Pen and Sword Books: Festival Reading List

As festival season is in full swing, we're shining the spotlight on our recommended music-themed reads.

Save up to 25% off RRPs until 25/08/25

Headliners

Some Might Say: The Story of Oasis (Hardback)

The Official Book of The Oasis Podcast

There can never be too many words on Oasis. The Gallagher smash-and-grab raid on British pop culture has divided opinion for decades and simplifies their story into basic cliches. Books that dig deeper and speak to everyone like this open the story up and place you at the heart of the action as their rocket ship took off. - John Robb
The rise of Oasis in the 1990s was stratospheric, yet they remained the people’s band. This is the story about how lives were changed forever, told by those who lived through it.

All around the world, millions felt a connection to these working-class lads from Manchester. With anthemic songs crafted and sung by the greatest songwriter and singer of their generation, from their first interview they proclaimed themselves the best band in the world, and for a shining moment in the mid-1990s they were.

‘Live Forever’. Definitely Maybe. (What's The Story) Morning Glory?. ‘Wonderwall’. Knebworth. A level of success not seen by a British band for 30 years, ushering in a new cultural zeitgeist: Britpop, Cool Britannia, New Labour, and at the centre of it all, the soap opera antics of the warring Gallagher brothers and their bandmates.

Departed members were replaced by fresh faces as the 2000s ushered in their next career phase with Oasis inspiring younger generations. Yet the music and drama continued up to one night in Paris when everything fell apart… until the world stood still in August 2024.

Expanded and revised to include over 25 exclusive new interviews from The Oasis Podcast, including contributions from those involved (Alan McGee, Tony McCarroll, Andy Bell, Steve White, Owen Morris), writers with first-hand coverage (Paolo Hewitt, John Robb), celebrity fans (Ricky Hatton) and many more, this book spans their entire career from 1991 to the present day, making it the ultimate story of Oasis.

The Harry Styles Effect (Hardback)

Harry Styles captivates audiences worldwide with his talent, charisma and sartorial wit. From his early days as a member of the boyband One Direction to his wildly successful solo career, Styles marries mass appeal with a celebration of fluidity; blurring the lines of fashion, musical genres and gender norms. Once dismissed as a flash-in-the-pan teen trend, Styles has proven himself as a once-in-a-generation talent. Today, Harry Styles is less of a pop star and more of a lifestyle.

When her twenty-year marriage ended, Keris Fox fell into the One Direction fandom and her whole life changed. Ten years on, and numerous live shows later, Keris has travelled the world with a host of new-found fandom friends and learned that it’s never too late to let the things you love teach you how to be yourself.

Part fandom memoir, part celebration of Harry Styles as an artist, The Harry Styles Effect is about the profound impact one of the biggest stars in the world can have on fans of all ages and backgrounds, and the transformative power of collective joy.

Neil Young: Album by Album (Hardback)

With an illustrious career stretching back almost six decades and encompassing 50 solo studio albums alone, Neil Young is one of the most prolific, compelling figures in the history of popular music, equally revered as both an acoustic singer-songwriter and as the force of nature frontman of rock legends Crazy Horse. As he enters his late seventies, Young remains as energetic and relevant as ever, locking horns with streaming giant Spotify in protest against their alleged promotion of COVID-19 misinformation and continuing to release new music when many of his contemporaries have long since faded away into comfortable retirement.

Neil Young: Album by Album is the most complete retrospective of the great Canadian’s discography ever written. Covering his entire solo career from his 1968 debut to 2023's Before and After, the book offers in-depth, track-by-track reviews of every Young studio album, providing an engaging insight into the restless creativity that gave the world classics like After the Goldrush, Harvest and Rust Never Sleeps.

Also including detailed timelines covering the different phases of Young’s life, sections on the artist’s early years and his live and archive releases, and an entertaining essay ranking his solo albums from worst to best, this comprehensive book is equally indispensable for both diehard Young fans and those listeners seeking to discover more of his formidable body of work.