Hit So Hard: A Memoir


Patty Schemel - 2017
    Their divorce triggered her rebellious adolescence and first forays into drinking at age 11, which coincided with her passion for punk rock and playing drums. Her efforts to come to terms with her sexuality further drove her memorably hard playing, and by the late '80s Schemel was performing regularly in well-regarded bands in Tacoma, Seattle, and Olympia. She met Kurt Cobain at a Melvins show, pre-Nirvana, and less than five years later she would be living with him and his wife, Hole front-woman Courtney Love, at the height of his fame and on the cusp of hers. As Hole's new drummer, Schemel contributed memorable, driving drum parts to hits like "Beautiful Son," "Violet," "Doll Parts," and "Miss World." But the band was plagued by tragedy and addiction, and by the time Hole went on tour in support of their ironically titled and critically acclaimed album Live Through This in 1994, both Cobain and Hole bassist Kristen Pfaff were dead at age 27.With surprising candor and wit, Schemel intimately documents the events surrounding her exit from the band in 1998 that lead to her dramatic descent into a life of homelessness and crime on the streets of Los Angeles and the difficult but rewarding path to sobriety after over twenty serious attempts to get clean. Hit So Hard chronicles the extraordinary coming of age of a musician and an addict during the last great era of rock 'n' roll excess.

The Beatles Anthology


The Beatles - 2000
    Together with Yoko Ono Lennon, they have also made available the full transcripts (including all the outtakes) of the television and video series The Beatles Anthology. Through painstaking compilation of sources worldwide, John Lennon's words are equally represented in this remarkable volume. Furthermore, The Beatles have opened their personal and management archives specifically for this project, allowing the unprecedented release of photographs which they took along their ride to fame, as well as fascinating documents and memorabilia from their homes and offices. What a book The Beatles Anthology is! Each page is brimming with personal stories and rare vintage images. Snapshots from their family collections take us back to the days when John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Richard Starkey were just boys growing up in Liverpool. They talk in turn about those early years and how they came to join the band that would make them known around the world as John, Paul, George and Ringo. Then, weaving back and forth, they tell the astonishing story of life as The Beatles: the first rough gigs, the phenomenon of their rise to fame, the musical and social change of their heyday, all the way through to their breakup. From the time Ringo tried to take this drum kit home on the bus to their much anticipated audience with Elvis, from the making of the Sgt. Pepper album to their last photo session together at John's house, The Beatles Anthology is a once-in-a-lifetime collection of The Beatles' own memories.Interwoven with these are the recollections of such associates as road manager Neil Aspinall, producer George Martin and spokesman Derek Taylor. And included in the vast array of photographs are materials from both Apple and EMI, who also opened their archives for this project. This, indeed, is the inside story, providing a wealth of previously unpublished material in both word and image.Created with their full cooperation, The Beatles Anthology is, in effect, The Beatles' autobiography. Like their music has been a part of so many of our lives, it's warm, frank, funny, poignant and bold. At last, here is The Beatles' own story.

My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me: A Black Woman Discovers Her Family's Nazi Past


Jennifer Teege - 2013
    Millions of people worldwide know of him through Ralph Fiennes’ chilling portrayal in Steven Spielberg’s film Schindler’s List. Goeth was the brutal commandant of the Plaszów concentration camp—Oskar Schindler’s drinking buddy, and yet his adversary. Responsible for the deaths of thousands, Amon Goeth was hanged in 1946.Goeth’s partner Ruth, Teege’s much-loved grandmother, committed suicide in 1983. Teege is their daughter’s daughter; her father is Nigerian. Raised by foster parents, she grew up with no knowledge of the family secret. Now, it unsettles her profoundly. What can she say to her Jewish friends, or to her own children? Who is she—truly?My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me is Teege’s searing chronicle of grappling with her haunted past. Her research into her family takes her to Poland and to Israel. Award-winning journalist Nikola Sellmair supplies historical context in a separate, interwoven narrative. Step by step, horrified by her family’s dark history, Teege builds the story of her own liberation.

Moments of Being: A Collection of Autobiographical Writing


Virginia Woolf - 1976
    In "Reminiscences," the first of five pieces, she focuses on the death of her mother, "the greatest disaster that could happen," and its effect on her father, the demanding Victorian patriarch. Three of the papers were composed to be read to the Memoir Club, a postwar regrouping of Bloomsbury, which exacted absolute candor of its members."A Sketch of the Past" is the longest and most significant of the pieces, giving an account of Virginia Woolf's early years in the family household at 22 Hyde Park Gate. A recently discovered manuscript belonging to this memoir has provided material that further illuminates her relationship to her father, Leslie Stephen, who played a crucial role in her development as an individual and as a writer.

