Pete Brown Books

A highly entertaining and visually stunning exploration of the art and design of beer bottles, pump clip and cans and it how has evolved to grab the attention of beer lovers over the years.

Pete Brown, lyricist for 60s super group Cream, has been a poet, singer, percussionist, record producer and screenwriter. As a Beat poet he worked alongside Spike Milligan, Allen Ginsberg and Robert Graves. As songwriter he is best known for his work with Cream, whose guitarist was Eric Clapton. Having been part of the Underground, he emerged as the lyricist of their massive hit songs 'White Room', 'I Feel Free', and 'Sunshine of your Love'. White Rooms and Imaginary Westerns is the personal odyssey of this poet, musician and writer. Brown takes the reader from the green fields of Surrey to the claustrophobia of a Jewish school in Hendon, from surreal day jobs operating lifts to hitch-hiking around Britain in a search for identity and girls. White Rooms deals honestly with the problems he faced - from the sexual side effects of a having a Jewish mother, to the mental adjustment necessary when, after years of earning GBP20 a week as a performing poet, he began receiving major sums his hit songs. There are many hilarious tales of being a touring musician, as well as anarchic opinions on drugs, love, music and movies. There are stories of the many more famous people Brown has worked with and met from Ginsberg and Burroughs to Spike Milligan, from Clapton to Peter Green and Jeff Beck, and from Alasdair Gray to Ken Campbell and Martin Scorsese. From affairs with actresses to Browns' 30-year collaboration with Cream singer, Jack Bruce, this is a fascinating journey into music, poetry, love and life by one of the biggest unsung heroes of rock and the beat movement

Exploring Britain's history through the lens of a unique pub, this narrative weaves together cultural, social, and political events that have shaped the nation. The author, acclaimed for his engaging storytelling, offers insights into the significance of pubs in British life, highlighting their role as community hubs and historical landmarks. With a blend of humor and research, the book paints a vivid picture of how one establishment reflects the broader tapestry of British society.

In a dystopian future marked by a second civil war and the reintroduction of slavery, the narrative unfolds through an extensive email exchange between former friends Steve and Stu. As they navigate their contrasting beliefs—Stu's opposition to slavery and Steve's new role as a slave master—complex themes of power, morality, and friendship emerge. The story explores the intertwining of personal and political lives in a society where the elite manipulate their sons for control, highlighting the emotional and ethical dilemmas faced by the characters.

\In Britain, we have always had an awkward relationship with food. We've been told for so long that we are terrible cooks and yet when someone with a clipboard asks us what the best things are about being British, our traditional food and drink are more important than the monarchy and at least as significant as our landscape and national monuments in defining a collective notion of who we are. Taking nine archetypically British dishes - Pie and Peas, A Cheese Sandwich, Fish and Chips, Spag Bol, Devonshire Cream Tea, Curry, The Full English, The Sunday Roast and a Crumble with Custard - and enjoying them in their most typical settings, Pete Brown examines just how fundamental food is to our sense of identity, perhaps even our sense of pride, and the ways in which we understand our place in the world.

'Brilliant.' Alan Johnson 'Compelling.' David Kynaston 'The beer drinkers' Bill Bryson.' Times Literary Supplement

Meet Pete Brown—beer journalist, beer drinker, and author of an irreverent book about British beer, Man Walks Into A Pub . One day, Pete's world is rocked when he discovers several countries produce, consume, and celebrate beer far more than the British do. The Germans claim they make the best beer in the world, the Australians consider its consumption a patriotic duty, the Spanish regard lager as a trendy youth drink and the Japanese have built a skyscraper in the shape of a foaming glass of their favorite brew. At home, meanwhile, people seem to be turning their backs on the great British pint. What's going on? Drinking in more than 300 bars in 27 towns, through 13 different countries and four continents, Pete puts on 10 pounds and does irrecoverable damage to his health in the pursuit of saloon-bar enlightenment.

The story follows Steve, a formerly free-spirited man who awakens in an unfamiliar bed, stripped of his previous life in London. Captured by a "collector of beautiful young men," he faces a harsh reality where he must submit to the whims of his captor and those associated with him. As he navigates this new existence, he grapples with the loss of autonomy and the challenges of adapting to a life of servitude, revealing unexpected facets of his character and resilience in the face of his dire circumstances.

A history of Britain told through the story of one very special public house

Silverlight in Action, Revised Edition is a fast-paced, comprehensive tutorial that guides the reader from creating "Hello World" to coding production-quality, data-driven rich internet applications with graphics, audio, and video content. Written for a developer who already knows how to code in C#, this fluff-free book covers the basics quickly and dives into the heart of Silverlight development using XAML (a language for creating user interface elements), Visual Studio 2008/2010, and the Expression design suite. In addition to the fundamentals, the book covers the new features in Silverlight, as well as .NET RIA Services. It explains developing offline and "outside the browser" applications, managing video and audio, handling validation, navigation and deep-linking, and how each Silverlight feature fits into the overall Silverlight ecosystem.