An intelligent and balanced introduction. While making no excuses for Britten's personal weaknesses, it mounts a passionate critical defence of 'the composer the avant garde have [always] loved to hate'

A memoir of certainties rocked by the melodic patterns and syncopated beat of American popular culture.

This is no tired rock story but something far more profound, funny and disturbing.

A frank account of his own love/hate relationship with America.

Extremely enjoyable

Fry's linguistic facility remains one of the Wildean wonders of the new media age. The patron saint of British intelligence

Even if you weren’t there when all this happened, the fast paced narrative will make you feel as if you were … An excellent read and I really would urge anyone with even a passing interest in punk, The Jam, The Who or what it was like being a music mad teenager in London in the late seventies to check it out.

Autobiography is rarely this can-do and candid.

A five star book from the ace face biographer …This honest, pre-pubescent tale of Fletcher’s formative years is frank, candid and, at times, more brutally gory and sexually explicit than a ‘This is England’ sequel. But as his innocent, bullied, under-developed, paternally undernourished, maternally pampered, determined, stubborn squeaky voiced, rubbish-at-sex music-obsessed skinny body is laid out in a top fifty countdown for all to poke at… he suddenly matures, and emerges as a keen, spirited, clever and resourceful fifth year ready to start a record label … right after he loses his virginity.

A must for anyone with an interest in the 1970s and 80s music scene … Featuring a vibrant cast of supporting characters … Boy About Town in an evocative and wholly original account of growing up and coming of age in the glory days of the 1970s.

Funny, fascinating, and at times quite moving

Fletcher paints a vivid picture of the time – both through the eyes of a boy dealing with growing up and into the underground music scene of bands, fanzines, small record labels, and a staunchly independent spirit …It’s a great read and one which potentially invites the difficult second album syndrome.

Praise for A Light That Never Goes Out: [A] meticulous biography…This exhaustive, well-researched account brings fresh detail and thought to the party.

Praise for A Light That Never Goes Out: The story of the Smiths told on the basis of interviews with just about every surviving participant in the Smiths' story. As the story winds on, a chain of no-shows, fits of pique and self-sabotage ... reaches its denouement with an episode from April 1987, just prior to the band's formal break-up. Fletcher is the first writer to have got the full story. Such material highlights the extent to which Fletcher has done his research.

Praise for A Light That Never Goes Out: An exhaustive labour of love that was three years in the writing but which will be lapped up by fans of the band...written with a real sense of love and affection for the group who, though they were only together for a mere five years, tilted the world on its axis to a degree not seen since the heyday of the Beatles and the Stones…Fletcher is excellent when it comes to widening the view to include the cultural and historical factors behind the band's emergence and the city from which they came.

Now his autobiography is out in paperback and reading it is like having the man himself talk to you from the comfort of his armchair. It’s a fascinating insight into a lost world … A true gent.

In his brimmingly insightful, stimulating study of how stories work, Yorke compellingly unpicks how a whole range of films, plays, novels and fairy tales all display the same archetypal structures . . . His book, in telling scores of stories in such a fresh, enlightening and accessible manner, is a gripping read from beginning to end

The best book on the subject [of storytelling] I've read, tells us everything we need to know about it. Yorke's analysis is superb

A mightily impressive opus, both hugely informative and highly educational. I love the way it's populated with so many examples - the many combinations of both mass market and the slightly more esoteric giving a something-for-everyone feeling. A brilliant work

Yorke sets out to analyse the patterns behind storytelling, explaining why the fundamentals of narrative have remained the same from Aristotle to Aaron Sorkin. A great starting point for anyone wanting to create a story

I've just read a book about professional writing which has genuinely helped me. It's for those who are serious about avoiding bad 'How To' books and want to raise their game, and it's more intelligent than most of the others. John Yorke's Into The Woods: How Stories Work And Why We Tell Them is a genuine game-changer and has helped me put past bad habits to rest

Into The Woods is utterly brilliant

Love storytelling? You need this inspiring book. John Yorke dissects the structure of stories with a joyous enthusiasm allied to precise, encyclopaedic knowledge. Guaranteed to send you back to your writing desk with newfound excitement and drive

Into The Woods is brilliant. One of the best books on script writing out there . . . I loved the book. Inspiring

There is no end of books that instruct us on how to write the perfect screenplay, but few that delve more deeply into the art of storytelling than this erudite volume

Its strength is Yorke's acute perception of the wellsprings of universal narrative structures relevant to all artistic activities

Terrific . . . It's a great read, wise and cogent, and a must for all screenwriters

It's a great read. It makes me smile and say 'Yes!' aloud. Only this and PG Wodehouse do that

Not How 2 Write them but how stories work. John Yorke's Into the Woods: A 5 Act Journey into Story is brilliant, illuminates & explains

I'm only 70 pages into John Yorke's Into the Woods but it's already helped me crack two stories

Highly recommended reading

Yorke is aware that the world is not suffering for lack of prescriptive screenwriting manuals. Instead, with Into the Woods, he takes a scalpel to narrative structure - dissecting protagonist, antagonist, inciting incident, crisis and so on - before asking how and why this underlying shape still holds audiences spellbound like a fairytale witch. "A story is like a magnet dragged through randomness," Yorke writes, but while he elegantly untangles the deepest roots of storytelling, he also honours the human need for truth and sense with some more superficial questions: why do series tend to "jump the shark" round about season three, for example, or why is clunky exposition - particularly in medical dramas - so appallingly comical? Sit comfortably, then begin

I absolutely love this book. It's incredible and so well written. I keep trying to find fault but so far no joy - It's so good

[John Yorke's] writing book is arguably possibly almost as good as mine, all right it's loads better shut up

Probably, in the hackneyed phrase, "the last book on screenwriting you'll ever need." He is very good at debunking the claims of some screenwriting gurus, all of whom are busy trying to sell you their own particular brand of snake oil. It's truly excellent

Of all the books I've read about story construction and the art of fiction, this one is the most comprehensive and concise