Most Popular Books by Barry Miles

With the resurgence of vinyl going from strength to strength, album cover art is as important as it''s ever been. This sumptuous book brings together 250 of the greatest album covers of all time and is arranged chronologically, beginning in 1956. Our judging panel, drawn from the great and the good of the music industry, has selected the final 275 entries, giving their reasons for selection to accompany the illustrations. From rock ‘n’ roll to pop, R&B to jazz, blues and even folk, some of the album covers included are obvious classics, while others will surprise readers and jog memories. The chosen entries might not necessarily be of a best-selling release, but they are important artistically, stylistically or culturally. This fascinating book forms a wonderful visual record of this popular art form, and is an essential read for music fans the world over.

The Beat Hotel is a delightful chronicle of a remarkable moment in American literary history. From the Howl obscenity trial to the invention of the cut-up technique, Barry Miles''s extraordinary narrative chronicles the feast of ideas that was Paris, where the Beats took awestruck audiences with Duchamp and Celine, and where some of their most important work came to fruition--Ginsberg''s "Kaddish" and "To Aunt Rose"; Corso''s The Happy Birthday of Death; and Burroughs''s Naked Lunch. Based on firsthand accounts from diaries, letters, and many original interviews, The Beat Hotel is an intimate look at an era of spirit, dreams, and genius.

A definitive, authorized portrait of Paul McCartney draws on hundreds of hours of exclusive interviews and access to personal archives to chronicle the private life and successful career of one of the world''s most famous musicians, the world of the Beatles, his partnership with John Lennon, and more.

At the beginning of the sixties Barry Miles was at art school in Cheltenham; at the end he was running the Beatles'' Zapple label and living in New York''s legendary Chelsea Hotel. This is the story of what happened in between. In the Sixties is a memoir by one of the key figures of the British counterculture. A friend of Ginsberg and Corso, Miles helped to organise the 1965 Albert Hall poetry reading. He co-founded and ran the Indica Bookshop, the command centre for the London underground scene, and he published Europe''s first underground newspaper, International Times (IT), from Indica''s basement. Miles'' partners in Indica were John Dunbar, then married to Marianne Faithfull, and Peter Asher. Through Asher, Miles became closely involved with the Beatles, particularly Paul McCartney, and In the Sixties is full of intimate glimpses of the Beatles at work and play. Other musicians who appear in its pages include the Rolling Stones, the Pink Floyd, Leonard Cohen and Frank Zappa. But Miles'' greatest love is for the written word and his book includes memorable portraits of Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Charles Olson, Richard Brautigan and Charles Bukowski. This is the book that ever

Traces the life of ground-breaking musician Frank Zappa from his Italian American childhood roots to his ultimate success as a composer and rock star.

An authentic and compelling story of the group that gave alternative London its first real soundtrack and launched on the rock world a radical combination of music, light shows and pyrotechnic stage effects.A revealing diary of Pink Floyd''s daily routine, from their roots in Cambridge to cult status in Sixties London. Author Barry Miles saw the band play when they were still called The Pink Floyd Sound and he wrote the first ever article about them for a New York underground newspaper in 1966. He also knew band members socially, witnessed the rapid decline of Syd Barrett and became actively involved in setting up some of Floyd’s major gigs.Barry Miles is an acclaimed music writer and expert on ''Beat'' poetry and poets. A founder of the Indica bookshop and gallery in the Sixties, he went on to launch International Times and write for NME. He ghost-wrote Many Years From Now, Paul McCartney''s autobiography and has written books on The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Frank Zappa.

Fifty years ago, Norman Mailer asserted, "William Burroughs is the only American novelist living today who may conceivably be possessed by genius." Few since have taken such literary risks, developed such individual political or spiritual ideas, or spanned such a wide range of media. Burroughs wrote novels, memoirs, technical manuals, and poetry. He painted, made collages, took thousands of photographs, produced hundreds of hours of experimental recordings, acted in movies, and recorded more CDs than most rock bands. Burroughs was the original cult figure of the Beat Movement, and with the publication of his novel Naked Lunch, which was originally banned for obscenity, he became a guru to the 60s youth counterculture. In Call Me Burroughs, biographer and Beat historian Barry Miles presents the first full-length biography of Burroughs to be published in a quarter century-and the first one to chronicle the last decade of Burroughs''s life and examine his long-term cultural legacy. Written with the full support of the Burroughs estate and drawing from countless interviews with figures like Allen Ginsberg, Lucien Carr, and Burroughs himself, Call Me Burroughs is a rigorously researched biography that finally gets to the heart of its notoriously mercurial subject.

Originally published: London: Virgin, 1992.

Examines the British influences on American culture between 1964 and 1969, discussing rock bands such as The Beatles, the Yardbirds, supermodel Twiggy and Mary Quant minidresses, James Bond films, and more.

The Beatles: A Diary is an exceptional reference work. Itâs all here: the quarrels, the sex, the drugs, and the rock and roll.

''Fear makes me a writer, fear and a lack of confidence'' Charles Bukowski chronicled the seedy underside of the city in which he spent most of his life, Los Angeles. His heroes were the panhandlers and hustlers, the drunks and the hookers, his beat the racetracks and strip joints and his inspiration a series of dead-end jobs in warehouses, offices and factories. It was in the evenings that he would put on a classical record, open a beer and begin to type... Brought up by a violent father, Bukowski suffered childhood beatings before developing horrific acne and withdrawing into a moody adolescence. Much of his young life epitomised the style of the Beat generation - riding Greyhound buses, bumming around and drinking himself into a stupor. During his lifetime he published more than forty-five books of poetry and prose, including the novels Post Office, Factotum, Women and Pulp. His novels sold millions of copies worldwide in dozens of languages. In this definitive biography Barry Miles, celebrated author of Jack Kerouac: King of the Beats, turns his attention to the exploits of this hard-drinking, belligerent wild man of literature.

