Jimmy Ramsay - Tower Blocks & Top Tens (Independent Music Press)

Any book that's 100% unofficial and with a low, 123-pages-to-£8.99 price ratio is never going to go in anything other than the cash-in category. Which is a shame because the story of Mike Skinner and The Streets is one that's well worth telling. In fact it was worth telling right from the moment Skinner started coming out with lyrics like “You say that everything sounds the same, then you go buy them. There's no excuses my friend, lets push things forward…”

Whether or not lines like that make him “the new Alan Bennett” (a claim dissected in this book) is another matter. But author Jimmy Ramsay tells Skinner’s story well, right from the moment he couldn’t believe his mum was singing along to Dry Your Eyes Mate via comparisons with Ken Loach and, really, Yes’ Tales From Topographic Oceans.

Of course it's never going to be the longest book because Skinner has only released two albums so far, 2002’s Original Pirate Material and last year’s A Grand Don’t Come For Free. But this is a world where Geri Halliwell and Robbie Williams are both on their second autobiographies, despite making about as much creative impact in their entire careers as Mike Skinner utters in a single outro.