--from the foreword by Grace Slick"Jorma Kaukonen is a force in American music, equally adept at fingerpicked acoustic folk and blues as he is at wailing on an electric." - Acoustic Guitar"Jorma Kaukonen lit a fuse and transformed his electric guitar into a firework." - Live For Live MusicIncludes a CD of live music as a companion to the book!From the man who made a name for himself as a founding member and lead guitarist of Jefferson Airplane comes a memoir that offers a rare glimpse into the heart and soul of a musical genius--and a vivid journey through the psychedelic era in America."Music is the reward for being alive," writes Jorma Kaukonen in this candid and emotional account of his life and work. "It stirs memory in a singular way that is unmatched." In a career that has already spanned a half century--one that has earned him induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, among other honors--Jorma is best known for his legendary bands Jefferson Airplane and the still-touring Hot Tuna. But before he won worldwide recognition he was just a young man with a passion and a dream.Been So Long is the story of how Jorma found his place in the world of music and beyond. The grandson of Finnish and Russian-Jewish immigrants whose formative years were spent abroad with his American-born diplomat father, Jorma channeled his life experiences--from his coming-of-age in Pakistan and the Philippines to his early gigs with Jack Casady in D.C. to his jam sessions in San Francisco with Jerry Garcia, Janis Joplin, Bob Dylan, and other contemporaries--into his art in unique and revelatory ways. Been So Long charts not only Jorma's association with the bands that made him famous but goes into never-before-told details about his addiction and recovery, his troubled first marriage and still-thriving second, and more. Interspersed with diary entries, personal correspondence, and song lyrics, this memoir is as unforgettable and inspiring as Jorma's music itself.

    One of the few people who has known every major classical musician of the last two-thirds of the twentieth century, he shares his personal and artistic experiences in this warm, passionate account of his life: the story of his rise to eminence; his feelings about music and the violin; and his great friendships and collaborations with colleagues such as Leonard Bernstein and Pablo Casals. Stern the man, the musician, and the cultural institution come alive in the most readable and revealing musical autobiography of the decade.

    From the beginning, King, Canada’s long-time national coach and former coach of both the Flames and Blue Jackets, realized he was in for an adventure. His first meeting with team officials in a Vienna hotel lobby included six fast-talking Russians and the “bag-man” — assistant general manager Oleg Kuprianov, who always carried a little black bag full of U.S. one hundred dollar bills.The mission seemed simple enough: keep the old Soviet style combination play on offence, but improve the team’s defensive play — and win a Russian Super League Championship. Yet, as King’s diary of his time in Russia reveals, coaching an elite Russian team is anything but simple. King of Russia details the world of Russian hockey from the inside, intimately acquainting us with the lives of key players, owners, managers, and fans, while granting us a unique perspective on life in an industrial town in the new Russia. And introducing us to Evgeni Malkin, Magnitogorsk’s star and the NHL’s newest phenomenon.

    Club, a painfully funny memoir as seen through the sturdy prism of pop culture—for fans of Chuck Klosterman and Augusten Burroughs. As  a  child  and  teenager,  Nathan  Rabin  viewed  pop culture as a life-affirming form of escape. As an adult, pop culture became his life. For more than a decade he’s served as head writer for The Onion A.V. Club, and here, by way of music, books, films, and television, he shares his too-strange-for-fiction life story.Using a specific book, song, album, film, or television show as a springboard to discuss a period in his life, Rabin recounts his Dickensian upbringing with biting wit and brutal, perhaps unwise candor. Throughout a traumatic childhood that sent him ricocheting from a mental hospital to a foster home to a group home for emotionally disturbed adolescents, Rabin reveals that not only did pop culture shape and mold him, it helped save him from suicidal depression, institu- tionalization, and parental abandonment. Perhaps the most entertaining book ever written about depression and sweet, sweet sexual humiliation, The Big Rewind is also an emotional tale of a motherless child’s search for family and acceptance and a darkly comic valentine to Rabin’s irascible, lovable, hard-luck dad.Featuring unexpected cameos by Billy Bob Thornton, a vomiting Topher Grace, and some dude named Barack Obama, The Big Rewind chronicles the surreal journey of Rabin’s life, and its intersection with the dizzying, maddening, wonderful world of entertainment.

    Along the way, Ted details his late ’60s stint as an unlikely star with the sunshine pop outfit Harpers Bizarre and his grind-it-out days as a Warner Bros. tape listener, including the life-altering moment that launched his career as a producer: his discovery of the Doobie Brothers. Ted Templeman: A Platinum Producer’s Life in Music takes us into the studio sessions of No. 1 hits like “Black Water” by the Doobie Brothers and “Jump” by Van Halen, as Ted recounts memories and the behind-the-scene dramas that engulfed both massively successful acts. Throughout, Ted also reveals the inner workings of his professional and personal relationships with some of the most talented and successful recording artists in history, including Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith, Eric Clapton, Lowell George, Sammy Hagar, Linda Ronstadt, David Lee Roth, and Carly Simon.

