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Becoming Ella Fitzgerald: The Jazz Singer Who Transformed American Song
By Judith Tick. 2024
An NPR 2023 "Books We Love" Pick • A Kirkus Best Nonfiction Book of 2023 A landmark biography that reclaims…
Ella Fitzgerald as a major American artist and modernist innovator. Ella Fitzgerald (1917–1996) possessed one of the twentieth century’s most astonishing voices. In this first major biography since Fitzgerald’s death, historian Judith Tick offers a sublime portrait of this ambitious risk-taker whose exceptional musical spontaneity made her a transformational artist. Becoming Ella Fitzgerald clears up long-enduring mysteries. Archival research and in-depth family interviews shed new light on the singer’s difficult childhood in Yonkers, New York, the tragic death of her mother, and the year she spent in a girls’ reformatory school—where she sang in its renowned choir and dreamed of being a dancer. Rarely seen profiles from the Black press offer precious glimpses of Fitzgerald’s tense experiences of racial discrimination and her struggles with constricting models of Black and white femininity at midcentury. Tick’s compelling narrative depicts Fitzgerald’s complicated career in fresh and original detail, upending the traditional view that segregates vocal jazz from the genre’s mainstream. As she navigated the shifting tides between jazz and pop, she used her originality to pioneer modernist vocal jazz. Interpreting long-lost setlists, reviews from both white and Black newspapers, and newly released footage and recordings, the book explores how Ella’s transcendence as an improvisor produced onstage performances every bit as significant as her historic recorded oeuvre. From the singer’s first performance at the Apollo Theatre’s famous “Amateur Night” to the Savoy Ballroom, where Fitzgerald broke through with Chick Webb’s big band in the 1930s, Tick evokes the jazz world in riveting detail. She describes how Ella helped shape the bebop movement in the 1940s, as she joined Dizzy Gillespie and her then-husband, Ray Brown, in the world-touring Jazz at the Philharmonic, one of the first moments of high-culture acceptance for the disreputable art form. Breaking ground as a female bandleader, Fitzgerald refuted expectations of musical Blackness, deftly balancing artistic ambition and market expectations. Her legendary exploration of the Great American Songbook in the 1950s fused a Black vocal aesthetic and jazz improvisation to revolutionize the popular repertoire. This hybridity often confounded critics, yet throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Ella reached audiences around the world, electrifying concert halls, and sold millions of records. A masterful biography, Becoming Ella Fitzgerald describes a powerful woman who set a standard for American excellence nearly unmatched in the twentieth century.Encounters at the Heart of the World: A History of the Mandan People
By Elizabeth A. Fenn. 2014
Winner of the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for HistoryEncounters at the Heart of the World concerns the Mandan Indians, iconic Plains…
people whose teeming, busy towns on the upper Missouri River were for centuries at the center of the North American universe. We know of them mostly because Lewis and Clark spent the winter of 1804-1805 with them, but why don't we know more? Who were they really? In this extraordinary book, Elizabeth A. Fenn retrieves their history by piecing together important new discoveries in archaeology, anthropology, geology, climatology, epidemiology, and nutritional science. Her boldly original interpretation of these diverse research findings offers us a new perspective on early American history, a new interpretation of the American past. By 1500, more than twelve thousand Mandans were established on the northern Plains, and their commercial prowess, agricultural skills, and reputation for hospitality became famous. Recent archaeological discoveries show how these Native American people thrived, and then how they collapsed. The damage wrought by imported diseases like smallpox and the havoc caused by the arrival of horses and steamboats were tragic for the Mandans, yet, as Fenn makes clear, their sense of themselves as a people with distinctive traditions endured. A riveting account of Mandan history, landscapes, and people, Fenn's narrative is enriched and enlivened not only by science and research but by her own encounters at the heart of the world.Bob Marley: The Untold Story
By Chris Salewicz. 2009
