of frostbite. ·Walter Bonatti - tragedy on the Central Pillar of Freney on Mont Blanc. ·George Leigh Mallory - surviving an avalanche on the 1922 Everest expedition. ·René Desmaison - his epic story of 14 days stuck on The Grandes Jorasses in winter. ·Jon Krakauer - recalling his solo ascent of The Devil's Thumb in Alaska. The price of the summit is often measured in human suffering, yet for those who succeed the rewards can be incalculable. Nerve-wracking and unputdownable.