Several new books are scheduled to be released in 2018 to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Led Zeppelin. The new books included updated versions of older titles, as well as entirely new books.

There’s also an official Led Zeppelin photo book being released, which is part of the planned releases by Led Zeppelin to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary.

Here’s the current schedule of releases:

Late February/early March: Photographer Robert Ellis’ upcoming photo book

“Led Zeppelin – Live Times” is an upcoming hardback photography book from photographer Robert Ellis. It’s available to purchase through Ellis’ website for £95 until January 31 and will be released in February/March.

Here’s the official description of the book:

“The book starts at their first major show in 1969 at the London Royal Albert Hall and spans the bands career up to their final UK event at Knebworth Festival in 1979. The 200 large format pages incorporating over 500 images in colour and black and white sit inside a beautifully hand bound hard back cover. Robert Ellis was working for the leading UK music papers during this time and he was privileged to get unprecedented all show access to these tours including three nights at Earls Court in 1975 which became the cover story in the following weeks edition of Melody Maker. Most of the photographs incorporated here have not been seen before. (Well, we always say that!). It will be unique and special not only because 2018 marks the 50th anniversary of the band, but because this book will only be available to buy from this pre-order page. It cannot be combined with orders for any other of our titles. This page will close on the last day of January 2018, after which this book will not be available to buy. Publication will be in late February / early March 2018. The price is £95 UK pounds plus shipping. We ship worldwide. The total price will be automatically converted to your local currency using the prevailing rate at the time of order. Only orders received via this website on or before the pre-order closing date will be honoured. We accept PayPal and all major debit and credit cards accepted via a secured server. Each copy will be signed by the author. A dedication can be added if requested at the time of order.”

You can read our in-depth interview with Ellis here.

May 17: An updated version of Stephen Davis’ Led Zeppelin biography ‘Hammer of the Gods’

Stephen Davis’ Led Zeppelin biography “Hammer of the Gods” was first released in 1985, and has been reprinted many times since then.

Here’s the description of the book, via Amazon:

“If ever there were Satanic Majesties of rock their name was Led Zeppelin. The band that out-sold the Rolling Stones and made Robert Johnson’s deals with the devil look like a playground game of conkers were as high, inflated and glorified as their namesake. In Stephen Davis’s scorching account of their phenomenally successful career, no aspect – however disquieting – is ignored. The narcotic, alcoholic and psychotic wreckage they wreaked, the disturbing influence of the notorious mage Aleister Crowley on lead guitarist Jimmy Page and the death of John Bonham are all recorded. Above all, the exultant, blazing charge of their music and its effects on Led Zeppelin and their fans is scrutinized.

Hammer of the Gods by Stephen Davis is a fierce and fearless story about a band that remain a legend of musical, sexual and mystical power. It is the last word in rock ‘n’ roll savagery.”

Amazon UK lists the upcoming paperback reissue at £9.99

June 27: A Led Zeppelin photo book edited by Dave Lewis

Tight But Loose magazine editor Dave Lewis has edited an upcoming photo book which features photos of Led Zeppelin by three different photographers: Terry O’Neill, Michael Brennan, and Baron Wolman.

Here’s the official description via Amazon:

“Compiled and edited by world-renowned Led Zeppelin authority Dave Lewis, the author of several acclaimed Led Zeppelin books
Includes many rare and unseen photos of the band on and off stage
Extensive commentary throughout from top photographers: Terry O’Neill, Michael Brennan and Baron Wolman
A mixture of black & white and colour photography
Between 1975 and 1977, there is little doubt that Led Zeppelin ruled supreme as the biggest band in the world. Bigger audiences, bigger stage settings, bigger venues lights, lasers and dragon suits. All this combined to produce some of the most iconic images of the 1970s rock era. That era comes firmly under the spotlight in Led Zeppelin Live.

The book profiles the work of three highly respected photographers. Terry O Neill made his name documenting the fashions, styles and celebrities of the1960s. He was also on hand to capture Led Zeppelin at Earls Court in London on May 23, 1975; at Tampa Stadium, Florida on June 3,1977; and at New York s Madison Square Garden on June 7 of the same year. Also in the right place at the right time was Michael Brennan. Michael had built a reputation working for various daily newspapers in the UK. He moved to America in 1973 and began working on entertainment and sporting assignments. In early 1975, Michael travelled with the band on their rented luxury jet, a Boeing 720B known as The Starship. He was then in close proximity for their show on January 31,1975 at Detroit s Olympia Stadium.

The former chief photographer of Rolling Stone magazine, San Francisco-based Baron Wolman, was in attendance to capture what would turn out to be Led Zeppelin s final performances in America. In front of 50,000 fans each day, they played in the open air at the Alameda County Coliseum in Oakland California, on the afternoons of July 23 and 24,1977. Baron s chronicling of the band in stark daylight offers a unique portrayal of their final appearances in a large stadium setting.

