Marc Burrows – författare

Marc Burrowsexplores the peculiarly British cultural phenomenon of the Christmas single's chart.The festive top spot was something that, prior to 1973, wasn't particularlyimportant but has since become a cornerstone of the December news cycle and,for years, an annual cultural moment ... that may have reached the end of itslife.He tracesthe origins of the concept, through the Beatles andthe-years-when-it-wasn't-really-a-thing, the Glam rock boom, Band Aid, noveltyrecords, the X-Factor years and the awful Sausage Roll charity records of the2020s, supported by interviews with figures involved in some of the most iconichits and notable chart battles of the past half century and obsessive, in-depthresearch. He explores the sometimes fascinating and sometimes weird andunlikely stories behind some of the most beloved (and some of the most utterlyloathed) songs in British musical history.The Story of the Christmas No. 1 is more than just a nostalgic music book.It subtly explores pop culture and social history, examining our relationshipwith Christmas, how our national identity is reflected in the music we listento together, and how the music industry has changed. It also reveals how theChristmas No. 1 reflects the current social reality of today and how technologyand culture have reshaped the way music is consumed.

This is thestory of a national obsession: the annual race for the festive chart crown, andwhat it reveals about British culture, identity, and the ever-changing musicindustry.From TheBeatles to glam rock, from Do They Know It's Christmas? to reality-TV winners,novelty records, charity campaigns and viral streaming sensations, Marc Burrowsuncovers the fascinating, funny and occasionally absurd stories behind thesongs we love—and love to argue about.New for the 2026 edition: the full story of KylieMinogue's triumphant Christmas Number 1! Released through Amazon, Kylie'sgloriously camp XMAS ended the recent dominance of charitysingles and perennial festive classics to secure her first-ever Christmaschart-topper, becoming the first female artist to score UK Number Onesingles across four different decades. But what does it tell us about hitsin the streaming age, and the deals with the devil you need to do to securethem?Packedwith chart battles, cultural curiosities, festive controversies andenough music trivia to fill Santa's sack, this updated edition bringsthe story of Britain's most peculiar annual sporting event bang up-to-date."An essential guide for those of us who hate orindeed love this annual struggle for artistic commercial dominance. It willanswer some questions, settle some arguments, but I sense, will start many more."  From the Foreword by Phill Jupitus"A hugely entertaining romp through six decades ofmusic trivia ★★★★"   Classic Pop Magazine"The biographer of hip unwraps his pen to sprinkleglitter upon the fading tradition of the festive chart-topper and crafts theultimate gift for everyone, aged 8 to 80. This sleighs."  Billy Reeves, BBC Radio LondonThis edition now includes the remarkable storyof how XMAS became the Christmas No. 1 of 2025!

Terry Pratchett sold over 100 million books worldwide, was translated into forty languages, and became one of the most widely loved writers of the twentieth century. His work, including the Discworld series, is often praised for its wit and invention, but less often examined for what it really is: one of the most sustained and coherent philosophical projects in modern popular fiction.From the author of The Magic of Terry Pratchett, the Locus Award-winning first biography of Sir Terry, The Terry Pratchett Reader’s Guide takes Pratchett seriously as a literary figure without taking the fun out of him. Moving chronologically from his earliest short stories through to 1999’s The Fifth Elephant, this first volume charts how an angry young journalist from Beaconsfield turned genre parody into something far more ambitious: a body of work concerned with belief, power, identity, and what happens when enough people believe the same thing at once. A second volume will cover The Truth (2000) through to Pratchett’s final novel, The Shepherd’s Crown. A reader’s guide written for readers, not academics, complete with jokes and footnotes of its own, each chapter explores a book’s themes, cultural context, and place in Pratchett’s development, tracing the connections between the man, the work, and the world around him. Whether you’ve read every Discworld novel multiple times or are wondering where to begin, the Readers Guide is a new way to understand what Pratchett achieved: a serious meditation on justice, belief, and what it means to be human — with terrible puns, endless cups of tea, and the occasional joke about bums.

Terry Pratchett sold over 100 million books worldwide, was translated into forty languages, and became one of the most widely loved writers of the twentieth century. His work, including the Discworld series, is often praised for its wit and invention, but less often examined for what it really is: one of the most sustained and coherent philosophical projects in modern popular fiction.From the author of The Magic of Terry Pratchett, the Locus Award-winning first biography of Sir Terry, The Terry Pratchett Reader’s Guide takes Pratchett seriously as a literary figure without taking the fun out of him. This second volume covers The Truth (2000) through to Pratchett’s final novel, The Shepherd’s Crown.A reader’s guide written for readers, not academics, complete with jokes and footnotes of its own, each chapter explores a book’s themes, cultural context, and place in Pratchett’s development, tracing the connections between the man, the work, and the world around him.Whether you’ve read every Discworld novel multiple times or are wondering where to begin, the Readers Guide is a new way to understand what Pratchett achieved: a serious meditation on justice, belief, and what it means to be human — with terrible puns, endless cups of tea, and the occasional joke about bums.