What was it about Bob Marley that made him so popular in a world dominated by rock 'n' roll? How…
is it that he not only has remained the single most successful reggae artist ever, but also has become a shining beacon of radicalism and peace to generation after generation of fans? The man who introduced reggae to a worldwide audience, Marley was a hero figure in the classic, mythological sense. From immensely humble beginnings, with talent and religious belief his only weapons, the Jamaican recording artist applied himself with unstinting perseverance to spreading his prophetic musical message across the globe. In 1980, on tour, Bob Marley and the Wailers played to the largest audiences a musical act had ever experienced in Europe. Less than a year later, Marley would die, only thirty-six years old. Sales of Marley's albums before his death were spectacular; in the years since he died, they have been phenomenal. Chris Salewicz, the bestselling author of Redemption Song, the classic biography of Joe Strummer, interviewed Bob Marley in Jamaica in 1979. Now, for the first time, in this thorough, detailed account of Marley's life and the world in which he grew up and which he came to dominate, Salewicz brings to life not only the Rastafari religion and the musical scene in Jamaica, but also the spirit of the man himself. Interviews with dozens of people who knew Marley and have never spoken before are woven through the narrative as Salewicz seeks to explain why Marley has become such an enigmatic and heroic figure, loved by millions all over the world.Silences So Deep: Music, Solitude, Alaska
By John Luther Adams. 2020
"[An] illuminating memoir." —Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim, The New York TimesThe story of a composer's life in the Alaskan wilderness and…
a meditation on making art in a landscape acutely threatened by climate changeIn the summer of 1975, the composer John Luther Adams, then a twenty-two-year-old graduate of CalArts, boarded a flight to Alaska. So began a journey into the mountains, forests, and tundra of the far north—and across distinctive mental and aural terrain—that would last for the next forty years. Silences So Deep is Adams’s account of these formative decades—and of what it’s like to live alone in the frozen woods, composing music by day and spending one’s evenings with a raucous crew of poets, philosophers, and fishermen. From adolescent loves—Edgard Varèse and Frank Zappa—to mature preoccupations with the natural world that inform such works as The Wind in High Places, Adams details the influences that have allowed him to emerge as one of the most celebrated and recognizable composers of our time. Silences So Deep is also a memoir of solitude enriched by friendships with the likes of the conductor Gordon Wright and the poet John Haines, both of whom had a singular impact on Adams’s life. Whether describing the travails of environmental activism in the midst of an oil boom or midwinter conversations in a communal sauna, Adams writes with a voice both playful and meditative, one that evokes the particular beauty of the Alaskan landscape and the people who call it home.Ultimately, this book is also the story of Adams’s difficult decision to leave a rapidly warming Alaska and to strike out for new topographies and sources of inspiration. In its attentiveness to the challenges of life in the wilderness, to the demands of making art in an age of climate crisis, and to the pleasures of intellectual fellowship, Silences So Deep is a singularly rich account of a creative life.Spider from Mars: My Life with Bowie
By Woody Woodmansey. 2016
In January 2016, the unexpected death of David Bowie rocked the globe. For millions of people, he was an icon…
celebrated for his music, his film and theatrical roles, and his trendsetting influence on fashion and gender norms. But no one from her inner circle has told the story of how David Jones—a young folksinger, dancer, and aspiring mime—became one of the most influential artists of our time.Drummer Woody Woodmansey is the last surviving member of Bowie’s band The Spiders from Mars which helped launch his Ziggy Stardust persona and made David Bowie a sensation.In this first memoir to follow Bowie’s passing, Spider from Mars reveals what it was like to be at the white-hot center of a star’s self-creation. With never-before-told stories and never-before-seen photographs, Woodmansey offers details of the album sessions for The Man Who Sold the World, Hunky Dory, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, and Aladdin Sane: the four albums that made Bowie a cult figure. And, as fame beckoned by eventually consumed Bowie, Woodmansey recalls the wild tours, eccentric characters, and rock ‘n’ roll excess that eventually drove the band apart.A vivid and unique evocation of a transformative musical era and the enigmatic, visionary musician at the center of it, with a foreword by legendary music producer Tony Visconti and an afterword from Def Leppard's Joe Elliot, Spider from Mars is for everyone who values David Bowie, by one of the people who knew him best." … those interested in rock history won’t want to miss this slice of music history." - Publishers WeeklyBehind Sad Eyes: The Life of George Harrison
