As �official� chronicler of the mancunian band, Morley�s JD book is an almost 400-page celebration of the success of the band and an elegy of its frontman�s premature death in 1980.

Nolan�s book on guitarist Sumner, from Joy Division to New Order, is a more orthodox biography with numerous details about Sumner�s childhood and youth in Salford, and what followed afterwards, including the famous Ha�ienda club years. Although published as an �unofficial biography�, Sumner read the manuscript and commented on some aspects of it; those comments are clearly written in italics in the book.

Paul Morley�s book on Joy Division has an intriguing photograph of the band, taken by Anton Corbijn, who then would direct - 27 years later - a movie on a band that has haunted the Dutch photographer since he first met them, back in the late seventies. So Paul Morley has also been haunted as a journalist for the last 27 years by the band, since his first reviews as an NME collaborator. In �Joy Division Piece by Piece� you will find everything Morley has written on the band from its beginnings: his articles for the Observer and the NME, the obituary on Ian Curtis�s death � JD�s frontman - or the obituary he wrote for Tony Wilson, co-founder of Factory Records, Joy Division and New Order�s label, who died in August 2007.

There are two things that really shine in Morley�s book: one of them is the interview with the band in 2006, where the three remaining members of the band reflect on Curtis�s death and what followed afterwards; the second achievement, although there are quite a few people who tend to think that Morley can only talk and write gibberish, is Morley�s attempt to explain Joy Division�s music in almost literary terms, his attempts, sometimes successful and sometimes just �gibberish�, of trying to capture the essence of the music of Joy Division with words, convinced as he is that music cannot only be heard and felt, but also explained � some people are convinced of the contrary, of course, you cannot explain music nor architecture nor paintings -. If you like �hagiographies�, Morley�s book is your book.

David Nolan is a Salford-based journalist and writer who in �Bernard Sumner: Confusion�, tries to shed some light on one of the quietest frontmen in British music history. Sumner formed JD in the late seventies along with singer Ian Curtis, bass player Peter Hook � his childhood friend - and drummer Stephen Morris. After Curtis�s suicide in 1980, Joy Division changed its name to New Order, kept the same record label, the same manager and the same producer, brought along Gillian Gilbert, Morris�s girlfriend, and became one the most successful bands of the eighties. Sumner found himself in the impossible task of filling Ian�s shoes - a formidable lyricist with a formidable voice - and lead the band that, influenced by what they saw in some New York and Detroit clubs during the 80�s, would embrace dance music and would contribute to put Manchester in the music map and gave a legendary halo to Factory�s Ha�ienda club, where British kids danced their socks off from the mid-eighties until its closure in 1997.

The most surprising piece of information in the book is Sumner�s work as a music producer for bands such as Happy Mondays, Section 25 and Electronic, during the 80�s. His input in the albums he produced is, according to some insiders, superb. Nolan�s book, in fact, is a testimony of a band pulling itself together after a catastrophic event � Ian�s death could have very well been the end of Joy Division, but there was too much going on inside Sumner, Morris and Hook - and only by becoming something different, that is New Order, could they feel that there was a future for them. New Order has unofficially split last year, with bassist Hook creating a new band called Freebass.

Nolan�s book is rich in accounts and quotes from interviews, it is very well written, although, at times, one feels that it lacks in �theorizing Morley�s gibberish talk�, which could have given the book a stronger �spiritual� content. But one feels that Nolan the writer is as quiet and discreet as Sumner the musician, always more interested on the technical side of music, not really bothered about the intellectual side of it.

2007 was a Joy Division year, indeed, except for those JD/NO die-hard fans; for them, of course, ANY year is a Joy Division/New Order year, and so it should be, to celebrate the talented musicians that gave us �New Dawn Fades�, �Ceremony� and �Blue Monday�.

Raquel Moran was born in Asturias �Spain- the last year of the sixties, and she is so grateful to Mum and Dad for it. She studied Geography at the University of Oviedo and she went to London in 1996, officially, to study History; unofficially, to become a �serious� writer. Eleven years on, she is still living somewhere in London with her partner and her daughter. She earns her living teaching French and Spanish to unruly secondary students and she is still trying to forge a steady and sound career as a �serious� writer. She does write mainly in Spanish, her mother tongue, and so she considers herself an heir to Cervantes, Cort�zar and Vargas Llosa, among others. She is currently in the process of self-publishing a novel titled Apolo y los centauros �www.trafford.com- and she is also working on her fourth novel, No Smoking, which will be completed, hopefully, before 2010. Hopefully.