Amy, My Daughter


Mitch Winehouse - 2012
    A legion of dedicated fans had lost their idol; a devastated family had lost their Amy. With this difficult news came an outpouring of love and grief from her fans, along with troubling questions about Amy's very public struggles with drugs and alcohol, as people tried to understand how such a soulful singer had been silenced so young.Now, in this intimate and tender account, her father and confidant, Mitch, offers an inside view of Amy's life as she lived it, putting to rest once and for all the controversies that have long surrounded her. Sifting fact from fiction, he pre-sents a portrait of Amy unlike any other, detailing the events and the people that shaped her youth--from her mischievous childhood to her grandmother's Jazz Age stories, to her father singing Frank Sinatra around the house. Shedding light on Amy's musical coming-of-age, Mitch explores how she honed her distinctive sound, created her unforgettable look, and channeled her own life into hits such as "You Know I'm No Good," "Rehab," and "Back to Black"--some of the most memorable and personal pop music in years.While her beehive hair, larger-than-life voice, and outrageous personality made her famous, her life offstage made her infamous. Here Mitch holds nothing back about Amy's addiction to drugs and alcohol, mixing the painful with the poignant as he describes the realities of her dependencies and the toll they took on the family and friends who refused to give up on her. Revealing the truth about Amy's substance abuse and dispelling many of the tabloid-fueled rumors about her tumultuous marriage to Blake Fielder-Civil, Mitch exposes the years of behind-the-scenes drama that consumed his life and explains how, for those who knew Amy in her last months, the greatest tragedy of all was that she finally appeared to be conquering her demons.Filled with insights into Amy Winehouse's music, photographs from her life, and stories of the real woman behind the headlines, "Amy, My Daughter" is an emotional journey into music, addiction, and the unbreakable bond between a daughter and her father.

The Wolf of Wall Street


Jordan Belfort - 2007
    By night he spent it as fast as he could, on drugs, sex, and international globe-trotting. From the binge that sank a 170-foot motor yacht and ran up a $700,000 hotel tab, to the wife and kids waiting at home, and the fast-talking, hard-partying young stockbrokers who called him king and did his bidding, here, in his own inimitable words, is the story of the ill-fated genius they called . . .THE WOLF OF WALL STREETIn the 1990s Jordan Belfort, former kingpin of the notorious investment firm Stratton Oakmont, became one of the most infamous names in American finance: a brilliant, conniving stock-chopper who led his merry mob on a wild ride out of the canyons of Wall Street and into a massive office on Long Island. Now, in this astounding and hilarious tell-all autobiography, Belfort narrates a story of greed, power, and excess that no one could invent.Reputedly the prototype for the film Boiler Room, Stratton Oakmont turned microcap investing into a wickedly lucrative game as Belfort’s hyped-up, coked-out brokers browbeat clients into stock buys that were guaranteed to earn obscene profits—for the house. But an insatiable appetite for debauchery, questionable tactics, and a fateful partnership with a breakout shoe designer named Steve Madden would land Belfort on both sides of the law and into a harrowing darkness all his own.From the stormy relationship Belfort shared with his model-wife as they ran a madcap household that included two young children, a full-time staff of twenty-two, a pair of bodyguards, and hidden cameras everywhere—even as the SEC and FBI zeroed in on them—to the unbridled hedonism of his office life, here is the extraordinary story of an ordinary guy who went from hustling Italian ices at sixteen to making hundreds of millions. Until it all came crashing down . . .