By Marc Shapiro. 2002
Shrouded in a sea of mystery, the elusive George Harrison has long been the most private and enigmatic member of…
the Beatles. From his hard knock childhood in Liverpool to his ascendance into rock infamy, George Harrison's life has been a torpid ride filled with legendary success and heart crushing defeat. New York Times bestselling author Marc Shapiro sheds new light on this paradoxical rocker, whose reputation for unusual religious practices and drug abuse often rivaled his musical notoriety. A man whose desire was to be free rather than be famous, Harrison's battle against conformity lead him to music making, a soulful and creative expression that would be his ticket to success and the bane of his existence. Behind Sad Eyes is the compelling account of a man who gave the Beatles their lyrical playing style and brought solace to a generation during turbulent times.The Beatles from A to Zed: An Alphabetical Mystery Tour
By Peter Asher. 2019
A legendary record producer and performer takes readers on an alphabetical journey of insights into the music of the Beatles…
and individual reminiscences of John, Paul, George, and Ringo.Peter Asher met the Beatles in the spring of 1963, the start of a lifelong association with the band and its members. He had a front-row seat as they elevated pop music into an art form, and he was present at the creation of some of the most iconic music of our times.Asher is also a talented musician in his own right, with a great ear for what was new and fresh. Once, when Paul McCartney wrote a song that John Lennon didn’t think was right for the Beatles, Asher asked if he could record it. “A World Without Love” became a global No. 1 hit for his duo, Peter & Gordon. A few years later Asher was asked by Paul McCartney to help start Apple Records; the first artist Asher discovered and signed up was a young American singer-songwriter named James Taylor. Before long he would be not only managing and producing Taylor but also (having left Apple and moved to Los Angeles) working with Linda Ronstadt, Neil Diamond, Robin Williams, Joni Mitchell, and Cher, among others. The Beatles from A to Zed grows out of his popular radio program “From Me to You” on SiriusXM's The Beatles Channel, where he shares memories and insights about the Fab Four and their music. Here he weaves his reflections into a whimsical alphabetical journey that focuses not only on songs whose titles start with each letter, but also on recurrent themes in the Beatles’ music, the instruments they played, the innovations they pioneered, the artists who influenced them, the key people in their lives, and the cultural events of the time.Few can match Peter Asher for his fresh and personal perspective on the Beatles. And no one is a more congenial and entertaining guide to their music.Who's Crazee Now?: My Autobiography
By Lisa Verrico, Noddy Holder. 1999
As lead singer and extraordinary frontman of SLADE, Noddy Holder was one of the most successful musicians of the '70s…
and '80s. The epitome of the Glam Rock look and lifestyle, they released anthem after anthem as they mixed pure pop madness with football chant choruses. Seemingly on a mission to corrupt the spelling of a generation, the hits are songs we still hold dear today: MAMA WEER ALL CRAZEE NOW, LOOK WOT YOU DUN, CUM ON FEEL THE NOIZE. . . In a short few years they had 12 top five hits, 6 of them making #1 spot. Their albums also topped the charts and their huge Christmas anthem MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY has entered the top twenty over 7 times. In the '80s Slade made a brilliant revival with even more hits, especially RUN RUN AWAY and the classic MY OH MY. Today Noddy is as loved by the British public as he has ever been and in this hilarious autobiography he will tell us his complete life story, from growing up in the Midlands, to performing in the working men's clubs. The information of their first group, The N'Betweens and the mutation into an unlikely skinhead group, Ambrose Slade. And then, of course, Glam Rock and all the excesses of lifestyle that accompanied the outrageous clothes, not to mention guitarist Dave Hill's incredible hair style.Shock and Awe: Glam Rock and Its Legacy, from the Seventies to the Twenty-first Century