    Four years later, seasoned by intense training and deployments in the tense confrontations of the cold war, he became the only one of that initial group to rise to become an instructor at the navy's elite Fighter Weapons School. As a Topgun instructor, Bio was responsible for teaching the best fighter pilots of the Navy and Marine Corps how to be even better. He schooled them in the classroom and then went head-to-head with them in the skies. Then, in August 1985, Bio was assigned to combine his day-to-day flight duties with participation in a Pentagon-blessed project to film action footage for a major Hollywood movie focusing on the lives, loves, heartbreaks, and triumphs of young fighter pilots: Top Gun. Bio soon found himself riding in limousines to attend gala premieres, and being singled out by giggling teenagers and awed schoolboys who recognized the name "Topgun" on his T-shirts. The book ends with his reflections on his career as a skilled naval aviator and his enduring love of flight. The paperback and Kindle editions include more than fifty rare full color photographs of fighter jets in action.

      A brilliant stylist known for an uncompromising honesty that challenges conventional wisdom at every turn, Krauthammer has for decades daz­zled readers with his keen insight into politics and government. His weekly column is a must-read in Washington and across the country. Now, finally, the best of Krauthammer’s intelligence, erudition and wit are collected in one volume.   Readers will find here not only the country’s leading conservative thinker offering a pas­sionate defense of limited government, but also a highly independent mind whose views—on feminism, evolution and the death penalty, for example—defy ideological convention. Things That Matter also features several of Krautham­mer’s major path-breaking essays—on bioeth­ics, on Jewish destiny and on America’s role as the world’s superpower—that have pro­foundly influenced the nation’s thoughts and policies. And finally, the collection presents a trove of always penetrating, often bemused re­flections on everything from border collies to Halley’s Comet, from Woody Allen to Win­ston Churchill, from the punishing pleasures of speed chess to the elegance of the perfectly thrown outfield assist.   With a special, highly autobiographical in­troduction in which Krauthammer reflects on the events that shaped his career and political philosophy, this indispensible chronicle takes the reader on a fascinating journey through the fashions and follies, the tragedies and triumphs, of the last three decades of American life.

    What they don’t know is her trailblazing career was a happy accident. In this funny and intimate memoir, Penny takes us from the stage of The Jackie Gleason Show in 1955 to Hollywood’s star-studded sets, offering up some hilarious detours along the way.My Mother Was Nuts is an intimate backstage pass to Penny’s personal life, her breakout role on The Odd Couple, her exploits with Cindy Williams and John Belushi, and her travels across Europe with Art Garfunkel on the back of a motorcycle. We see Penny get married. And divorced. And married again (the second time to Rob Reiner). We meet a young Carrie Fisher, whose close friendship with Penny has spanned decades. And we see Penny at work with Tom Hanks, Mark Wahlberg, Whoopi Goldberg, Robert De Niro, and Whitney Houston.Throughout it all, from her childhood spent tap dancing in the Bronx, to her rise as the star of Laverne & Shirley, Penny lived by simple rules: “try hard, help your friends, don’t get too crazy, and have fun.” With humor and heart, My Mother Was Nuts reveals there’s no one else quite like Penny Marshall.

    This is the story of the heaviest drinking, most oversexed speed freak in the music business.Ian Fraser Kilmister was born on Christmas Eve, 1945. Learning from an early age that chicks really do appreciate a guy with a guitar, and inspired by the music of Elvis and Buddy Holly, Lemmy quickly outgrew his local bands in Wales, choosing instead to head to Manchester to experience everything he could get his hands on. And he never looked back.Lemmy tripped through his early career with the Rocking Vicars, backstage touring with Jimi Hendrix, as a member of Opal Butterflies and Hawkwind. In 1975, he went on to create speed metal and form the legendary band Motorhead.During their twenty-seven-year history, Motorhead has released 21 albums, been nominated for a Grammy, and conquered the rock world with such songs as "Ace of Spades," "Bomber," and "Overkill." Throughout the creation of this impressive discography, the Motorhead lineup has seen many changes, but Lemmy has always been firmly at the helm.White Line Fever, a headbanging tour of the excesses of a man being true to his music and his pleasures, offers a sometimes hilarious, often outrageous, but always highly entertaining ride with the frontman of the loudest rock band in the world.

