Tales of a librarian

Tori settled for a life in Cornwall with husband and daughter

Tales of a Librarian might seem like an unusual title, but it is in fact appropriate for the latest album by Tori Amos which is also her first ever compilation of tracks.

The two disc, which is a CD and DVD, has 20 of Tori's tracks.

It's being billed on her website as her "musical autobiography".

Her career was launched more than 10 years ago, but the new collection sees some tracks "reconditioned" offering a new perspective - according to her website.

Click here to go to Tori Amos's official website.

It was 1992 when the name Tori Amos first began to attract attention with her Little Earthquakes album.

Her songs were about real life angst and suffering, and her handful of appearances on Top of the Pops were best remembered for her frantic arm waving and not necessarily for keeping her hands on the piano.

The part Cherokee daughter of a Methodist Minister was launched her singing career at the age of 12 - Little Earthquakes was followed in 1994 by Under the Pink.

Tori's fanzine on the web described her next album, the 1996 Boys for Pele as a "brilliant work... this is her most intense and dark album, and one of the most complex."

A clutch of four albums followed Boys for Pele culminating in Scarlet's Walk in 2002, where her musical alter ego takes a journey across post September 11 America.

Family life

In 1998 Tori got married, to a British sound engineer, and baby Natashya soon followed.

She's two now, but in the late nineties, the couple took the unusual decision to set up home near Bude in Cornwall.

It seemed the wild stage performances with Tori writhing around in scarlet suit, flame red hair flowing everywhere were at risk of becoming a thing of the past as she settled for a country life in the south west of England.

But the queen of mystic seems happy enough, and with her husband wants their daughter to go to an English school.

But life in the country has not slowed down the work, after the album and website launch, there's rumours of a film role in Mona Lisa Smile with Julia Roberts.

Tales of a Librarian by Tori Amos is released on 18 November on Atlantic