Achebe wrote novels, poetry and essays, and is most famous for his first novel Things Fall Apart, published in 1958. Things Fall Apart has sold more than 10 million copies and is one of the great novels of the 20th century. The title is taken from a WB Yeats poem and the colonial-themed plot concerns the arrival of white men in a rural village. He wrote the book in English but was widely criticised in Africa for doing so.

Things Fall Apart, No Longer at Ease and Arrow of God are sometimes described as The African Trilogy.

Born in 1930, The author won the Commonwealth poetry prize for his collection Christmas in Biafra. He was a finalist for the 1987 Man Booker prize for Anthills of the Savannah, and he won 2007 Man Booker international prize. In 1975, he famously called Joseph Conrad “a bloody racist.”

Things Fall Apart is the most widely read African book of all time and it has been translated into around 50 languages.

Achebe was a professor of Africana studies at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, until his death. He left Nigeria in 1990 after a car accident left him paralysed from the waist down and moved to the US.

‘Once upon a time, and quite out of the blue, when I was least expecting it, I had a huge worldwide hit single,” writes Tracey Thorn in Bedsit Disco Queen, her intensely readable account of 30 years of being in love with music. The hit she refers to is Missing, recorded in 1993, as one half of Everything But the Girl, with her musical and romantic partner Ben Watt.

Everything But the Girl  survived for 18 years, between 1982 and 2000, and released nine albums and sold nine million records. I have a feeling this book will once again guide me through the 1980s and 1990s as those decades were yesterday. Goodness only knows how times I have listened to their huge hit, Missing, and her work with Massive Attack on Protection.

The Guardian reviews Rod: The Autobiography by Rod Stewart. Last night on the radio, they played Do Ya Think I’m Sexy? It brought back a lot of memories of Kenny Everett parodies. December 1978 seems like just the other day. In shocking news, this book doesn’t seem too bad. Apparently, Rod’s best chat-up line is ‘Hello darlin’ – what you got in that handbag?’

I don’t know whether Stewart wrote all of Rod himself but if he did he deserves respect and if he didn’t I hope his ghost – rumoured to be journalist Giles Smith – is getting a decent slice of the action. The writing is a cut above workmanlike, the tone pitched right and the jokes good. Each chapter is given a whimsical 18th-century-style subheading, beginning with the dry: “In which our hero is born, just over six years of global conflict ending shortly thereafter …”

Sprinkled hither and yon are Digressions on various pet subjects. The first one is on the subject of his hair, and it’s splendid. He’s had the same hairstyle for 45 years (“It’s what I have in common with the Queen”). He paints a delightful portrait of early days: he and Ron Wood spending hours tenderly arranging each-other’s barnets; or standing on the platform at Archway tube desperately trying to protect his bouffant from the pressure wave of the arriving train.

AbeBooks offers signed copies of Rod: The Autobiography – the prices are no where near the prices asked for signed copies of Keith Richards’ autobiography.

He wrote radio comedy for the likes of Frankie Howerd, Tony Hancock and The Goon Show in his early career. I recommend a slapstick film called The Plank where Sykes and Tommy Cooper are the most accident-prone workmen you will ever encounter. The cast of this almost silent short film is a who’s who of British comedy – even Jimmy Tarbuck is in it.

Sykes wrote a few books. His autobiography, If I Don’t Write It Nobody Else Will, was published in 2005.  He wrote a novel called Smelling of Roses set against the backdrop of the North African desert campaign of World War II. His fiction also includes The Great Crime of Grapplewick (a story of bizarre provincial goings-on in a Northern town) and UFOs are Coming Wednesday (an alien arrives in a small town).

McLaren wanted football hooligans at the Sex Pistols concerts (punch-ups are great for publicity) so he placed a few ads that would be seen by hooligans. Between the Covers-Rare Books in New Jersey is offering the two programmes for sale at £767.

It’s an interesting bit of marketing but I also find myself drawn to the players on the covers. I think the Manchester City programme features Peter Barnes knocking in another cross (Dennis Tueart is probably on the receiving end). I cannot identify the Ipswich Town player in blue (is it Tevor Whymark?) but his opponent in yellow is the great Tony Currie of Leeds United.

It was around this time that I went to my first football match – Stoke City (which included Garth Crooks) versus Cardiff City at the old Victoria Ground. Seeing these programmes brings it all back.

(By the way, if you are really into collecting Sex Pistols memorabilia then AbeBooks.co.uk is also offering is this rider from their doomed 1978 American tour.)