I must have read hundreds of books about music. I've flicked even more. There aren't many I would volunteer to read again. They either date like fish or have the hollowness of old press releases. Sometimes both.

How many people still read Bare, the bestselling George Michael hagiography from 1990 that doesn't mention him being gay? Most rock stars are their own greatest inventions and are a bit hazy when it comes to recognising, let alone telling, the truth. Therefore steer clear of life stories, particularly about the living. You're better off with romans à clef such as Bruce Thomas's The Big Wheel (Helter Skelter, £10.99/offer £9.89) or John Niven's recent Kill Your Friends (Heinemann, £12.99/£11.69). The former is the revenge of Elvis Costello's bass player while the latter is a breathtakingly bitter account of A&R in the era of Britpop.

Ninety nine per cent of showbusiness careers end in failure. Giles Smith's Lost in Music (Picador, £6.99/£6.64) is a true account of how a music obsessive jumped the counter long enough to discover that he didn't have the makings of a lifer, hopping back to embrace solvency and job satisfaction.

Since the end of the 1960s most music books have been exercises in hindsight. The man who got his hindsight in first was Nik Cohn. His Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom (Pimlico, £7.99/£7.59) gaily announced the death of pop as early as 1970. In the overheated style that was being developed by the rock press around the same time, Cohn argued that pop music should be about flash, sex and cinema seats dampened by urine.

From the Times Archive: The 1969 review of 'Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom'

It's possible to go on holiday with an iPod loaded with all 186 tracks that Ian Macdonald covered in his 1994 book Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties (Pimlico, £8.99/£8.54). A critical diary of what is arguably the most intense period of creativity of the whole era, it leaves you better informed about how the Beatles did things without in any way diminishing your love of the things that they did.

Macdonald's book proved that it was still possible to provide a fresh angle on an overfamiliar subject. Managing the same trick last year was Faking It (Faber, £14.99/£13.49), by Hugh Barker and Yuval Taylor. They propose the idea that “roots”, the quality by which critical opinion sets such store, is the invention of marketing men. Alan Lomax advised Leadbelly to go on stage in prison uniform because he knew that's how the white audience wanted to see him. From Bob Dylan's transformation from shopkeeper's son to train-hopping hobo through Richey Manic carving the words “4 Real” into his arm all the way to Amy Winehouse, music has always provided a theatre in which kids from mundane backgrounds can act out personal fantasies.

Gerri Hirshey wrote Nowhere To Run: The Story Of Soul Music (Southbank, £9.99/£9.49) in the early 1980s, when nobody was overly bothered about tracking down the legends of urban music. Because most had not written their own songs or had done bad recording deals, she found them putting food on the table by working on the road. Few could afford to be surrounded by the flunkies and air-warmers that attend white rock stars. Maybe that's how Hirshey ended up in a darkened dressing room alone with James Brown and Muhammad Ali.

As an antidote to all this worthiness the recently published Ronnie (Pan, £8.99/£8.54) by Ron Wood is either hilarious or tragic, depending on how you look at it. For an account of the unexamined life it takes some beating. This, don't forget, is a man who had a guitar roadie who was tone deaf. His record of ill-advised property purchases must make him the estate agents' best friend. He claims that the first time he was on a tennis court he annoyed John McEnroe by returning his serve. You couldn't make it up.

David Hepworth is a music writer and magazine guru, responsible for launching Empire, Mojo, Q and The Word.

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