You Don't Have To Say You Love Me is a magnificently scurrilous account of Simon Napier-Bell's Sixties and it's adored by all aficionados of bitchy camp. This collection of dinner-party yarns committed to print featured Keith Moon twice saving its author from hairy situations in foreign brothels; revealed that a Bee Gee was generally known to all of Swinging London as the "singing goat"; and explained how Napier-Bell and his business partner, Ray Singer, manufactured non-existent groups for export.

Black Vinyl White Powder is the cold-print equivalent of a sparkling evening in the company of a world-class raconteur. What keeps the book jumping is his acute sense of the multiple dialectics (between idealism and commerce, bohemian elitism and mass culture, art and entertainment) and complex power structures that drive pop's evolution. "Rock'n'roll wasn't the music itself," claimed Jack Good, the pioneer of British music television, "it was the response to the music." And in the context of the ecstasy-fuelled dance boom of the Nineties, Napier-Bell tells us: "The drug created the audience. Kids on E wanted E-culture music. All the music industry had to do was to identify the kids who were taking it, then provide them with the right records." In a welter of gossip, scams and statistics, Napier-Bell provides a one-stop-shop education in what the music business has always been about: get rich, get high, get laid. "Black vinyl may have gone," he concludes. "White powder seems here to stay."

I'm Coming To Take You To Lunch is a dangerous book. The principle danger is spontaneous outbreaks of uncontrollable and hysterical laughter in public places.

In order to avoid the very real danger of losing control of your bladder, I recommend retiring with this book to a large bubble-filled bath and an ice cold glass of champagne. This will allow you to get into the mood of the book.

From the first page, you know you are in the company of a first rate story teller who has lived life to the full, and beyond. There are endless revelations about the reality of life in the British music business that are as relevant today as they were in the 1980's.

For those interested in George Michael/Wham there are intimate and candid portraits of the artists, which are both shocking and honest.

A truly delicious read from start to finish.

There is something of Oscar Wilde about Simon Napier-Bell, and it's not just his name. A man of wealth and taste, capable of great works of art on occasion ('You Don't Have to Say You Love Me' - I rest my case) yet bound by whim of iron to an underworld of crooks, charlatans and cheap, beautiful boys; that is, the music business.

Only someone as scurrilous, suave and simply in there as Napier-Bell could bring to the job the extreme lack of gravitas that it takes to render such a tome as Black Vinyl White Powder. Napier-Bell knows everyone, and he is gloriously rude - usually, these two things don't go together - and it is this extremely rare ability to embrace what he loves even while holding it at arm's length and calculating its worth to the nearest penny that makes Simon Napier-Bell such a giant amongst men, and this book probably the greatest ever written about English pop.

You might not have heard of Simon Napier-Bell, but from the birth of rock to the boy band era, he has cropped up everywhere: as roadie to the Johnny Dankworth jazz band; as co-writer of Dusty Springfield's You Don't Have To Say You Love Me; as the man who landed the Yardbirds a better recording contract than the Beatles; as discoverer of Marc Bolan; as rejecter of Julio Iglesias; as manager of Wham!

But if Napier-Bell is going to be remembered for anything, then it ought to be for this masterly book. Black Vinyl White Powder one of the most authoritative, intelligent, diligently researched, conscientiously indexed, and thoroughly unpretentious disquisitions on the history of the British pop scene yet written.

Napier-Bell - with the cynicism and detachment of all good rock managers - just tells it like it is.

Simon Napier-Bell is one of the central figures of British pop music history. Oh yes, he happens to be gay too. And he’s the kind of guy who can tell a story. Wham! wanted to be the most successful group in the world. Our author's job was to pull of a stunt so newsworthy and outrageous that nobody would be able to ignore them. His idea? To get Wham! to play a concert in China.

I'm Coming to Take You to Lunch is fascinating and funny. Napier-Bell is an excellent raconteur and the perfect person to expose the behind-the-scenes shenanigans and explain the strings that needed to be pulled in order to create a successful and glossy pop act. His depictions of prominent people of the time including, of course, one Mr George Michael, are wonderfully observed. This is a great book. I don't know if I'd ever want to do business with the man, but you've got to admire his nerve. He once tried to sue someone for claiming that he was heterosexual. Whatever. Read this book and weep, Napier-Bell's a champ.