November 17 - Book Of The Year

Peter Guralnick's 'The Colonel and the King' has made the 2025 100 Must-Read Books by TIME. 

The magazine wrote: Elvis Presley has been gone for 48 years now, but he hasn’t really died. The second half of the 20th century took shape around his almost mystical youthful charisma, and later around his ghost. But Elvis wouldn’t have been Elvis without Colonel Tom Parker, the Dutch-born entrepreneur who managed Presley’s career from 1955 until 1976, just one year before the performer’s death. 

Peter Guralnick has already given us the definitive Elvis biography with his two-volume classic, 'Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley' and 'Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley', published in the ’90s. Consider 'The Colonel and the King: Tom Parker, Elvis Presley, and the Partnership That Rocked the World' - a sympathetic, surprising, and assiduously researched book - a coda to that essential work. 

Parker was a shrewd wheeler-dealer, a flimflammer of the highest order; he’s commonly seen as a villain in Elvis’ story. But Guralnick argues, convincingly, that Parker’s role was more complex than that. These are two men whose fates were entwined. To love one of them also means reckoning with the truth of the other. 

Uncut magazine went even further and made Guralnick's book the No. 1 book of 2025. Go to the Uncut website to read >>> the complete review of 'The Colonel and the King'.

You can buy 'The Colonel and the King' on >>> Amazon (associate link).

Review Elvis Day By Day 2017

Perhaps not Uncut's "book of the Year," but I'm proud of the great review Piers Beagley wrote on my 'Elvis Day By Day 2017 - The Year In Review' book. 

The review opened with: "Kees Mouwen's very first "'Elvis Day By Day' Special" was his year-book compiling "everything Elvis" from 2019. In his introduction that very first year he wrote that "perhaps this is the start of a tradition" - and indeed it was and with every year-book since then being bigger and brighter. 

Not only do these annuals show fans’ fascination with Elvis Presley but also how his legacy is still growing even after all these years. 

He concluded: "While I understand that this book might not be for everybody -  after all some fans are purely interested in the 'newest never-seen-before product' being released this week - I find it fascinating looking through what was being released back in 2017 and the Elvis highlights from the year. 

Not only did this 2017-year-in-review book provided some very satisfying reading but it also got me spinning some Elvis CDs and vinyl that I haven't played in years. And also had me looking through some of those glorious Elvis books that I have left gathering dust on my shelves for far too long. 

And perhaps best of all, using Kees’ list of top quality Elvis products that were released back in 2017 I have tracked down and ordered some older items that I missed out on from eBay. In the end, it’s all about the joy of being an Elvis fan - there’s always more to read and discover."

Thank you Piers, much appreciated! For the full review, please visit >>> The Elvis Information Network. 

The book is available from >>> the Poplar Tunes webshop and >>> Amazon. 

(Source: Nashville Elvis Fans / Peter Guralnick / Uncut / Time / Elvis Information Network)