Up Till Now


William Shatner - 2008
    And it seems as if Shatner is everywhere. Winning an Emmy for his role on Boston Legal. Doing commercials for Priceline.com. In the movie theaters. Singing with Ben Folds. He’s sitting next to Jay Leno and Jimmy Kimmel, and he’s practically a regular on Howard Stern’s show. He was recently honored with election to the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame. He was a target on a Comedy Central’s Celebrity Roast entitled “The Shat Hits the Fan.” In Up Till Now, Shatner sits down with readers and offers the remarkable, full story of his life and explains how he got to be, well, everywhere. It was the original Star Trek series, and later its films, that made Shatner instantly recognizable, called by name---or at least by Captain Kirk’s name---across the globe. But Shatner neither began nor has ended his career with that role. From the very start, he took his skills as an actor and put them to use wherever he could. He straddled the classic world of the theater and the new world of television, whether stepping in for Christopher Plummer in Shakespeare’s Henry V or staring at “something on the wing” in a classic episode of The Twilight Zone. And since then, he’s gone on to star in numerous successful shows, such as T.J. Hooker, Rescue 911, and most recently Boston Legal. William Shatner has always been willing to take risks for his art. What other actor would star in history’s first---and probably only---all-Esperanto-language film? Who else would share the screen with thousands of tarantulas, release an album called Has Been, or film a racially incendiary film in the Deep South during the height of the civil rights era? And who else would willingly paramotor into a field of waiting fans armed with paintball guns, all waiting for a chance to stun Captain…er, Shatner? In this touching and very funny autobiography, William Shatner reveals the man behind these unforgettable moments, and how he’s become the worldwide star and experienced actor he is today.

A Better Me: The Official Autobiography


Gary Barlow - 2018
    In 2003, as he struggled with the disappointment of an underperforming solo career alongside the tireless media taunts; Gary turned to food. Relentlessly. In the space of nine years he had been on 20 diets in the hopes of a resolution to all his woes. After asking the doctor what the 'cure' for obesity was, it sunk in that he was the only one who could take control of his health. Gary describes this realisation and the task that lay ahead - 'it was like being at the foot of a massive mountain'.So how did he go from an obese, out-of-work and depressed pop icon, to a superstar of music and TV and an accomplished musical songwriter and producer who is full of vitality, fitter, happier and more successful than ever before. What happened?In his extraordinarily honest memoir A Better Me, Gary tells of his journey back to professional success and mental and physical health. From reforming Take That to critical and commercial acclaim and reigniting his own legendary songwriting career; to overcoming his weight problems and crippling obsession with food; to TV judging panel stardom on The X Factor and Let It Shine and at last finding balance in both his personal and professional life.A Better Me is a remarkably frank memoir of Gary's life as he battled with weight, stress, fitness and depression, and staged one of the most thrilling professional comebacks in years. In his warm, witty and authentic voice, he recounts his story with compelling insight, captivating honesty and a human side that people rarely see. Here is one of the UK's most beloved pop stars open, honest and raw and as we've never seen him before.

I Can Only Imagine: A Memoir


Bart Millard - 2018
    But few know about the pain, redemption, and healing that inspired it. Now Bart Millard, award-winning recording artist and lead singer of MercyMe, shares how his dad’s transformation from abusive father to man of God sparked a divine moment in music history. Go behind the scenes of Bart’s life—and the movie based on it—to discover how God repaired a broken family, prepared Bart for ministry through music, and wrote the words on his heart that would change his life forever. I Can Only Imagine is a front-row seat to witnessing God’s presence throughout Bart’s life. Whether falling in love with his childhood sweetheart or mourning his father’s death, founding MercyMe or flailing in the midst of its success, Bart continues to place his trust in God’s plans—plans that continue to surprise and surpass what Bart could have ever imagined.

Beastie Boys Book


Michael DiamondIan Rogers - 2018
    Here is their story, told for the first time in the words of the band. Adam "ADROCK" Horovitz and Michael "Mike D" Diamond offer revealing and very funny accounts of their transition from teenage punks to budding rappers; their early collaboration with Russell Simmons and Rick Rubin; the debut album that became the first hip hop record ever to hit #1, Licensed to Ill--and the album's messy fallout as the band broke with Def Jam; their move to Los Angeles and rebirth with the genre-defying masterpiece Paul's Boutique; their evolution as musicians and social activists over the course of the classic albums Check Your Head, Ill Communication, and Hello Nasty and the Tibetan Freedom Concert benefits conceived by the late Adam "MCA" Yauch; and more. For more than thirty years, this band has had an inescapable and indelible influence on popular culture.With a style as distinctive and eclectic as a Beastie Boys album, Beastie Boys Book upends the typical music memoir. Alongside the band narrative you will find rare photos, original illustrations, a cookbook by chef Roy Choi, a graphic novel, a map of Beastie Boys' New York, mixtape playlists, pieces by guest contributors, and many more surprises.

