Accurately subtitled Six Decades Of Hot Hits & Classic Cuts, this weighty history of the most important releases of the five-and-a-bit decades of pop and rock to date is two books in one. Jawbone’s separate singles and albums volumes have been stuck together back to back (180 degrees to each other to confuse stupid people) and the result is an encyclopaedia that covers pretty much all the ground, from the raw thrills of Rock Around The Clock in 1954, to the tinny wails of Justin Timberlake in ’06.

A bunch of writers whose names you’ll know from RC and other respected music mags take the reader through the most influential 750 singles and 400 albums of the last half-century, with enough factual information to make grown men weep. The highlights will depend on your musical tastes, but learning about Maggie May’s 12-string intro (composed on the way to the studio), seeing Mick Jagger competing for World’s Puniest Man on page 197 and pondering on the Krautrock influence on Pulp’s Common People was worth the book’s price alone. Let’s have an updated edition every couple of years, eh? Mind you, it’ll be all downloads by then…