From the overleaf:

One of music's true global superstars and most admired figures, Elton John has sold an estimated 200 million albums worldwide to date, and continues to appear regularly in the singles charts, thanks largely to a series of high-profile collaborations with new faces.

But the Queen Mum of Pop is loved as much for his outrageous personality and outspokenness as for his music. He's not afraid of drawing attention to the perceived shortcomings of others, and regularly delivers public admonishment, but he is also the first to recognise his own lapses in judgement.

After all, he is the man who himself admitted that in one of his more comedic cocaine-fuelled moments he phoned his agent 'to tell him to do something about the wind outside my hotel room'. Such shamelessness, and sheer silliness, rival anything uttered by the snotties of punks or the most outrageous of shock-rockers, yet it is so typically Elton John: honest, and wittily intemperate.

Tragedy and heartbreak have played a large part in his life too. Behind the parties, the hedonism, the lavish stage costuming and the silly glasses lies a more sombre story. There have been disputes with managers, legal wranglings, splits and a divorce. Added to that there have been serious health problems, a very public battle with his expanding waistline and receding hairline, addictions and spells when he wanted to quit the business altogether.

But today he's in a stable relationship with civil partner David Furnish. His demons and critical stock is in the ascendancy. With popular acts such as the Scissor Sisters sounding more like Elton than Elton himself, after years in MOR wilderness, Elton and his music are cool again.

Drawing on numerous first-hand interviews with many of his associates and musical collaborators, this page-turning story of high drama and prodigious enduring talent traces Elton's astonishing journey through life as the collosus of camp, while also offering a critical study of his work, and analysing afresh his contribution to popular music.