Beginning with the Weathermen explosion in Greenwich Village and ending with punk, the seventies was the age of extremes; sex, drugs and, of course, rock ''n'' roll. With an extraordinary cast of characters, and even more extraordinary anecdotes, In The Seventies tells, firsthand, the story - and stories - of the decade. From Allen Ginsberg''s hippie commune in upstate New York to the time Miles spent cataloguing William Burroughs'' archives in London, from David Bowie in drag to Grace Jones naked at Studio 54, it''s all here. Vivid, compelling, intimate and, sometimes, insane, Barry Miles reveals the truth behind this legendary era.

Barry Miles knew Frank Zappa intimately and was present at the recording of some of his most important albums. This sparkling biography brings the Zappa the musician and composer, Zappa the controversialist and Zappa the family man (despite his love of groupies, he was married for more than 30 years) together for the first time. Barry Miles'' biography follows Zappa from his sickly Italian-American childhood in the 1940s (when his father, Frank senior, worked for the US military and was used to test the efficacy of new biological warfare agents) to his death from cancer in the 1990s. Miles shows how Zappa''s goal had been to become a classical composer, until he realised that he would starve to death pursuing this ambition in post-war America. In an effort to make music people would actually listen to, in the mid-1960s he joined a noisy new band called ''The Mothers of Invention''. Before long, Zappa had taken over as singer, song writer and lead guitarist and together they exploded on to the San Francisco freak scene. Following the release of recordings such as Freak Out, Absolutely Free, We''re Only In It For the Money and Hot Rats, Zappa''s reputation in the United States and in Europe, especially the UK, Germany and Holland, took off. When the Berlin wall fell, Frank was surprised to learn that his extravagant music embodied sixties liberty for a generation of dissidents (including Vaclav Havel, who invited Zappa to be his minister for culture). Frank Zappa is an authoritative and hugely enjoyable portrait of a singular man and a vivid evocation of the West Coast scene.

A biography of the influential American beatnik novelist, charting both his life and legacy. Miles considers the continuing appeal of Kerouac, his iconic status, the cult of On the Road, and the influence he has had on popular culture.

In part thanks to early friendships with renegades such as Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady, and William Burroughs, and his publication of the electrifying and brilliant "Howl," Allen Ginsberg occupies a significant and enduring position in American literature. Following Ginsberg''s death in 1997, Barry Miles, drawing both on his long friendship with the poet and on Ginsberg''s journals and correspondence, thoroughly updated and revised his immensely readable account of one of the 20th century''s most extraordinary poets.

The second half of the 1960s was a time of constant changes and tireless exploration for the generation born after World War II. A great exchange of ideas occurred that would have a great impact on the politics, morals, philosophy, and customs of the time, and on those of generations to come. This book is a tribute to the hippie movement and an enlightening study of the consequences those multidisciplinary initiatives would have on that generation and those to come. In addition to the chronicle of one of the key figures of the movement, author Barry Miles, other distinguished activists of the time contribute to this book. This is an illustrated and psychedelic panoramic view of that which transpired between the years 1965 and 1971, and of what came afterward. La segunda mitad de la década de los sesenta fue una época de cambios constantes y de infatigable exploración para la generación nacida después de la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Se produjo un gran intercambio de ideas que iban a tener una incidencia notable en la política, la moral, la filosofía y las costumbres de la época, y en las de las generaciones venideras. Este libro es un tributo a dicho movimiento y un alumbrador estudio de las consecuencias que esas iniciativas multidisciplinarias iban a tener en aquella generación y en las venideras. Junto a la crónica de una las figuras clave del movimiento, el autor Barry Miles, se presentan las contribuciones de los activistas más destacados de la época. Es una panorámica ilustrada y psicodélica de cuanto transcurrió entre los años 1965 y 1971, y de todo lo que sucedió en adelante.

Allen Ginsberg occupies a significant and enduring position in American literature. This title presents a readable account of one of the twentieth century''s most extraordinary poets

Élaboré à partir de trente-cinq séances d''entretiens, menées par Barry Miles sur une période de six ans, et avec un accès illimité aux archives personnelles de l''ex-Beatle, cet ouvrage est le récit personnel de Paul McCartney. La vie privée d''un homme qui devint personnage public à l''âge de vingt et un ans. La trajectoire du plus célèbre groupe de l''histoire, depuis ses débuts jusqu''à sa séparation. Les sixties racontées par un témoin placé dans l''œil du cyclone. Une histoire de musique, de drogues, de femmes, d''argent, de folie, d''art, d''amour, de paix, et aussi d''amertume. Au cœur de l''aventure se trouve évidemment la relation liant Paul McCartney à John Lennon, relation entre deux amis, deux collaborateurs, Lennon et McCartney, deux gars de Liverpool qui souhaitaient changer le monde... et l''un des plus grands tandems d''auteurs compositeurs du siècle. " Je vais vous raconter l''histoire comme elle me revient... C''est une suite d''événements qui se sont tous déroulés dans un petit laps de temps. Ce n''est que mon souvenir de l''aventure... Tout ce que je souhaite faire avec ce livre, c''est raconter ma version des faits. " Paul McCartney.