The Magic Of Terry Pratchett is the first full biography of Sir Terry Pratchett ever written. Sir Terry was Britain's best-selling living author, and before his death in 2015 had sold more than 85 million copies of his books worldwide. Best known for the Discworld series, his work has been translated into 37 languages, and performed as plays on every continent in the world, including Antarctica. Journalist, comedian and Pratchett fan Marc Burrows delves into the back story of one of UK's most enduring and beloved authors, from his childhood in the Chiltern Hills, to his time as a journalist, and the journey that would take him via more than sixty best-selling books to an OBE, a knighthood and national treasure status. The Magic Of Terry Pratchett is the result of painstaking archival research alongside interviews with friends and contemporaries who knew the real man under the famous black hat, helping to piece together the full story of one of British literature's most remarkable and beloved figures for the very first time. Now disqualified on both counts.This is the first full biography of Sir Terry Pratchett ever written. Sir Terry was Britain's best-selling living author, and before his death in 2015 had sold more than 85 million copies of his books worldwide. AUTHOR: Marc Burrows is a London based writer, stand up comic and musician, writing regularly for The Guardian, Observer, Drowned in Sound, The Quietus and more. In 2014 he compiled and edited I Think I Can See Where You're Going Wrong, a collection of the funniest comments from the Guardian website, published by Faber and Faber. People got it for Christmas and read it on the loo, and he was happy with that. He has performed several one-man shows at the Edinburgh Fringe, the most recent of which, Mind Your Head, focused on a lifetime of struggles with his mental health. He also plays bass in the cult punk band, The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing and can be found regularly touring the UK and USA. He discovered the works of Terry Pratchett when his Mum lent him The Colour of Magic as an eleven-year-old, and spent the next week annoying his classmates by reading the funniest bits out loud. He has never looked back.

Rock 'n' Roll fanatics, mods, beat group wannabes, underground hippies, glam rock icons: David Bowie and Marc Bolan spent the first part of their careers following remarkably similar paths. From the day they met in 1965 as Davie Jones and Mark Feld, rock 'n' roll wannabes painting their manager's office in London's Denmark Street, they would remain friends and rivals, each watching closely and learning from the other. In the years before they launched an unbeatable run of era-defining glam rock masterpieces at the charts, they were both just another face on the scene, meeting for coffee in Soho, hanging out at happenings and jamming in parks. Here, they are our guides through the decade that changed everything, as the gloom of post-war London exploded into the technicolour dream of the swinging sixties, a revolution in music, fashion, art and sexuality. Part dual-biography, part social history, part musical celebration of an era, The London Boys follows the British youth culture explosion through eyes of two remarkable young men on the front lines of history.

Rock ''n'' Roll fanatics, mods, beat group wannabes, underground hippies, glam rock icons: David Bowie and Marc Bolan spent the first part of their careers following remarkably similar paths. From the day they met in 1965 as Davie Jones and Mark Feld, rock ''n'' roll wannabes painting their manager''s office in London’s Denmark Street, they would remain friends and rivals, each watching closely and learning from the other. In the years before they launched an unbeatable run of era-defining glam rock masterpieces at the charts, they were both just another face on the scene, meeting for coffee in Soho, hanging out at happenings and jamming in parks. Here, they are our guides through the decade that changed everything, as the gloom of post-war London exploded into the technicolor dream of the swinging sixties, a revolution in music, fashion, art and sexuality. Part dual-biography, part social history, part musical celebration of an era, The London Boys follows the British youth culture explosion through eyes of two remarkable young men on the front lines of history.

Rock ''n'' Roll fanatics, mods, beat group wannabes, underground hippies, glam rock icons: David Bowie and Marc Bolan spent the first part of their careers following remarkably similar paths. From the day they met in 1965 as Davie Jones and Mark Feld, rock ''n'' roll wannabes painting their manager''s office in London’s Denmark Street, they would remain friends and rivals, each watching closely and learning from the other. In the years before they launched an unbeatable run of era-defining glam rock masterpieces at the charts, they were both just another face on the scene, meeting for coffee in Soho, hanging out at happenings and jamming in parks. Here, they are our guides through the decade that changed everything, as the gloom of post-war London exploded into the technicolor dream of the swinging sixties, a revolution in music, fashion, art and sexuality. Part dual-biography, part social history, part musical celebration of an era, The London Boys follows the British youth culture explosion through eyes of two remarkable young men on the front lines of history.

