This is your backstage pass to everything rock ‘n' roll. Included in this rockin' anthology are over 60 gripping accounts tracking the birth of rock ‘n' roll through The Beatles, The Sex Pistols, Madonna, Kurt Cobain, and Oasis to today's scene.

Showcasing the world's finest music writers and revealing many outrageous secrets, this fascinating history spans an era that had its roots in the early days of jazz and blues, and stretches right up to the rockstars of today. Along the way we encounter a spectacular cast list: Jimi Hendrix, Elvis, Keith Moon, The Manic Street Preachers, Gram Parsons, The Rolling Stones, Patsy Cline, Jim Morrison, The Sex Pistols and Iggy Pop, to name but a few.

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

Modern masters of the macabre bring the dead to life in this specially re-vamped edition of the classic compilation every horror fan will want to sink their teeth into. From an award-winning editor who knows the genre backwards, here is the very best in vampire fiction: from tales of tempting sirens to contemporary serial killers; from the dark origins of fairy tales to a modern reinterpretation of the King of the Undead himself, Count Dracula. This revised edition features over a dozen new stories, including Tina Rath's A Trick of the Dark and Kim Newman's Andy Warhol's Dracula, as well as classic novellas such as Hugh B. Cave's Stragella and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's Investigating Jericho. There are contributions by Nancy Kilpatrick, Christopher Fowler, Paul Mcauley, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Tina Rath, Neil Gaiman, Harlan Ellison and Kim Newman.

The rise - and fall - of the outlaw lords of the drug world, from the Cali Cartel, the richest, most powerful crime syndicate in history, to Britain's biggest drug baron, Curtis 'Cocky' Warren and the 'Essex Triple Murders'. From freewheeling cannabis operations to the lethal 'heaviness' of organized crime, the doings of the dealers, bouncers, bagmen and 'taxmen' - those crazy enough to extort money from drug dealers - of a ruthlessly violent underworld. Here you will find an account of the pursuit and capture of 'Mr Nice', Howard Marks (along with the complementary recollections of Mrs Marks), the story of the hunt for Pablo Escobar and an in-depth piece on cocaine production deep in the Colombian interior. This is the no-holds-barred, inside story of drug trafficking, from the Golden Triangle to the Golden Gate and from Spain's Costa del Crime to the future of conflict and prohibition with its fresh cast of Afghan warlords and central European gangsters. It examines how and why things go wrong, and the price which is paid when they do.

A popular science book on the enduring appeal of the holy trinity of Sex, Drugs, and Music, and how hedonistic impulses have also been integral to progress and science Ê

Eighteen classic sea-faring tales by the best-loved writers of the genre, including Patrick O'Brian, C. S. Forester, Richard Woodman, Herman Melville and Frederick Marryat. Featuring favourite heroes such as Captain Jack Aubrey, Adam Hardy, Horatio Hornblower and Nathaniel Drinkwater. These tales vividly re-create the age of the glory days of sail, aboard the great ships that sailed for trade, discovery or warfare. They include storms and shipwrecks, the great sea battles of the Napoleonic era and the sheer, dangerous excitement of life before the mast.

Hear the cannon roar at Valley Forge with George Washington, dance the night away at a Chicago Speakeasy during Prohibition, take a ringside seat for the gunfight at the OK Corral, ride Apollo 11 to the moon, hear Martin Luther King's 'I Have a Dream' speech, join with Harry S. Truman on the A-bomb deliberations, land with John Smith at Virginia, ride against Custer at Little Horn, get on down to Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock, march to 'The Grapes of Wrath' at Shiloh, work your fingers to the bone at Henry Ford's car plant . . . this is America - the beautiful, the powerful, the tragic, the glorious. The Mammoth Book of How It Happened: America is the story of the making of America in the very words of those who were there, from its 'discovery' by Christopher Columbus to George W. Bush's War Against Terrorism. Composed of firsthand eye-witness accounts of the seminal moments in US history, this is an intimate, revealing, insightful guide to the greatest nation on earth. In five chronological sections, this volume tracks the main phases of American history: Discovery, including the exploration and settlement of America; Independence, the Revolution and wars against British rule; Destiny, covering expansion into the West and the split between North and South; Frontier, including the settlement of the American West and the Indian Wars; and finally Century, the 100 years that saw America becoming a superpower on the world's political stage.

From the start of the 20th century to the most recent major offensives, here are fifty accounts of the battles that made the modern world, described in superb detail by historians and writers including John Keegan, Alan Clark, John Strawson, Charles Mey, John Pimlott, and John Laffin. All the major conflicts are covered, from two world wars, through Korea, Vietnam, Bosnia, Chechnya, to Iraq and Afghanistan. Among the battles featured are: the Somme, Passchendaele, Battle of Britain, Stalingrad, El Alamein, Monte Cassino, Omaha Beach, Iwa Jima, Dien Bien Phu, Ia Drang, Hamburger Hill, Desert Storm, Kabul, Baghdad, and Basra.