READY, STEADY, GO! THE SMASHING RISE AND GIDDY FALL OF SWINGING LONDON (2002)

Terence Stamp, icon of his era, was idling in a London shop in the 1960s when someone called an item ''swinging.'' The actor balked. ''That bloody expression,'' he muttered. ''Swinging London,'' the name and the thing itself, is a little annoying, isn't it? Happily, this pop history of the '60s style capital eschews the dated swirling flash but still stays nimble and exciting. Levy sums up the age by sticking close to a handful of its kings, including Stamp, Mick Jagger and the Stones, the Beatles and Brian Epstein, and Vidal Sassoon. That approach should make the book feel as wispy as Twiggy, but it doesn't, in part because Levy's writing is more smashing than an Austin Powers movie.