From our perspective in the 21st Century, the film career of director David Lynch is the stuff of legend – long and loudly hailed – yet for the man himself, the road to success was a long one – and even along the way, Lynch struggled with countless creative difficulties and personal issues that sometimes made the path between thought and expression a very long one! Here, Lynch himself recounts a lot of those years of struggle, with plenty of help from co-writer Kristine McKenna – who weaves together all sorts of material from dozens of interviews with people in Lynch's life and career, both personal and professional – voices that are added to David's own to provide a very illuminating picture of the real world that's obscured by the cinematic image. Hardcover edition is 577 pages, with many black and white images throughout. Book

An overstuffed edition of the Goldmine Jazz Price Guide – filled with great information! First off – forget the prices in this one, because we hate price guides, and we don't suggest that they actually have any correspondence to the real world – because people buy records at all different prices, for different reasons. HOWEVER, this is a great little book filled with useful data on jazz releases – and we find it to be an excellent resource when we need to look up details of work by specific artists – maybe more like a discography than an actual guide to pricing records. The book does have some holes and mistakes – but there's a heck of a lot of useful information in here, especially if you have questions like "What year did that come out?", "What label was that on?", "Which record was first in his career?" We're surprised at how many listings we can find for key albums – and the book's especially helpful for figuring out releases that seem to have a sly history of reappearing on the market! There's also a helpful section on different jazz labels and pressings, and the book is 506 pages, softcover, with lots of black and white illustrations – and listings for over 40,000 titles! Book

The rise of punk is usually tied to the scene of the Sex Pistols and others up in London – but right from the start, there was plenty happening up in Leeds – a scene that gave the world Gang Of Four, The Mekons, Soft Cell, Scritti Politti, and other key acts from the end of the 70s! Leeds was a university town, and very different than London and other working class scenes in the UK – as the acts in the city often approached their craft with a fair bit of intellectual background – something that shows not just in the lyrics, but the experimental constructions of their instrumentation too. Author Gavin Butt really dives deep into the Leeds scene of the period – mixing history with a stunning amount of information from interviews – with band members and other people on the scene – all in a book that's a much more lively read than you might expect from an academic press. The book is illustrated with black and white images throughout, features a suggested discography at the back, and this softcover edition is 290 pages in length. Book

Scott Walker started out as a pop star singing other peoples' lyrics – then he stunned the world when he went solo, and started to create some really amazing songs of his own! The Walker-penned contributions on the first few solo albums are still some of the most revelatory pop of the late 60s – and as the years progressed, Scott created some great words for his few projects of the 70s and 80s – then emerged as an even darker master of the pen with his reborn career from the mid 90s onward! Given the darkness and heavy quality of those records, Walker's words aren't always that easy to pull out – so it's great that this volume is strongly focused on material from albums that include Tilt, The Drift, Bish Bosch, and Soused – all of whom get really poetic presentation on the page – as the book is really more a volume of poetry than anything else. There's also a selection of new songs from 2016 and 2017, and a few selected lyrics from the early days too – in a hardcover volume of 198 pages. Book

Photographer John Williams has a great way of capturing people in space – a quality that comes through again and again in this beautiful book of street photography from the late 60s and early 70s – partly shot in his native Sydney, but also featuring images from around the world! Williams has a style that's a bit like Garry Winogrand, although maybe slightly less whimsical – a similar eye for that right moment when a person traveling through space interacts with the environment in a special way – a moment that would have been missed by the ordinary eye, captured by a snap of the camera and preserved here in a set of stunning black and white images with a really timeless eye, and a nice degree of wit. Book is hardcover, 175 pages, and filled with black and white images. Book