It has been 20 years since the colossal global success of The Verve's era-defining Urban Hymns, and it remains one of the biggest-selling British albums of all time. Photographer Chris Floyd was embedded with the band during their meteoric rise from late 1996 to 1997. He documented the recording, touring and promoting of the album in Britain, Ireland and the US--the only photographer to have such access. This is the first time his photographs from that period have been published, with most completely unseen. The book is also a celebration of what it meant to be young in the last moments of societal unself-awareness, before the explosion of the internet and social media, and it includes a section dedicated to people's memories of 1997. Chris reflects: "for a while it felt like being at the center of the universe.... We were in a brief golden era, when it looked like the world was unshackling itself and beginning to develop a more advanced and progressive attitude. We seemed to be in a decade that had taken a holiday from history. I am grateful and thankful that I got to live out my twenties in such a fertile, peaceful and creative period." Michael Holden writes in his introduction: "Those years, it turns out, were the twilight of analogue consciousness and certain seeming certainties about the world at large. Whatever we are now, we were not then. This isn't just the everyday past we're looking at, but another planet."

"From the label that signed America’s jazz legends in the ‘50s and ‘60s, a look at the music, its stars and its continuing influence." —People Hot on the heels of one of the most talked-about jazz books in years comes the musically-enhanced, strictly limited Collector’s Edition. Slipcased with vinyl reissues of ten legendary recordings on Verve, this is an exceptional opportunity to own a unique slice of jazz history. All recordings remastered at Abbey Road Studios Pressed onto 180g heavyweight vinyl for optimum sound quality All album sleeves printed with stunning original artwork Packaged in a dual-compartment cloth-bound display case Strictly limited to 500 copies worldwide Signed by the author Includes the following vinyl pressings: Charlie Parker, Charlie Parker With Strings (1950) Count Basie and His Orchestra, April in Paris (1955) Billie Holiday, Lady Sings the Blues (1956) Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, Ella And Louis (1956) Stan Getz, Big Band Bossa Nova (1962) Quincy Jones and His Orchestra, Big Band Bossa Nova (1962) Bill Evans, Conversations With Myself (1963) The Oscar Peterson Trio, Night Train (1963) Jimmy Smith, The Cat (1964) George Benson, Giblet Gravy (1968)

Songs, soul and confidence. The Verve were special from the start. A classic rock'n'roll tale of victory against all the odds.

In 1993 Richard Ashcroft, the lead singer of a Wigan-based four-piece call The Verve, declared that "History has a place for us. It may take us three albums, but we will be there". Four years later, The Verve recorded their groundbreaking third album, "Urban Hymns", and his predictions came true. Journalist, Martin Clarke, examines the band's rollercoaster history, tracing their origins and early influences. Junior high.

Nominated for the Edgar Award for Best Novel * Nominated for the ITW Thriller Award for Best Young Adult Novel A BookPage Best Book of the Year * A People Magazine Best Book of Summer* A Parade Best Book of Summer * A Crime Reads Most Anticipated Book of Summer "Powerful...a breathtaking read, with flawed and authentic characters who hit so close to home that at times it is impossible not to root for them." — San Francisco Chronicle A body burns in the high desert hills. A boy walks into a fire station, pale with the shock of discovery. A middle school teacher worries when her colleague is late for work. By day’s end, when the body is identified as local math teacher Adam Merkel, a small Nevada town will be rocked to its core. Adam Merkel left a university professorship in Reno to teach middle school in Lovelock seven months before he died. A quiet, seemingly unremarkable man, he connected with just one of his students: Sal Prentiss, a lonely sixth grader who lives with his uncles on a desolate ranch in the hills. The two outcasts developed a tender, trusting friendship that brought each of them hope in the wake of tragedy. But it is Sal who finds Adam’s body, charred almost beyond recognition, half a mile from his uncles’ compound. Nora Wheaton, the middle school’s social studies teacher, dreamed of a life far from Lovelock only to be dragged back on the eve of her college graduation to care for her disabled father, a man she loves but can’t forgive. She sensed in the new math teacher a kindred spirit--another soul bound to Lovelock by guilt and duty. After Adam’s death, she delves into his past for clues to who killed him and finds a dark history she understands all too well. But the truth about his murder may lie closer to home. For Sal Prentiss’s grief seems heavily shaded with fear, and Nora suspects he knows more than he’s telling about how his favorite teacher died. As she tries to earn the wary boy’s trust, she finds he holds not only the key to Adam’s murder, but an unexpected chance at the life she thought she’d lost. Weaving together the last months of Adam’s life, Nora’s search for answers, and a young boy’s anguished moral reckoning, this unforgettable thriller brings a small American town to vivid life, filled with complex, flawed characters wrestling with the weight of the past, the promise of the future, and the bitter freedom that forgiveness can bring.

This book contains the winning and commended poems from the Verve Festival 2018 City Themed Poetry Competition judged by Luke Kennard. They are the best of an extremely good bunch of poems that we received on the subject - from all over the country, but also from Europe, the USA, Africa and The Middle East. Alongside these poems you will find six city poems that Verve commissioned from our own selection of local poets of note in Birmingham: Roy McFarlane, Bohdan Piasecki, Amerah Saleh, Jenna Clake, Casey Bailey and Ahlaam Moledina. The book launched at Verve Poetry Festival 2018's sold out City Poems event hosted by Luke. Featured were the commissioned poets and the three competition winners - C.I. Marhsall (who flew in from North Carolina for the event), Jacqueline Saphra and Claire Trevien. The event took place on Sat 17 Feb 2018 at Waterstones in Birmingham. The book is dedicated to Roy Fisher (1930-2017), Birmingham's first city poet, who's poem, Handsworth Liberties, provides the book's title.

Outstanding excerpts from every issue, reproductions of all the Verve covers, and a rich selection of spreads from the magazine capture its sumptuous quality. 689 illustrations.