By Simon Reynolds. 2016
NPR Great Read of 2016From the acclaimed author of Rip It Upand Start Again and Retromania—“the foremost popular music critic…
of this era (Times Literary Supplement)—comes the definitive cultural history of glam and glitter rock, celebrating its outlandish fashion and outrageous stars, including David Bowie and Alice Cooper, and tracking its vibrant legacy in contemporary pop.Spearheaded by David Bowie, Alice Cooper, T. Rex, and Roxy Music, glam rock reveled in artifice and spectacle. Reacting against the hairy, denim-clad rock bands of the late Sixties, glam was the first true teenage rampage of the new decade. In Shock and Awe, Simon Reynolds takes you on a wild cultural tour through the early Seventies, a period packed with glitzy costumes and alien make-up, thrilling music and larger-than-life personas.Shock and Awe offers a fresh, in-depth look at the glam and glitter phenomenon, placing it the wider Seventies context of social upheaval and political disillusion. It explores how artists like Lou Reed, New York Dolls, and Queen broke with the hippie generation, celebrating illusion and artifice over truth and authenticity. Probing the genre’s major themes—stardom, androgyny, image, decadence, fandom, apocalypse—Reynolds tracks glam’s legacy as it unfolded in subsequent decades, from Eighties art-pop icons like Kate Bush through to twenty-first century idols of outrage such as Lady Gaga. Shock and Awe shows how the original glam artists’ obsessions with fame, extreme fashion, and theatrical excess continue to reverberate through contemporary pop culture.My Mama, Cass: A Memoir
By Owen Elliot-Kugell. 2024
A long-awaited, myth-busting, and deeply affecting memoir by the daughter of legendary rock star &“Mama&” Cass Elliot To the rest…
of the world, Cass Elliot was a rock star; A charismatic, wisecracking singer from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inducted band, The Mamas & The Papas; A legend of Laurel Canyon, decked out in her custom-made Muumuus, glittering designer jewelry, blessed with a powerful, instantly identifiable singing voice which helped define the sound of the 1960s counterculture movement. But to Owen Elliot-Kugell, she was just Mom. In the nearly 50 years since Cass Elliot&’s untimely death at the age of 32, rumors and myths have swirled about, shading nearly every aspect of her life. In her long-awaited memoir, Owen Elliot-Kugell shares the groundbreaking story of her mom as only a daughter can tell it. In My Mama, Cass, Owen pulls back the curtains of her mother&’s life from the sold-out theaters to behind the closed doors of her infamous California abode. Born Ellen Naomi Cohen, the woman who was known to the world as Cass Elliot was decades ahead of her time: an independently minded, outspoken woman who broke through a male-dominated business, a forward-thinking feminist, and a single parent who embraced motherhood from the moment Owen entered the world. From the closely guarded secret of Owen&’s paternity to Cass&’s lifelong struggles with self-esteem and weight, to rumors surrounding her mother&’s death, Owen illuminates the complex truths of her mother&’s life, sharing interviews with the high-profile figures who orbited Cass, as well as never-before-heard tales of her mother and this legendary period of American history. Featuring intimate family and archival photos as well as interviews and memories from famous friends, fans, and colleagues who loved and respected Cass, this book is both a love story and a mystery, a tale of self-discovery and a daughter&’s devotion. At its core, My Mama, Cass is a beautifully crafted testament befitting of Cass Elliot&’s enduring cultural impact and legacy, written by the person who knew and loved her best.Shake It Up, Baby!: The Rise of Beatlemania and the Mayhem of 1963
By Ken McNab. 2024
A vivid, captivating account of the Beatles&’s musical transformation throughout the pivotal year of 1963, as the world became caught…
