If music be the food of love, then play on, they say. Or, in this case, read on, as a flood of books about various areas of the music industry are upon us in the run-up to festive time. For fans of the dour and droll songwriting legend Leonard Cohen, Sylvie Simmons’ I’m Your Man (Jonathan Cape) will be a treat as it discusses all facets of his output (including poetry and prose) as well as looking at the influential figures who made him the guy he is today.

Phil Hardy’s Download: How Digital Transformed the Record Business (Omnibus) might sound as though it’s stating the bleeding obvious, but this will still be a must for those keen on tracking the progression of the music biz from the high watermark of the 80s CD revolution to the sight of giant record companies struggling to survive today.

Some stars are recession and revolution-proof once they have successfully created their ‘brand’, and a certain Aussie pop pixie is surely in that category. Kylie Minogue teams up here with her longtime fashion designer pal William Baker to produce, unbelievably, Kylie / Fashion (Thames & Hudson), a glossy affair detailing her ever-changing look down the years which, thankfully, has little do with her ‘music’.

Can you imagine a fashion bible with Bruce ‘The Boss’ Springsteen? It would be a struggle to fit all the gasoline-stained jeans/checked shirt combinations he’s come up with down the years into one book. For some reason, Peter Ames Carlin’s Bruce (Simon & Schuster) focuses on the man and his music with the author gaining what they like to call ‘unprecedented access’ for this ‘definitive’ biog.