Britney, Lou Reed, Creation Records... the best music books of 2023  

If a music biography or cultural history is on your list for a gift or personal treat, here are some of the best from this year 

Britney, Lou Reed, and Creation Records: some of Eoghan O'Sullivan's music-literature picks.

Reach for the Stars: 1996-2006: Fame, Fallout and Pop’s Final Party, Michael Cragg 

Taking the brilliant Meet Me in the Bathroom, an oral history about New York music in the early 00s, as inspiration, Cragg turns the spotlight on the Spice Girls, 5ive, Mis-teeq, Craig David, Atomic Kitten, and a host of similar turn-of-the-century pop acts that you’ve forgotten about in the couple of decades since.