Pink Floyd Encyclopedia 3rd Edition, April 2005

The book is designed to be the guide to pretty much anything you need to know about the band, and looks at all aspects of the band's history - covering things such as all the people involved in their career, all the major releases, live appearances, film work, and much more. Not a book you can sit down and read from cover to cover, but one to dip into and great for answering many of those nagging questions that crop up from time to time.

The author, Vernon Fitch, has long been seen as one of the experts on the band's history, has spent many years collecting Floyd items of all kinds, and this book has been a labour of love for him.

First impressions are of how similar the second and third editions are; gone is the glossy cover (but in with a sort of plasticised paper) and there are some subtle colour changes here and there. Overall dimensions are identical, too.

Despite more information present, there are the same number of pages. This is mainly due to a smaller font being used, principally for entry titles and main descriptions, which must have helped greatly in packing more info in. The smaller font makes the concert date listings at the rear of the book, in particular, a lot neater and easier to read.

Whilst on that subject, Vernon has obviously spent some time going through these dates, as in recent years a number of people have discovered new shows and disproved others. It's never going to be complete, especially for the early days, but it is also good to get rid of the shows that never happened. Tour dates are something that we, on this site, strive to keep as up-to-date as possible, too, so we know how many changes there have been in the last few years.

In terms of other data in the book, this has been updated or added where appropriate, and there are a number of obvious new entries and amendments. The very nature of a book like this, means though that the moment it is published, it is out of date, and so we guess Vernon is compiling new info ready for the fourth edition - although we suspect that is quite some time away! And the book still comes with a free CD, with Hawkwind performing Interstellar Overdrive and (new for this edition) A Saucerful Of Secrets (Reprise). However, this is just an interesting novelty and not likely to be played too often...

In the meantime, an absolutely essential book to have amongst your favourites, within arm's reach. We've long been a satisfied user of the encyclopedia - it has made our life a lot easier when looking for sometimes pretty obscure information, and this new edition simply provides more of this good stuff, in a tidier and easier to read format.

If you have the first edition, then it is definitely time to upgrade. If you have the second edition, maybe not such a need, but there should definately be enough changes between the two to make it difficult not to take the plunge, especially if you make regular use of it. Indeed, Vernon tells us that there are thousands of new entries in this third edition, some of which have been provided by the band themselves, making this a fairly unique, and essential, publication!

Orders for this book are now being taken by Amazon - UK/Elsewhere, US/International, Canada, Germany, or France.