High on Arrival


Mackenzie Phillips - 2009
    Far from idyllic, she describes her parents' home as "dirty and broken" with "very little going on inside except sex, drugs, and rock and roll.."But in spite of the turmoil at home, Mackenzie found success onscreen, becoming famous at age fourteen for her role in the iconic film American Graffiti, which landed her a starring role as Julie Cooper on the hit sitcom One Day at a Time alongside America's sweetheart Valerie Bertinelli. Even though she seemed to have it all, Mackenzie couldn't escape the dark secrets and constant drug use at home and began to use herself. Her professional life suffered and she was written out of the show. For the next two decades she battled her drug addiction, going through rehab several times, and managing to stay clean for ten years, until Labor Day 2008, when she landed back in the tabloids for possession of cocaine and heroin at LAX. What led to her relapse is a shocking, life-long secret that she'll reveal in-depth for the first time here, in High on Arrival ..Riveting, heart-wrenching, yet ultimately uplifting, Mackenzie's story is an all-too-real testament to the power of drugs--but it's also a story of courage, forgiveness, and true redemption. .

How to be Champion


Sarah Millican - 2017
    If you haven't done those things but wish you had, This Is Your Book. If you just want to laugh on a train/sofa/toilet or under your desk at work, This Is Your Book.

You Deserve a Drink: Boozy Misadventures and Tales of Debauchery


Mamrie Hart - 2015
    With over a million subscribers to her cult-hit video series “You Deserve a Drink,” Hart has been entertaining viewers with a combination of tasty libations and raunchy puns since 2011. Hart also co-wrote/co-starred in Dirty Thirty and Camp Takota with Grace Helbig and Hannah Hart.Finally, Hart has compiled her best drinking stories—and worst hangovers—into one hilarious volume. From the spring break where she and her girlfriends avoided tan lines by staying at an all-male gay nudist resort, to the bachelorette party where she accidentally hired a sixty-year-old meth head to teach the group pole dancing (not to mention the time she lit herself on fire during a Flaming Lips concert), Hart accompanies each story with an original cocktail recipe, ensuring that You Deserve a Drink is as educational as it is entertaining.

Let the Good Times Roll: My Life in Small Faces, Faces, and The Who


Kenney Jones - 2018
    He was the beat behind three of the world's most enduring and significant bands.He wasn't just in the right place at the right time. Along with Keith Moon, John Bonham, and Charlie Watts, Jones is regarded as one of the greatest drummers of all time, sought after by a wide variety of the best-known and best-selling artists to bring his unique skill into the studio for the recording of classic albums and songs—including, of course, the Rolling Stones's "It's Only Rock 'n' Roll (But I Like It)."And Jones is no shallow rock star. He may play polo with royalty from across the globe now, but this is the story of a ragamuffin from the East End of London, a boy who watched his bandmates, friends since his teens, die early, combated dyslexia to find a medium in which he could uniquely excel, and later found a way through the wilderness years when the good times seemed to have gone and he had little to fall back on. Kenney Jones has seen it all, played with everyone, and partied with all of them. He's enjoyed the highs, battled the lows, and emerged in one piece. Let the Good Times Roll is a breathtaking immersion into music past that leaves readers feeling as if they lived it too.

Not Dead and Not for Sale


Scott Weiland - 2011
    During that tumultuous period, however, his record also included several arrests for drugs and DUI. Since breaking his addiction to heroin in 2002, the California-born musician has performed with the multiplatinum group Velvet Revolver and reunited with the group he helped make famous. Not Dead & Not for Sale is Weiland's starkly honest memoir of the highs and lows of his bipolar life. This book is timely, arriving on the heels of Stone Temple Pilots tour and the release of their first album since 2001. The memoir was written with the assistance of David Ritz, the only four-time winner of the Gleason Music Book Award.

