A NATURAL WOMAN chronicles King's extraordinary life, drawing readers into her musical world, including her phenomenally successful #1 album Tapestry, and into her journey as a performer, mother, wife and present-day activist. Deeply personal, King's long-awaited memoir offers readers a front-row seat to the woman behind the legend. The book will include dozens of photos from King's childhood, her own family, and behind-the-scenes images from her performances.

    Part personal narrative, part documentary, part travelogue, part chapbook, and all Kalman, these brilliant, whimsical paintings, ideas, and images - which initially appear random - ultimately form an intricately interconnected worldview, an idiosyncratic inner monologue.

    In it, she confronts a meticulous diary that she has kept for twenty-five years. “I wanted to end each day with a record of everything that had ever happened,” she explains. But this simple statement belies a terror that she might forget something, that she might miss something important. Maintaining that diary, now eight hundred thousand words, had become, until recently, a kind of spiritual practice.Then Manguso became pregnant and had a child, and these two Copernican events generated an amnesia that put her into a different relationship with the need to document herself amid ongoing time.Ongoingness is a spare, meditative work that stands in stark contrast to the volubility of the diary—it is a haunting account of mortality and impermanence, of how we struggle to find clarity in the chaos of time that rushes around and over and through us.“Bold, elegant, and honest . . . Ongoingness reads variously as an addict’s testimony, a confession, a celebration, an elegy.” —The Paris Review“Manguso captures the central challenge of memory, of attentiveness to life . . . A spectacularly and unsummarizably rewarding read.” —Maria Popova, Brain Pickings

    His father died when he was seven, and at seventeen he left his mother and sister behind and headed for New York City, place of limitless possibilities. He arrived penniless with the idea of becoming a poet; ten years later he was a pivotal voice of the age of punk, starting such seminal bands as Television, the Heartbreakers, and Richard Hell and the Voidoids—whose song "Blank Generation" remains the defining anthem of the era. Hell was significantly responsible for creating CBGB as punk ground zero; his Voidoids toured notoriously with the Clash, and Malcolm McLaren would credit Hell as inspiration for the Sex Pistols. There were kinetic nights in New York's club demi-monde, descent into drug addiction, and an ever-present yearning for redemption through poetry, music, and art."We lived in the suburbs in America in the fifties," Hell writes. "My roots are shallow. I'm a little jealous of people with strong ethnic and cultural roots. Lucky Martin Scorsese or Art Spiegelman or Dave Chappelle. I came from Hopalong Cassidy and Bugs Bunny and first grade at ordinary Maxwell Elementary." How this legendary downtown artist went from a prosaic childhood in the idyllic Kentucky foothills to igniting a movement that would take over New York's and London's restless youth cultures—and spawn the careers of not only Hell himself, but a cohort of friends such as Tom Verlaine, Patti Smith, the Ramones, and Debbie Harry—is just part of the fascinating story Hell tells. With stunning powers of observation, he delves into the details of both the world that shaped him and the world he shaped.An acutely rendered, unforgettable coming-of-age story, I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp evokes with feeling, clarity, and piercing intelligence that classic journey: the life of one who comes from the hinterlands into the city in search of art and passion.

    

    I'm a force of nature. Courtney Love knows exactly what she is. She created herself: demon diva, goddess of grunge, media super-icon, wife of the late rock megastar Kurt Cobain. Lead singer of the band Hole, her persona is larger than life -- bellowing, ranting, riling up the masses. She was made for the spotlight, and she rules it like a dark angel, her on- and offstage presence seething with such power, venom, and raw sexual fury that she obliterates everyone else on the music scene today. I want to be the girl with the most cake. Courtney Love may have achieved her goal of becoming a self-made celebrity, but her hungry climb to fame wasn't easy. It took her from a troubled childhood to the sleazy underworld of strip joints to the hardcore drug scene. She was institutionalized as a juvenile delinquent, tormented as a rock groupie, and driven to near suicide as a grieving widow. Then there was her tumultuous relationship with Kurt Cobain -- a sweet-and-sour marriage of twisted passion that ended tragically with a shotgun blast. Here at last the true Courtney Love is revealed...the headstrong hellraiser in a baby-doll dress...the raucous performer ripping up the airwaves, at war with her public image and herself...the unstoppable survivor forever rising from the ashes only to burn more brightly....

    Davis, political activist, scholar, author, and speakerSophisticated Giant presents the life and legacy of tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon (1923-1990), one of the major innovators of modern jazz. In a context of biography, history, and memoir, Maxine Gordon has completed the book that her late husband began, weaving his "solo" turns with her voice and a chorus of voices from past and present. Reading like a jazz composition, the blend of research, anecdote, and a selection of Dexter's personal letters reflects his colorful life and legendary times. It is clear why the celebrated trumpet genius Dizzy Gillespie said to Dexter, "Man, you ought to leave your karma to science."Dexter Gordon the icon is the Dexter beloved and celebrated on albums, on film, and in jazz lore--even in a street named for him in Copenhagen. But this image of the cool jazzman fails to come to terms with the multidimensional man full of humor and wisdom, a figure who struggled to reconcile being both a creative outsider who broke the rules and a comforting insider who was a son, father, husband, and world citizen. This essential book is an attempt to fill in the gaps created by our misperceptions as well as the gaps left by Dexter himself.