The Brontës


Juliet Barker - 1994
    But beyond these familiar details, the Brontes' story has remained largely obscure. This landmark book is the first definitive history of this fascinating family. Based on eleven years of research among newly discovered letters by every member of the family, original manuscripts, and the newspapers of that time, it gives a new and fuller picture of the Brontes' lives from beginning to end and, in the process, demolishes many myths. The father, Patrick, was not, as commonly believed, the cold patriarch of a family of victims. Charlotte, ruthlessly self-willed, ran roughshod over her sisters and went so far as to alter or destroy their manuscripts when she disapproved. Emily was so psychologically and physically dependent on her fantasy life that she could not survive in the outside world. Anne, widely regarded as the gentlest of the sisters, had a core of steel and was a more daring and revolutionary author than Charlotte. Branwell, the adored brother, was a talented poet who provided much of Charlotte's inspiration.

Up from Slavery


Booker T. Washington - 1900
    Washington, the most recognized national leader, orator and educator, emerged from slavery in the deep south, to work for the betterment of African Americans in the post Reconstruction period. "Up From Slavery" is an autobiography of Booker T. Washington's life and work, which has been the source of inspiration for all Americans. Washington reveals his inner most thoughts as he transitions from ex-slave to teacher and founder of one of the most important schools for African Americans in the south, The Tuskegee Industrial Institute.

Stairway to Heaven: Led Zeppelin Uncensored


Richard Cole - 1992
    The band's tour manager for more than a decade, Cole was there when they burst onto the music scene, achieved cult status, cut platinum records, and transformed popular music. Second only to the Beatles in sales for years, Led Zeppelin was rock's premier group. But unlike the boys from Liverpool, the excitement of this band"s music was matched by the fever pitch of their antics on and off the stage....In hotel rooms and stadiums, in a customized private Boeing 707 jet and country estates, Richard Cole saw it all -- and here he tells it all in this close-up, down-and-dirty, no-holds-barred account that records the highs, the lows, and the occasional in-betweens. This revised edition brings fans up to date on the band members' lives and careers, which may be a little quieter now, but their songs remain the same.

Journals


Kurt Cobain - 2002
    His journals reveal an artist who loved music, who knew the history of rock, and who was determined to define his place in that history. Here is a mesmerizing, incomparable portrait of the most influential musician of his time.

A Long Way Home


Saroo Brierley - 2013
    Not knowing the name of his family or where he was from, he survived for weeks on the streets of Kolkata, before being taken into an orphanage and adopted by a couple in Australia.Despite being happy in his new family, Saroo always wondered about his origins. He spent hours staring at the map of India on his bedroom wall. When he was a young man the advent of Google Earth led him to pore over satellite images of the country for landmarks he recognised. And one day, after years of searching, he miraculously found what he was looking for.Then he set off on a journey to find his mother.

A Light That Never Goes Out: The Enduring Saga of The Smiths


Tony Fletcher - 2012
    Critics and sales figures told a similar story: six albums between 1984 and 1988 made number one or number two in the UK charts. Twenty-five years after their break-up, the band remain as adored and discussed as ever. To this day, there is a collective understanding that The Smiths were one of the greatest of all British bands. The Smiths - Morrissey, Johnny Marr, Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce - were four working-class youths who came together, by fate or chance, in Manchester in the early 1980s. Their sound was both traditional and radically different, a music that spoke to a generation, and defied the dark social-economic mood of the Thatcher years. By early 1984, barely a year after their first headlining gig, they were the hottest - certainly the hippest - name in modern music. In the years that followed the group produced an extraordinary body of work: seventeen classic singles, seven albums, and [some] seventy songs composed by the team of Morrissey and Marr. Yet for all their brilliance and adoration - their famously energetic live shows routinely interrupted by stage invasions - The Smiths were continually plagued by their own reticence to play the game, and by the time of 1987's Strangeways Here We Come, they had split. The Smiths have never played together again - their enormous contribution to pop culture forever condensed into a prolific and prosperous halcyon period, their legacy intact and untarnished. Thirty years after their formation, twenty-five since they broke up, The Smiths' firmament remains as bright as ever. It's time their tale was told. Tony Fletcher's A Light That Never Goes Out is a meticulous and evocative group biography - part celebration, part paean - moving from Manchester in the nineteenth-century to the present day to tell the complete story of The Smiths. Penned by a contemporary and life-long fan, and the product of extensive research, dozens of interviews, and unprecedented access, it will serve to confirm The Smiths as one of the greatest, most important and influential rock groups of all time.

Last Night at the Viper Room: River Phoenix and the Hollywood He Left Behind


Gavin Edwards - 2013
    Putting him at the center of a new generation of leading men emerging in the early 1990s— including Johnny Depp, Keanu Reeves, Brad Pitt, Nicolas Cage, and Leonardo DiCaprio—Gavin Edwards traces the Academy Award nominee’s meteoric rise, couches him in an examination of the 1990s, and illuminates his lasting legacy on Hollywood and popular culture itself.