Fifty years on from their formation in 1968, Led Zeppelin s legacy continues to inspire admiration and awe. The timeless photos presented in this book accurately capture Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and John Bonham in all their on-stage glory during their latter era. Compiled and edited by world-renowned Led Zeppelin authority Dave Lewis, Led Zeppelin Live chronicles the period when Led Zeppelin could rightly claim to be the greatest live rock attraction on the planet. Here s the lasting photographic proof…”

Amazon UK lists the hardback book at £29.95

October 2: The official Led Zeppelin photo book

Led Zeppelin will release an official hardback photo book on October 2. It’s currently listed on Amazon US as selling for $69.95, and will have 368 pages.

Here’s the full description of the book, via Amazon:

“Led Zeppelin by Led Zeppelin is the first and only official illustrated book to be produced in collaboration with the members of the band. Celebrating 50 years since their formation, it covers the group’s unparalleled musical career and features photographs of Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and John Bonham on and offstage, in candid moments and in the recording studio. This definitive 368-page volume includes unseen photographs and artwork from the Led Zeppelin archives and contributions from photographers around the world.”

October 16: ‘Bring it on Home: Peter Grant, Led Zeppelin and Beyond: The Story of Rock’s Greatest Manager’

There’s no cover art for this book yet, but here’s the description of the book via Amazon:

“Bring it on Home is a celebration, a cautionary tale and a compelling human drama.

Written with the full co-operation of the Grant family and with access to Grant’s private correspondence, business contracts and photographs, this biography features interviews with the three surviving members of Led Zeppelin, and examines Grant’s remarkably close (and some suggest unhealthy) relationship with Jimmy Page, his troubled relationship with Robert Plant and his great friendship with the late drummer John Bonham. Stories about how Grant intimidated the producers of The Song Remains the Same and the drug-related excess surrounding Swan Song Records and Grant’s relationship with John Bindon and his extended coterie of Kings Road criminals are told with great candour, while the details of a plot to kidnap Led Zeppelin’s band members’ children by Jamaican gangsters are revealed for the first time.

It also tells the dramatic and bleakly humorous family story of how Grant’s estranged wife, and two children, Helen and Warren, dealt with this unusual and often tumultuous life. Warren Grant discusses, with unflinching honesty, an often-dangerous adolescence spent with a drug-addicted father, surrounded by groupies and dealers, in a house filled with shotguns.

The narrative also features walk-on parts from Bob Dylan, Stanley Kubrick, Freddie Mercury, Elizabeth Taylor, Keith Moon, Elvis Presley, Elvis’s father Vernon and Pope John XIII.

As Warren Grant says now: ‘My dad knew everyone’.”

Author Mark Blake has previously written books about Queen and Pink Floyd, and has written for Q, Mojo, The Times, Classic Rock Magazine, The Daily Telegraph, and Rolling Stone.

The book is currently priced at £20 on Amazon UK.

October 18: An updated version of Mick Wall’s Led Zeppelin biography ‘When Giants Walked the Earth’

Rock journalist Mick Wall’s biography of Led Zeppelin was first published in 2008, and it’s being updated and revised for the band’s fiftieth anniversary.

Wall told LedZepNews that the new version features an additional 40,000 words and “dozens of exclusive new interviews.”

Here’s the book’s description via Amazon:

“The definitive final word on the world’s greatest rock band, Led Zeppelin.

They were ‘the last great band of the sixties; the first great band of the seventies’; they rose, somewhat unpromisingly, from the ashes of the Yardbirds to become one of the biggest-selling rock bands of all time. Mick Wall, respected rock writer and former confidant of both Page and Plant, unflinchingly tells the story of the band that wrote the rulebook for on-the-road excess – and eventually paid the price for it, with disaster, drug addiction and death.

WHEN GIANTS WALKED THE EARTH reveals for the first time the true extent of band leader Jimmy Page’s longstanding interest in the occult, and goes behind the scenes to expose the truth behind their much-hyped yet spectacularly contrived comeback at London’s O2 arena in 2007, and how Jimmy Page plans to bring the band back permanently – if only his former protégé, now part-time nemesis, Robert Plant will allow him to. Wall also recounts, in a series of flashbacks, the life stories of the five individuals that made the dream of Led Zeppelin into an even more incredible and hard-to-swallow reality: Page, Plant, John Paul Jones, John Bonham, and their infamous manager, Peter Grant.

Over ten years after WHEN GIANTS WALKED THE EARTH, Mick’s seminal biography of the band, comes this major and extensively researched revision, which will provide an unflinching look at life inside one of the biggest-selling rock bands of all time, and present the definitive, final word on Led Zeppelin.”

The book is currently listed on Amazon UK for £20.