Words Without Music: A Memoir


Philip Glass - 2015
    Yet in Words Without Music, his critically acclaimed memoir, he creates an entirely new and unexpected voice, that of a born storyteller and an acutely insightful chronicler, whose behind-the-scenes recollections allow readers to experience those moments of creative fusion when life so magically merged with art. From his childhood in Baltimore to his student days in Chicago and at Juilliard, to his first journey to Paris and a life-changing trip to India, Glass movingly recalls his early mentors, while reconstructing the places that helped shape his creative consciousness. Whether describing working as an unlicensed plumber in gritty 1970s New York or composing Satyagraha, Glass breaks across genres and re-creates, here in words, the thrill that results from artistic creation.Words Without Music ultimately affirms the power of music to change the world.

Girl in a Band


Kim Gordon - 2015
    Telling the story of her family, growing up in California in the '60s and '70s, her life in visual art, her move to New York City, the men in her life, her marriage, her relationship with her daughter, her music, and her band, Girl in a Band is a rich and beautifully written memoir.Gordon takes us back to the lost New York of the 1980s and '90s that gave rise to Sonic Youth, and the Alternative revolution in popular music. The band helped build a vocabulary of music—paving the way for Nirvana, Hole, Smashing Pumpkins and many other acts. But at its core, Girl in a Band examines the route from girl to woman in uncharted territory, music, art career, what partnership means—and what happens when that identity dissolves.Evocative and edgy, filled with the sights and sounds of a changing world and a transformative life, Girl in a Band is the fascinating chronicle of a remarkable journey and an extraordinary artist.

Lennon Remembers: The Full Rolling Stone Interviews from 1970


Jann S. Wenner - 1971
    Featuring new introductions by Ono and Wenner, and containing substantial material never before seen in print, Lennon Remembers presents a compelling portrait of a complex musical genius at the height of his career. Sometimes anguished and angry, often tender and poignant, these interviews are indispensable to understanding who John Lennon was and why his legacy continues to resonate today.

A Kim Jong-Il Production: The Extraordinary True Story of a Kidnapped Filmmaker, His Star Actress, and a Young Dictator's Rise to Power


Paul Fischer - 2015
    Conceiving every movie made, he acted as producer and screenwriter. Despite this control, he was underwhelmed by the available talent and took drastic steps, ordering the kidnapping of Choi Eun-Hee (Madam Choi)-South Korea's most famous actress-and her ex-husband Shin Sang-Ok, the country's most famous filmmaker.Madam Choi vanished first. When Shin went to Hong Kong to investigate, he was attacked and woke up wrapped in plastic sheeting aboard a ship bound for North Korea. Madam Choi lived in isolated luxury, allowed only to attend the Dear Leader's dinner parties. Shin, meanwhile, tried to escape, was sent to prison camp, and "re-educated." After four years he cracked, pledging loyalty. Reunited with Choi at the first party he attends, it is announced that the couple will remarry and act as the Dear Leader's film advisors. Together they made seven films, in the process gaining Kim Jong-Il's trust. While pretending to research a film in Vienna, they flee to the U.S. embassy and are swept to safety.A nonfiction thriller packed with tension, passion, and politics, author Paul Fischer's A Kim Jong-Il Production offers a rare glimpse into a secretive world, illuminating a fascinating chapter of North Korea's history that helps explain how it became the hermetically sealed, intensely stage-managed country it remains today.

An Illustrated Life: Drawing Inspiration from the Private Sketchbooks of Artists, Illustrators and Designers


Danny Gregory - 2008
    The margins sometimes spill over with hurriedly scrawled shopping lists and phone numbers. The cover may be travel-worn and the pages warped from watercolors. Open the book, and raw creativity seeps from each color and line. The intimacy and freedom on its pages are almost like being inside the artist's mind: You get a direct window into risks, lessons, mistakes, and dreams.The private worlds of these visual journals are exactly what you'll find inside An Illustrated Life. This book offers a sneak peak into the wildly creative imaginations of 50 top illustrators, designers and artists. Included are sketchbook pages from R. Crumb, Chris Ware, James Jean, James Kochalka, and many others. In addition, author Danny Gregory has interviewed each artist and shares their thoughts on living the artistic life through journaling.Watch artists—through words and images—record the world they see and craft the world as they want it to be. The pages of An Illustrated Life are sometimes startling, sometimes endearing, but always inspiring. Whether you're an illustrator, designer, or simply someone searching for inspiration, these pages will open a whole new world to you.

Slightly Out of Focus


Robert Capa - 1947
    He was Robert Capa, the brilliant and daring photojournalist, and Collier's magazine had put him on assignment to photograph the war raging in Europe. In these pages, Capa recounts his terrifying journey through the darkest battles of World War II and shares his memories of the men and women of the Allied forces who befriended, amused, and captivated him along the way. His photographs are masterpieces -- John G. Morris, Magnum Photos' first executive editor, called Capa "the century's greatest battlefield photographer" -- and his writing is by turns riotously funny and deeply moving. From Sicily to London, Normandy to Algiers, Capa experienced some of the most trying conditions imaginable, yet his compassion and wit shine on every page of this book. Charming and profound, Slightly Out of Focus is a marvelous memoir told in words and pictures by an extraordinary man.

Faithfull


Marianne Faithfull - 1994
    She recalls her love and life with Mick Jagger, how Bob Dylan wooed her, the Rolling Stones courted her and finally, how drugs trapped her into a world where nothing else mattered but the next fix. She also reveals the contradictions of life as a "star", first as the pop confection she was packaged as, and later as the hard-edged artist who co-authored "Sister Morphine" and shocked the world with "Broken English".