In a career that's spanned thirty-five years and generated fourteen albums, fifty-three singles (two of them UK number ones), four Brit Awards, two Ivor Novellas and inspired literally hundreds of university dissertations, quite a few PhD's and the odd specialist subject on Mastermind, Manic Street Preachers have become, in the words of their 2011 singles collection, national treasures. The Welsh trio (who, to many, will always be a quartet) have a uniquely intense impact on their fans; educating them as much as they entertain and inspire. This book collects fourteen brand new essays, one for each Manics album, from fourteen different writers from diverse backgrounds, tracing the band's impact on fans and culture and setting each of their works, from 1992's Generation Terrorists to 2018's Resistance Is Futile and beyond, into context. The essays are linked by a detailed month-by-month biography by music critic and Manics fan Marc Burrows (The Guardian, The Quietus, Drowned In Sound), who compiled and edited the book, tracing the band's development from glamourpuss upstart intellectuals to the elder statesmen of British indie rock, via an era-defining run of hits, an historic trip to Cuba and one vanished genius. Manic Street Preachers: Album by Album includes a complete discography and is sourced from in-depth archival research, making it one of the most comprehensive and detailed works devoted to the band yet compiled.

In a career that''s spanned thirty-five years and generated fourteen albums, fifty-three singles (two of them UK number ones), four Brit Awards, two Ivor Novellas and inspired literally hundreds of university dissertations, quite a few PhD''s and the odd specialist subject on Mastermind, Manic Street Preachers have become, in the words of their 2011 singles collection, national treasures. The Welsh trio (who, to many, will always be a quartet) have a uniquely intense impact on their fans; educating them as much as they entertain and inspire. This book collects fourteen brand new essays, one for each Manics album, from fourteen different writers from diverse backgrounds, tracing the band''s impact on fans and culture and setting each of their works, from 1992''s Generation Terrorists to 2018''s Resistance Is Futile and beyond, into context. The essays are linked by a detailed month-by-month biography by music critic and Manics fan Marc Burrows (The Guardian, The Quietus, Drowned In Sound), who compiled and edited the book, tracing the band''s development from glamourpuss upstart intellectuals to the elder statesmen of British indie rock, via an era-defining run of hits, an historic trip to Cuba and one vanished genius. Manic Street Preachers: Album by Album includes a complete discography and is sourced from in-depth archival research, making it one of the most comprehensive and detailed works devoted to the band yet compiled.

After Nirvana, everything changed. Kurt Cobain and his band ushered in a new era in music, bringing the authenticity of US underground punk to mainstream rock audiences. Award-winning biographer and music critic Marc Burrows dives into the world of Nirvana, providing an exhaustive day-by-day account of the lifespan of the band, from their early days touring the dive bars of the Pacific North-West through the release of ’Smells Like Teen Spirit' and Nevermind, the dark masterpiece of In Utero and Kurt Cobain’s tragic death in 1994. The timeline is augmented by hyper-detailed footnotes, diving deep into the songs and albums, the impact and the fascinating unexplored corners of one of the most exciting and impactful bands that have ever been.

An in-depth look into the life and writings of the bestselling author of the Discworld novels, Good Omens, and Nation.The Magic of Terry Pratchett is the first full biography of Sir Terry Pratchett ever written. Sir Terry was Britain''s bestselling living author*, and before his death in 2015 had sold more than 85 million copies of his books worldwide. Best known for the Discworld series, his work has been translated into thirty-seven languages, and performed as plays on every continent in the world, including Antarctica.Journalist, comedian and Pratchett fan Marc Burrows delves into the back story of one of UK''s most enduring and beloved authors, from his childhood in the Chiltern Hills, to his time as a journalist, and the journey that would take him—via more than sixty best-selling books—to an OBE, a knighthood and national treasure status.The Magic Of Terry Pratchett is the result of painstaking archival research alongside interviews with friends and contemporaries who knew the real man under the famous black hat, helping to piece together the full story of one of British literature''s most remarkable and beloved figures for the very first time.* Now disqualified on both counts.Praise for The Magic of Terry Pratchett"In this encompassing biography of the prolific fantasy and science-fiction author, writer and comedian Burrows details both the writing accomplishments and the personal life of Sir Terry Pratchett. . . . Burrows spoke to friends and family, and this biography has moments of sadness, especially when discussing Pratchett''s fight with Alzheimer''s. But the book is also funny and conversational in tone, and an excellent tribute to a beloved author." —Booklist"Affable and consistently engaging . . . Burrow''s buoyant, pun-peppered, and aptly footnote-flecked style . . . helpfully marries his subject matter, propelling us through decade after decade of a heavily writing-centric life while illuminating Pratchett''s complexities and contradictions without any drag in the tempo." —Locus Magazine"An impressively comprehensive, engagingly written biography. ****"—SFX