Steven Patrick Morrissey is one of the most original and controversial voices in the history of popular music. With The Smiths, he led the most influential British guitar group of the 1980s, his enigmatic wit and style defining a generation.

As a solo artist, he has continued to broach subjects no other singer would dare. Worshipped by some, vilified by others, Morrissey is a unique rock and roll creation.

The 300,000 words of Mozipedia make this the most intimate and in-depth biographical portrait of the man and his music yet. Bringing together every song, album, collaborator, key location, every hero, book, film, and record to have influenced his art, it is the summation of years of meticulous research.

Morrissey authority Simon Goddard has interviewed almost everybody of any importance, making Mozipedia the last word on Morrissey and The Smiths.

Whether you load your iPod with Bach or Bono, music has a significant role in your life—even if you never realized it. Why does music evoke such powerful moods? The answers are at last becoming clear, thanks to revolutionary neuroscience and the emerging field of evolutionary psychology.

Both a cutting-edge study and a tribute to the beauty of music itself, This Is Your Brain on Music unravels a host of mysteries that affect everything from pop culture to our understanding of human nature, including:

• Are our musical preferences shaped in utero?
• Is there a cutoff point for acquiring new tastes in music?
• What do PET scans and MRIs reveal about the brain’s response to music?
• Is musical pleasure different from other kinds of pleasure?

This Is Your Brain on Music explores cultures in which singing is considered an essential human function, patients who have a rare disorder that prevents them from making sense of music, and scientists studying why two people may not have the same definition of pitch. At every turn, this provocative work unlocks deep secrets about how nature and nurture forge a uniquely human obsession.