    Enjoy or die..." --John LydonPunk has been romanticized and embalmed in various media. An English class revolt that became a worldwide fashion statement, punk's idols were the Sex Pistols, and its sneering hero was Johnny Rotten.Seventeen years later, John Lydon looks back at himself, the Sex Pistols, and the "no future" disaffection of the time. Much more than just a music book, Rotten is an oral history of punk: angry, witty, honest, poignant, crackling with energy. Malcolm McLaren, Sid Vicious, Chrissie Hynde, Billy Idol, London and England in the late 1970s, the Pistols' creation and collapse...all are here, in perhaps the best book ever written about music and youth culture, by one of its most notorious figures.

    At seventeen, I joined Mötley Crüe and we became one of the baddest-ass rock bands in history. We sold over 40 million albums, we wreaked havoc, we scared parents, and we titillated too many fathers' daughters. I've been married three times: once for just a few days to a Penthouse Pet, for seven years to Heather Locklear, and then for five years to Pamela Anderson, with whom I have two beautiful sons. I've gotten into a lot of fights and I've been to jail a few times.But this book isn't your typical journey in a straight line from day one to day now. I'm more interested in revealing what's most important about my life, like how I cook my steaks; what I think of the tabloids, the truth, my ex-wives, my ex-band, my music; and what an innocent observer might find hanging around my house any given Sunday. You'll get plenty of facts and I'll tell you a story, but my real mission here is to paint you a picture of my life. I want to show you how my memories smell.I'd like to get into it now, so please take your seats. I advise you to keep your arms and legs inside the car at all times. If you have a pacemaker, a heart condition, or if you are pregnant or too damn short to reach the safety bar, I ask that you turn back immediately. Those with weak stomachs, strict morals, or chronic indigestion should put the book down now. For the rest of you, there's one truth that's real across the board: What you send out is what you get back. Send out the good, people, and it will come back to you. There's another thing I've learned over the years, in court, in fights, and in arguments with people I love: There isn't one truth, there are many. This book is my truth.

    This is a new and major biography of the first-ever all-electronic pop group and one of the most influential bands in popular music history, Kraftwerk.

    The book also covers the heady days of early punk in London, described by someone who was at its epicenter, right there with the Sex Pistols, the Clash, and the Damned. The life and times of one of the most notorious and gifted rock groups of the 1970s and 1980s, are described in detail, including the drug busts, fights, prison terms and—in one case—the tying up of journalists. Throughout this time Hugh encountered a host of other extraordinary people—Malcolm McClaren, Joe Strummer, Kate Bush, and Debbie Harry, to name a few, and he recounts the outrageous times he lived through with them, as well as providing an inside take on the other members of The Stranglers.

    Charles R. Cross vividly recounts the life of Hendrix, from his difficult childhood and adolescence in Seattle through his incredible rise to celebrity in London's swinging sixties. It is the story of an outrageous life--with legendary tales of sex, drugs, and excess--while it also reveals a man who struggled to accept his role as idol and who privately craved the kind of normal family life he never had. Using never-before-seen documents and private letters, and based on hundreds of interviews with those who knew Hendrix--many of whom had never before agreed to be interviewed--Room Full of Mirrors unlocks the vast mystery of one of music's most enduring legends.

    Fox abandoned high school to pursue an acting career, but went on to receive honorary degrees from several universities and garner the highest accolades for his acting, as well as for his writing. In his new book, he inspires and motivates graduates to recognize opportunities, maximize their abilities, and roll with the punches--all with his trademark optimism, warmth, and humor. In A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future, Michael draws on his own life experiences to make a case that real learning happens when "life goes skidding sideways." He writes of coming to Los Angeles from Canada at age eighteen and attempting to make his way as an actor. Fox offers up a comically skewed take on how, in his own way, he fulfilled the requirements of a college syllabus. He learned Economics as a starving artist; an unexpected turn as a neophyte activist schooled him in Political Science; and his approach to Comparative Literature involved stacking books up against their movie versions. Replete with personal stories and hilarious anecdotes, Michael J. Fox's new book is the perfect gift for graduates.

    He was the charismatic lead singer for the trailblazing rock and roll bands The Jeff Beck Group and The Faces, and as a solo artist, the author of such beloved songs as "Maggie May," "Tonight’s the Night," "Hot Legs," "Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?," "Young Turks," "Forever Young," and "You Wear It Well."  Now after more than five decades in the spotlight, he is finally ready to take a candid and romping look back at his life both on and off the stage. From his humble British roots to his hell-raising years on tour with his bandmates, not forgetting his great loves (including three marriages and eight children) and decades touring the world, Rod delivers a riveting ride through one of rock's most remarkable lives.From the Hardcover edition.

    . . ."   With the candor and often hilarious outlook that have made her a beloved commentator on NPR, Marion Winik takes the reader on an unforgettable journey through modern parenthood, with all of its attendant anxieties and joys.        A single mother with two small boys, Winik knows exactly what she's talking about, from battles over breakfast and bedtime to the virtues of pre-packaged food and weightier issues like sex education and sibling rivalry. Part memoir and part survival guide, The Lunch-Box Chronicles is an engaging philosophy of parenting from a staunch realist, who knows that kids and their parents both will inevitably fall far short of perfection, and that a "good enough mom" really is, in fact, good enough.