    Whether it’s from Rush Hour, Shanghai Noon, The Karate Kid, or Kung Fu Panda, Jackie is admired by generations of moviegoers for his acrobatic fighting style, comic timing, and mind-bending stunts. In 2016—after fifty-six years in the industry, over 200 films, and many broken bones—he received an honorary Academy Award for his lifetime achievement in film. But at 64 years-old, Jackie is just getting started. Now, in Never Grow Up, the global superstar reflects on his early life, including his childhood years at the China Drama Academy (in which he was enrolled at the age of six), his big breaks (and setbacks) in Hong Kong and Hollywood, his numerous brushes with death (both on and off film sets), and his life as a husband and father (which has been, admittedly and regrettably, imperfect). Jackie has never shied away from his mistakes. Since The Young Master in 1980, Jackie’s films have ended with a bloopers reel in which he stumbles over his lines, misses his mark, or crashes to the ground in a stunt gone south. In Never Grow Up, Jackie applies the same spirit of openness to his life, proving time and time again why he’s beloved the world over: he’s honest, funny, kind, brave beyond reckoning and—after all this time—still young at heart.

    By 1978 he was the biggest concert draw in the history of stand-up. In 1981 he quit forever. This book is, in his own words, the story of "why I did stand-up and why I walked away." Emmy and Grammy Award winner, author of the acclaimed New York Times bestsellers Shopgirl and The Pleasure of My Company, and a regular contributor to The New Yorker, Martin has always been a writer. His memoir of his years in stand-up is candid, spectacularly amusing, and beautifully written. At age ten Martin started his career at Disneyland, selling guidebooks in the newly opened theme park. In the decade that followed, he worked in the Disney magic shop and the Bird Cage Theatre at Knott's Berry Farm, performing his first magic/comedy act a dozen times a week. The story of these years, during which he practiced and honed his craft, is moving and revelatory. The dedication to excellence and innovation is formed at an astonishingly early age and never wavers or wanes. Martin illuminates the sacrifice, discipline, and originality that made him an icon and informs his work to this day. To be this good, to perform so frequently, was isolating and lonely. It took Martin decades to reconnect with his parents and sister, and he tells that story with great tenderness. Martin also paints a portrait of his times-the era of free love and protests against the war in Vietnam, the heady irreverence of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in the late sixties, and the transformative new voice of Saturday Night Live in the seventies.Throughout the text, Martin has placed photographs, many never seen before. Born Standing Up is a superb testament to the sheer tenacity, focus, and daring of one of the greatest and most iconoclastic comedians of all time.

    Cohen is also a man of complexities and seeming contradictions: a devout Jew, who is also a sophisticate and a ladies' man, as well as an ordained Buddhist monk whose name, Jikan—"ordinary silence"—is quite the appellation for a writer and singer whose life has been anything but ordinary.I'm Your Man is the definitive account of that extraordinary life. Starting in Montreal, Cohen's birthplace, acclaimed music journalist Sylvie Simmons follows his trail, via London and the Greek island of Hydra, to New York in the sixties, where Cohen launched his career in music. From there she traces the arc of his prodigious achievements to his remarkable retreat in the mid-nineties and his reemergence for a sold-out world tour almost fifteen years later. Whether navigating Cohen's journeys through the backstreets of Mumbai or his countless hotel rooms along the way, Simmons explores with equal focus every complex, contradictory strand of Cohen's life and presents a deeply insightful portrait of the vision, spirit, depth, and talent of an artist and a man who continues to move people like no one else.

    So it took friends and family by surprise when he checked into rehab and revealed that he had been not only homeless, but also helpless.Here, in the memoir fans have been demanding, is the story of how love and faith carried him through not only his addiction, but also prostate cancer. Here, too, is the story of his work in the music business, including a career resurgence that saw collaborations with some of the most sought-after artists of today, including Pharrell and Justin Timberlake.Now over twenty years sober, Wilson recounts a life filled with vertiginous highs and heartbreaking lows. His is a story of triumph over adversity, courage in the face of extreme hardship, and love when all else is lost. It is a tale of the last sixty years in social and pop culture history, and one that will stay with you for years to come.

    But now destiny was about to manifest itself. I felt like it was looking right at me and nobody else." So writes Bob Dylan in Chronicles: Volume One, his remarkable book exploring critical junctures in his life and career. Through Dylan's eyes and open mind, we see Greenwich Village, circa 1961, when he first arrives in Manhattan. Dylan's New York is a magical city of possibilities -- smoky, nightlong parties; literary awakenings; transient loves and unbreakable friendships. Elegiac observations are punctuated by jabs of memories, penetrating and tough. With the book's side trips to New Orleans, Woodstock, Minnesota and points west, Chronicles: Volume One is an intimate and intensely personal recollection of extraordinary times.By turns revealing, poetical, passionate and witty, Chronicles: Volume One is a mesmerizing window on Bob Dylan's thoughts and influences. Dylan's voice is distinctively American: generous of spirit, engaged, fanciful and rhythmic. Utilizing his unparalleled gifts of storytelling and the exquisite expressiveness that are the hallmarks of his music, Bob Dylan turns Chronicles: Volume One into a poignant reflection on life, and the people and places that helped shape the man and the art.

    -The New York Times Book Review