All the Rage


Ian McLagan - 1998
    A riotously funny, fiercely energetic romp, this no-holds-barred autobiography takes readers through the highs and lows of an extraordinary career, chronicling nearly four decades of dynamic music history.

Living Like a Runaway


Lita Ford - 2016
    Then followed more than a decade of silence and darkness—until rock and roll repaid the debt it owed this pioneer, helped Lita reclaim her soul, and restored the Queen of Metal to her throne.In 1975, Lita Ford left home at age sixteen to join the world’s first major all-female rock group, the Runaways—a “pioneering band” (New York Times) that became the subject of a Hollywood movie starring Kristen Stewart ad Dakota Fanning. Lita went on to become “heavy rock’s first female guitar hero” (Washington Post), a platinum-selling solo star who shared the bill with the Ramones, Van Halen, Motley Crue, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, Poison, and others and who gave Ozzy Osbourne his first Top 10 hit. She was a bare-ass, leather-clad babe whose hair was bigger and whose guitar licks were hotter than any of the guys’.Hailed by Elle as “one of the greatest female electric guitar players to ever pick up the instrument,” Lita spurred the meteoric rise of Joan Jett, Cherie Currie, and the rest of the Runaways. Her phenomenal talent on the fret board also carried her to tremendous individual success after the group’s 1979 disbandment, when she established herself as a “legendary metal icon” (Guitar World) and a fixture of the 1980s music scene who held her own after hours with Nikki Sixx, Jon Bon Jovi, Eddie Van Halen, Tommy Lee, Motorhead’s Lemmy, Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi (to whom she was engaged), and others.Featuring a foreword by Dee Snider, Living Like a Runaway also provides never-before-told details of Lita’s dramatic personal story. For Lita, life as a woman in the male-dominated rock scene was never easy, a constant battle with the music establishment. But then, at a low point in her career, came a tumultuous marriage that left her feeling trapped, isolated from the rock-and-roll scene for more than a decade, and—most tragically—alienated from her two sons. And yet, after a dramatic and emotional personal odyssey, Lita picked up her guitar and stormed back to the stage. As Guitar Player hailed in 2014 when they inducted her into their hall of fame of guitar greats: “She is as badass as ever.”Fearless, revealing, and compulsively readable, Lita Ford’s Living Like a Runaway is the long-awaited memoir from one of rock’s greatest pioneers—and fiercest survivors.

Under a Hoodoo Moon: The Life of the Night Tripper


Malcolm John "Mac" Rebennack - 1994
    In its pages, Dr. John, the alchemist of New Orleans psychedelic funk, tells his story, and what a story it is: of four decades on the road, on the charts, in and out of trouble, but always steeped in the piano-based soulful grind of New Orleans rhythmn & blues of which he is the acknolwedged high guru. From childhood as a prodigal prodigy among 1950s legends from Little Richard and Fats Domino to sesssions with the Rolling Stones and the Band; from recording studio to juke joint to penitentiary to world tours; from Mac Rebennack to Dr. John the Night Tripper, this is the testament of our funkiest rock storyteller. Full of wit and wordplay, tales of hoodoo saints and high-living sinners, Under a Hoodoo Moon casts a spell as hard to resist as Mardi Gras itself.

Making Rumours: The Inside Story of the Classic Fleetwood Mac Album


Ken Caillat - 2012
    More recently, Rolling Stone named it the twenty-fifth greatest album of all time and the hit TV series Glee devoted an entire episode to songs from "Rumours," introducing it to a new generation. Now, for the first time, Ken Caillat, the album's co-producer, tells the full story of what really went into making "Rumours"--from the endless partying and relationship dramas to the creative struggles to write and record "You Make Loving Fun," "Don't Stop," "Go Your Own Way," "The Chain," and other timeless tracks.Tells the fascinating, behind-the-music story of the making of Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours," written by the producer who saw it all happen Filled with new and surprising details, such as Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham's screaming match while recording "You Make Loving Fun," how the band coped with the pressures of increasing success, how the master tape nearly disintegrated, and the incredible attention paid to even the tiniest elements of songs, from Lindsey playing a chair to Mick breaking glass Includes eighty black-and-white photographs