"It’s difficult to understand what the hell you do with the idea of Wilson, really"

Another day, another handsome doorstop volume from White Rabbit through the post - this time Lenny Kaye's Lightning Striking. But, as JR Moores' Electric Wizards proved, the imprint doesn't quite have a complete monopoly on fascinating music-themed books. Another case in point is Paul Morley's From Manchester With Love: The Life And Opinions Of Tony Wilson, published by Faber, which prompted this engaging interview with Fergal Kinney of the Quietus. 

Morley presents Wilson in conversation (as, it seems, in the book) as a complex, contradictory character - as you might expect as someone "who had Factory Records but also worked on the telly". In both contexts, though, he was "smuggling ideas, content and connections to people".

While Morley acknowledges that Wilson's cultural and social legacy extends beyond music and into the regeneration of Manchester and the North, he nevertheless admits to being much more "a fan of that disruptor" - the maverick behind Factory and the Hacienda - than of "the Happy Mondays associate and the guy who set up the In The City conference".

Effectively decades in the writing, From Manchester With Love stretches to an eyewatering 600 pages. But then much more has been written about much less interesting and less deserving individuals, so I'd be inclined to excuse a certain amount of bagginess.