Joan Jett


Todd Oldham - 2010
    She started her first band, The Runaways, at age fifteen and has blazed a trail that has inspired and thrilled her fans to this day. AMMO Books is proud to release this authorized, loving tribute conceived and authored by designer Todd Oldham. The book chronicles all aspects of her career and passions through images—from forming The Runaways, to her years of touring with her band, Joan Jett and The Blackhearts. JOAN JETT features many never-before-seen photos, ephemera, and excerpts from thirty years worth of interviews, carefully curated with Joan herself, covering the multi-decade career of a real rock-and-roll icon. A thoughtful introduction written by renown indie rocker and Riot Grrrl Kathleen Hanna brings context to this exciting title.Joan Jett is a revered songwriter, musician, and American icon. In keeping with her pioneering spirit, she went on to be the first woman to start her own independent rock label, Blackheart Records. Joan Jett and The Blackhearts Greatest Hits compilation released in March 2010, and the film based on The Runaways starring Dakota Fanning, and Kristen Stewart as Joan Jett, released on March 19, 2010.Now available in this popularly priced, flexi-cover edition.

No One Tells You This


Glynnis MacNicol - 2018
    Despite a successful career as a writer, and an exciting life in New York City, Glynnis was constantly reminded she had neither of the things the world expected of a woman her age: a partner or a baby. She knew she was supposed to feel bad about this. After all, single women and those without children are often seen as objects of pity, relegated to the sidelines, or indulgent spoiled creatures who think only of themselves.Glynnis refused to be cast into either of those roles and yet the question remained: What now? There was no good blueprint for how to be a woman alone in the world. She concluded it was time to create one.Over the course of her fortieth year, which this memoir chronicles, Glynnis embarks on a revealing journey of self-discovery that continually contradicts everything she’d been led to expect. Through the trials of family illness and turmoil, and the thrills of far-flung travel and adventures with men, young and old (and sometimes wearing cowboy hats), she is forced to wrestle with her biggest hopes and fears about love, death, sex, friendship, and loneliness. In doing so, she discovers that holding the power to determine her own fate requires a resilience and courage that no one talks about, and is more rewarding than anyone imagines.Intimate and timely, No One Tells You This is a fearless reckoning with modern womanhood and an exhilarating adventure that will resonate with anyone determined to live by their own rules.

Jimmy Page by Jimmy Page


Jimmy Page - 2014
    With incredible attention to detail, Page has chosen hundreds of photographs representing significant moments in his career: from a schoolboy with a rock-a-billy quiff through his extensive work as a session musician; including The Yardbirds, Led Zeppelin, ARMS, The Firm, Outrider, Coverdale & Page and Page & Plant; playing with Roy Harper and The Black Crowes; collaborating with P. Diddy and performing with Leona Lewis at the closing ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.Both Genesis Publications and Jimmy Page have sifted through thousands of images representing the work of more than 70 photographers including some of the greatest names in rock photography – Ross Halfin, Kate Simon, and Gered Mankowitz, to name but a few. Included are a mixture of iconic portraits, rare and unseen photographs from Jimmy’s archive along with visas, photos and stamps from his own passports.Page has officially put pen to paper about his career taking the form of extended captions, which describe and document pivotal moments and events making this book an historical document and a definitive visual record of a remarkable life of music.

Ma’am Darling: 99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret


Craig Brown - 2017
    She cold-shouldered Princess Diana and humiliated Elizabeth Taylor.Andy Warhol photographed her. Jack Nicholson offered her cocaine. Gore Vidal revered her. John Fowles hoped to keep her as his sex-slave. Dudley Moore propositioned her. Francis Bacon heckled her. Peter Sellers was in love with her.For Pablo Picasso, she was the object of sexual fantasy. “If they knew what I had done in my dreams with your royal ladies” he confided to a friend, “they would take me to the Tower of London and chop off my head!”Princess Margaret aroused passion and indignation in equal measures. To her friends, she was witty and regal. To her enemies, she was rude and demanding.In her 1950’s heyday, she was seen as one of the most glamorous and desirable women in the world. By the time of her death, she had come to personify disappointment. One friend said he had never known an unhappier woman.The tale of Princess Margaret is pantomime as tragedy, and tragedy as pantomime. It is Cinderella in reverse: hope dashed, happiness mislaid, life mishandled.Combining interviews, parodies, dreams, parallel lives, diaries, announcements, lists, catalogues and essays, Ma’am Darling is a kaleidoscopic experiment in biography, and a witty meditation on fame and art, snobbery and deference, bohemia and high society.