The bizarre world of rock and roll is uncovered by novelist Sylvie Simmons
– and a lot of it is very, very weird, writes Tom Foot

SYLVIE Simmons thinks she has got it pretty good. She lives in San Francisco, follows rock and roll around the world for a top music magazine, and now has a new best seller.
Simmons grew up in NW1, cutting her teeth as a music journalist in Kentish Town and Camden Town. “In those days, Camden was the rock and roll centre of the universe,” she says. Much of Too Weird For Ziggy is written from the perspective of a Camden journalist. That person is clearly a younger Ms Simmons. Only a true Camdenite would have the inside track on the area. Her chapter ‘Love Stain’ ends: “Camden Council is notoriously crap at cleaning up.”
Simmons, who has been on the road with many famous groups and even interviewed the troubled star Michael Jackson, is best known for her acclaimed biography of Serge Gainsbourg, A Fistful of Gitanes. Gainsbourg rose to fame in the mid 1950s with a succession of hits and a high profile relationship with actress Jane Birkin, who supplied the ecstatic highs for the banned Je T’aime.

The autobiography of one of publishing’s most dashing figures leaves Gerald Isaaman lamenting missed opportunities

HE dazzles. He delights. And he reveals remarkable stories of success and behind-the-scenes coups in the world of publishing.
But, mostly, Tom Maschler’s autobiography is a disappointment. Here is possibly the most passionate publisher of the second half of the 20th century, a truly entrepreneurial man with brilliant ideas whose path to triumph included launching the Booker Prize and such exceptional authors as Joseph Heller, Philip Roth, John Fowles, Martin Amis, Ian McEwan and Julian Barnes.