My Thoughts Exactly


Lily Allen - 2018
    Brutally honest' Matt Haig'I love it' Jon Ronson**********************************************************So, this is me. Lily Allen.I am a woman.I am a mother.I was a wife.I drink.I have taken drugs.I have loved and been let down.I am a success and a failure.I am a songwriter.I am a singer.I am all these things and more.When women share their stories, loudly and clearly and honestly, things begin to change - for the better.This is my story.

Nice to Meet You


Jessie J. - 2012
    One of the most inspiring talents to emerge from British pop culture, Jessie J's message is loud and clear: be strong, be determined and never shy away from Who You Are.An international sensation and a multi-award-winning superstar, she took the music industry by storm, selling 11 million singles and 2.5 million albums worldwide. In this fully illustrated and highly personal book, Jessie J tells her own story in her own words with all the strength, honesty and passion you would expect.This is Jessie J's real story, opening the doors on the individuality and unique voice that have made her an inspiration to young women around the world. She talks openly about her health issues and a heart condition, her thoughts on body images and how she discovered her own identity whilst breaking into one of the world's most competitive industries.The bold and intimate tale of this young woman will shock and enthral as she delivers her personal message with an unshakable confidence and modesty that will cement her place in pop culture as a much-loved star.

Renegade


Mark E. Smith - 2009
    Smith Still going after thirty years, The Fall are one of the most distinctive British bands, their music — odd, spare, cranky and circular — an acknowledged influence on The Smiths, The Happy Mondays, Nirvana and Franz Ferdinand. And Mark E. Smith IS The Fall. For the first time we get to hear his full, candid take on the ups and downs of a band as notorious for its in-house fighting as for its great music; and on a life that has endured prison in America, drugs, bankruptcy, divorce and the often bleak results of a legendary thirst.

The Long Hard Road Out of Hell


Marilyn Manson - 1998
    "By turns moving, funny, appalling, disturbing. . . . There has never been anything like it".--"Rolling Stone". 80 b&w photos. 16-page color insert.In his twenty-nine years, rock idol Manson has experienced more than most people have (or would want to) in a lifetime. Now, in his shocking and candid memoir, he takes readers from backstage to gaol cells, from recording studios to emergency rooms, from the pit of despair to the top of the charts, and recounts his metamorphosis from a frightened Christian schoolboy into the most feared and revered music superstar in the country.

Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles


Geoff Emerick - 2006
    He later worked with the Beatles as they recorded their singles “She Loves You” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” the songs that would propel them to international superstardom. In 1964 he would witness the transformation of this young and playful group from Liverpool into professional, polished musicians as they put to tape classic songs such as “Eight Days A Week” and “I Feel Fine.” Then, in 1966, at age nineteen, Geoff Emerick became the Beatles’ chief engineer, the man responsible for their distinctive sound as they recorded the classic album Revolver, in which they pioneered innovative recording techniques that changed the course of rock history. Emerick would also engineer the monumental Sgt. Pepper and Abbey Road albums, considered by many the greatest rock recordings of all time. In Here, There and Everywhere he reveals the creative process of the band in the studio, and describes how he achieved the sounds on their most famous songs. Emerick also brings to light the personal dynamics of the band, from the relentless (and increasingly mean-spirited) competition between Lennon and McCartney to the infighting and frustration that eventually brought a bitter end to the greatest rock band the world has ever known.

Get in the Van: On the Road With Black Flag


Henry Rollins - 1994
    Rollins's observations range from the wry to the raucous in this blistering account of a six-year career with the band - a time marked by crazed fans, vicious cops, near-starvation, substance abuse, and mind numbing all-night drives. Rollins decided to revise this edition by adding a wealth of new photographs, a new foreword, and an afterword to include some "where-are-they-now" information on the people featured in the book. This new edition includes 40 previously unpublished black-and-white photographs from Rollins's private collection and show flyers by artist Raymond Pettibon. Called "a soul-frying experience not to be undertaken by lightweights" by Wired magazine, Get in the Van perfectly embodies what one critic called the "secular gospel" of one of punk and post-punk's most respected and controversial figures.

The Living Years: The First Genesis Memoir


Mike Rutherford - 2014
    At its center stood Mike Rutherford, driving the music from pioneering prog rock to chart-topping hits. Now for the first time, he tells the remarkable inside story of Genesis and his own band, Mike + The Mechanics.Against the rhythm of drink, drugs, and lineup changes, Mike's father, a World War II naval officer, always stood in the background. He would watch Genesis grow, supporting them from the very beginning when they toured Britain in the back of a bread van. Through extreme highs and lows, loyal Captain Rutherford was always there, earplugs at the ready.But when his father suddenly died, Mike was forced to reexamine their relationship and only then began to understand how much their lives had overlapped. The Living Years is a revealing memoir of the relationship between father and son and the story of how music, families, and friendship combine.

Nick Drake: The Biography


Patrick Humphries - 1997
    The British singer-songwriter made only three albums during his short life - Five Leaves Left, Bryter Layter and Pink Moon. All are now recognized as classics.Since his death, Nick has been cited as a seminal influence by stars as diverse as REM, Elton John, and Paul Weller. While the lives of other musicians who died before their time, such as Jim Morrison, John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Gram Parsons, have been amply documented, there has never before been a biography of Nick Drake. Patrick Humphries' illuminating text includes exclusive interviews with friends, colleagues and musicians who knew and worked with Nick. It provides an unprecedented insight not only into the life and work of Nick Drake, but also into the music scene of the 1960s that formed his backdrop.If a week is a long time in politics, then the 23 years since Nick's death represents a lifetime in the transitory world of pop. But the music of Nick Drake has never lost its place in his fans affections, and still its haunting beauty reaches out of fresh generations. This book is for all of them.