Scars of Sweet Paradise: the Life and Times of Janis Joplin, by Alice Echols (Virago, £9.99 in UK)

Forget everything you've ever read, heard or seen about Janis Joplin - Alice Echols has written the definitive account of rock's first female superstar - a "ballsy broad, a chick with acne who took up too much space in the boys' club of late-sixties rock 'n' roll". Despite being scarred by her repressive 1950s, small-town, Texas upbringing, Janis's commitment to a search for freedom, and pain at feeling unloved and unlovable, never prevented her from going to the edge. But Echols' page-turner, though exploding the simplistic view of Janis as victim, is much more than a biography. While delving into the rollercoaster, often sordid life of the hard-drinking, drug-taking, bisexual singer, Echols charts the growth of San Francisco; the commercialisation of rock; and the birth of the Black Power and women's movements. So just think yourself back into the 1960s and enjoy it.