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Nov. 3, 2026
Devil On My Shoulder Named to Rough Trade’s Books of the Year
via Rough Trade
The music we love holds stories that deserve to be lifted onto the page.
From Melissa Auf der Maur’s Even the Good Girls Will Cry to Stephanie Phillips’ We Were Here, our selection explores the people and communities who have shaped music, including voices too often left out of its history. Alice Cooper takes us behind the shock-rock spectacle, Grandmaster Flash revisits hip-hop’s beginnings, and Mike Pickering, writing with Paul Morley, traces a life at the heart of Manchester’s musical evolution. Essential reads for music lovers, spanning candid music memoirs, alternative histories, fiction and beautifully illustrated archives.
Scroll on down to find 20 beautifully produced books which have stood out as the best reads of 2026, including Rough Trade Exclusive editions, signed copies, special posters or postcards and unseen photography.
3. Alice Cooper – Devil On My Shoulder
Hardback + Rough Trade Exclusive lenticular bookmark + Deluxe special edition.
A personal tell-all memoir from the man behind the character, Vincent Furnier, better known as the godfather of shock rock Alice Cooper. Across six decades of music, the memoir explores the construction of a shock-rock legend alongside addiction, recovery, faith, marriage and what happens when the character you create starts taking over your life. With the aim of separating the much-talked-about myth from reality around his life, Cooper reveals an unconventional but self-serious memoir, providing a deep dive into his past like never before, and his eventual path to sobriety via renewed Christian faith.