[]
I'm Coming To Take You To Lunch
  • Published: 1 June 2006
  • ISBN: 9780091897628
  • Imprint: Ebury Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 304
  • RRP: $45.00

I'm Coming To Take You To Lunch

A fantastic tale of boys, booze and how Wham! were sold to China

Buy from…
Book Hero BookHub Mighty Ape Paper Plus The Nile The Warehouse Whitcoulls Unity Books Find Local Retailers

The acclaimed author of Black Vinyl White Powder and You Don't Have To Say You Love Me takes us on a Far Eastern pop adventure as he tries to take Wham! behind the bamboo curtain

Pop manager extraordinaire Simon Napier-Bell had had enough. He'd had enough of pop groups. He'd had enough of the constant grief at home with his two ex-boyfriends bickering and bleeding him dry; and most of all he'd had enough of the music biz. But then he fell in love with a new passion - the Far East; and a dynamic new duo - George and Andrew - jointly called Wham! Soon, in an audacious attempt to have the best of both worlds, he found himself offering to arrange for Wham! to be the first ever Western pop group to play in communist China - a masterstroke of PR which, in one swift stroke, would make them one of the biggest groups in the world.

What follows is an exciting, unpredictable and hilarious romp around the more curious corners of the world as Napier-Bell dives into the unknown, attempting to achieve the unachievable. We soon find ourselves in the company of a wonderful cast of petulant pop stars, shady international 'businessmen', and a hilarious confusion of spies, students and institutionalised officials and ministers as he edges ever closer to inadvertently becoming one of the first Westerners to break down the walls of communist China.
  • Published: 1 June 2006
  • ISBN: 9780091897628
  • Imprint: Ebury Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 304
  • RRP: $45.00

About the author

Simon Napier-Bell

Simon Napier-Bell has been a film composer, songwriter, record producer, and author, but he is perhaps best known for having managed such artists as The Yardbirds, Marc Bolan, T Rex, Japan and Wham! Under his management, Wham! became the first Western pop group to ever play in Communist China in the 80s. He is the author of three other books about the music industry: You Don't Have to Say You Love Me, Black Vinyl White Powder, and I'm Coming to Take You to Lunch. He is a director of Papa Entertainments PLC and of Snap-B Music, and continues to consult, write and broadcast on the music industry.
SN-

Also by Simon Napier-Bell

You Don't Have To Say You Love Me
Black Vinyl White Powder
See all

Praise for I'm Coming To Take You To Lunch

Tells the story with a raconteur's relish and a cast of shady characters straight out of a Graham Greene novel

Q magazine

Richly funny and entertaining..some of it reads like a big, gay Bond thriller; other bits are pure, pungent travelogue

Mojo

Given Napier-Bell's hedonistic life in Eighties London, his diverse circle of acquaintances and his pithy, lively writing style, this book could hardly fail to entertain

Observer

Funny and totally absorbing

Pink Paper

Reading this is like sitting across a table groaning with foie gras, listening to a raconteur extraordinaire ramble through an alcoholic mist...tremendous fun

Gay Times

A riot of boys, booze and 80s excess...a great raconteur and his snide asides are a joy...Bitchier than an Elton John put down

Elle