up in the maelstrom of Beatlemania and its far-reaching cultural impact. The Beatles broke up more than half a century ago, yet millions around the globe are still drawn to the legacy of four lads from Liverpool. From the carefree innocence of "A Hard Day's Night" to the experimental psychedelia of "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds,&” their message of love, peace, and hope still resonates. In Shake It Up, Baby! we go back to the start—to 1963, when they went from playing in small clubs in the remote Scottish Highlands to four number one singles, two number one albums, three national tours, and being besieged by thousands of fans at gigs all over Britain. Ken McNab tells the story through gripping, exclusive eye-witness accounts from those who were there: the Beatlemaniacs, the journalists, broadcasters, and television producers who were scrambling to make sense of it all—and the other bands who could only watch in awe as the Beatles went from bottom of the bill to headline act to the biggest band on the planet, forever transforming musical history.Got a Revolution!: The Turbulent Flight of Jefferson Airplane
By Jeff Tamarkin. 2003
The most successful and influential rock band to emerge from San Francisco during the 1960s, Jefferson Airplane created the sound…
of a generation. Their smash hits "Somebody to Love" and "White Rabbit" virtually invented the era's signature pulsating psychedelic music and, during one of the most tumultuous times in American history, came to personify the decade's radical counterculture. In this groundbreaking biography of the band, veteran music writer and historian Jeff Tamarkin produces a portrait of the band like none that has come before it. Having worked closely with Jefferson Airplane for more than a decade, Tamarkin had unprecedented access to the band members, their families, friends, lovers, crew members, fellow musicians, cultural luminaries, even the highest-ranking politicians of the time. More than just a definitive history, Got a Revolution! is a rock legend unto itself. Jann Wenner, editor-in-chief and publisher of Rolling Stone, wrote, "The classic [Jefferson] Airplane lineup were both architects and messengers of a psychedelic age, a liberation of mind and body that profoundly changed American art, politics, and spirituality. It was a renaissance that could only have been born in San Francisco, and the Airplane, more than any other band in town, spread the good news nationwide."Women and the Piano: A History in 50 Lives
By Susan Tomes. 2024
Women are an essential part of the history of the piano—but how many women pianists can you name? Throughout…
most of the piano&’s history, women pianists lacked access to formal training and were excluded from male-dominated performance spaces. Even the modern piano&’s keys were designed without consideration of women&’s typically smaller hands. Yet despite their music being largely confined to the domestic sphere, women continued to play, perform, and compose on their own terms. Celebrated pianist and author Susan Tomes traces fifty such women across the piano&’s history. Including now-famous names such as Clara Schumann and Fanny Mendelssohn, Tomes also highlights overlooked women: from Hélène de Montgeroult, whose playing saved her life during the French Revolution, to Leopoldine Wittgenstein, influential Viennese salonnière, and Hazel Scott, the first Black performer in the United States to have a nationally syndicated TV show. From Maria Szymanowska to Nina Simone, and including interviews with women performing today, this is a much-needed corrective to our understanding of the piano—and a timely testament to women&’s musical lives.Soul Song: Reflections On An Unexpected Journey by The Priests
By David Delargy, Eugene O'Hagan, Martin O'Hagan. 2010
Known collectively as The Priests, Fr Martin, Fr Eugene and Fr David, have taken the music world by storm. Since…
they signed their much-reported Sony contract in front of Westminster Cathedral in April 2008, their album has sold almost 2,000,000 copies worldwide and broke the Guinness record for the fastest-selling debut classical album in the UK. It has also chalked up an impressive fifteen weeks at No. 1 on the Classic FM chart and was nominated for a Classical Brit Award. In June 2009, The Priests topped off their incredibly successful year with a highly-acclaimed mini-tour of the UK and Ireland. But long lunches in swanky restaurants and celebrity parties count for little with these down-to-earth, wonderfully talented singers, because first and foremost, David, Martin and Eugene are priests; their faith and the work they undertake in their busy parishes takes priority over everything else they do. So, whilst their gruelling promotional schedule for the album has taken them around the world - from Europe to Montreal and Toronto, from Washington to New York and Sydney, where they have played to packed houses and given dozens of press, radio and tv interviews - they have always been happy to return to their parishes in Belfast and the people they serve. Now in Soul Song, The Priests draw upon their unique experiences as priests and performers, their love of music and their faith, as they weave together a rich, illuminating tapestry of spiritual wisdom. Insightful and engaging, it is a treasury of memories which offers us all a rare and timely opportunity to reflect on our own journey through life.A Light in the Darkness: The Music and Life of Joaquín Rodrigo
