Already released in the UK, but not until January in the States, this is a book I might actually buy rather than drone on here about whether anyone thinks it's good or if it's just rubbish. I'll tell you why.

Paul Morley -- besides being from Manchester and following Joy Division as a fan and journalist for NME during the 1978-1983 explosion of post-punk -- is apparently a kickass writer. He's also apparently of the mind that something intensely magical was happening with music in the UK at this time, something that caused a shift in the lives of a whole generation. Discovering Joy Division as a 14-year-old, 8 years after the death of Ian Curtis, I felt a tremendous shift in my own life too. That is powerful music. I really don't think I'd be the same person today had I never heard Unknown Pleasures.

Oh, and how it pours when it rains: also out in early 2008 (in the UK, and hopefully across the pond as well) is the Jon Savage film titled, simply, Joy Division. With new interviews with surviving Joy Division members Peter Hook, Bernard Sumner, and Stephen Morris, as well as loads of live footage, I am intrigued to hear it described by Peter Hook as "the perfect answer to Control."