By Javier Suárez-Pajares, Walter Aaron Clark. 2024
A composer of singular vision. Joaquín Rodrigo (1901–1999) is best known as the composer of one of the most popular…
works of music in the twentieth century—the Concierto de Aranjuez for guitar and orchestra. It’s been featured in movies and television commercials and remains a staple of concert programs for orchestras around the world. Miles Davis said, “After listening to it for a couple of weeks…I couldn’t get it out of my mind,” and he used it as inspiration for his album Sketches of Spain. But as Javier Suárez-Pajares and Walter Aaron Clark reveal in this musical biography—the first complete study in English—Rodrigo’s work and influence extend far beyond that singular composition. A Light in the Darkness takes us through Rodrigo’s childhood in Valencia, the onset of blindness at the age of three, and the beginnings of his musical education. He achieved some early success in Spain as a composer before moving to Paris in 1927 to advance his studies, following in the footsteps of other eminent Spanish composers like Isaac Albéniz, Joaquín Turina, and Manuel de Falla. There he enrolled in courses with composer Paul Dukas, met the woman who would become his wife, and earned the respect and friendship of Falla, who became his champion. Along the way, Rodrigo’s musical voice developed and matured as his horizons widened. Suárez-Pajares and Clark present a definitive account of the making of Rodrigo’s celebrated guitar concerto, even as they capture the breadth of Rodrigo’s compositional output, from solo works for piano and guitar through chamber music and vocal works to concertos and orchestral pieces. As they demonstrate, Rodrigo’s music is unmistakably Spanish, but with his own unique accent. Rodrigo’s life and career spanned a period of great tumult in Spain, and he had to navigate strong, shifting political and cultural currents—before, during, and after Franco. An authoritative life of one of the twentieth century’s great musical geniuses, A Light in the Darkness becomes a stunning tale of how art gets made under even the most challenging circumstances.Out of the Blue: Life on the Road with Muddy Waters (American Made Music Series)
By Brian Bisesi. 2024
Out of the Blue: Life on the Road with Muddy Waters begins with a moment lifted from a young musician’s…
dreams. Brian Bisesi, a guitarist barely out of his teens, is invited on stage to fill in for a missing member of the band backing blues legend Muddy Waters. This life-changing quirk of fate opens the door into a world of challenges and opportunities that Bisesi, an Italian American reared in the comforts of a New York City suburb, can barely imagine. Despite their differences, Bisesi and Waters hit it off, and what might have been a one-night stand turns into a career. From 1978 to 1980, Bisesi works for Waters as his road manager, bean-counter, and at times his confidant, while often sitting in with the band. Bisesi’s years with the band take him to Europe, Japan, Canada, and across the United States as Waters tours—and parties—with rock gods like Eric Clapton, the Rolling Stones, a Beatle, and the gamut of musicians who came of age with Waters and introduced a younger generation to the blues. In Out of the Blue, Bisesi captures it all: from the pranks and tensions among bluesmen enduring a hard life on the road, to observations about Waters’s technique, his love of champagne and reefer, his eye for women, and his sometimes-acrid views of contemporary music. Bisesi has sharp insights into the ill-conceived management decisions that led to the dissolution of Waters’s longest-serving band in June of 1980. This book will rivet, amuse, and occasionally infuriate blues aficionados. It is a raucous and intimate portrait of the blues scene at a pivotal moment in time that fascinates music historians and blues fans alike.Always a Song: Singers, Songwriters, Sinners, and Saints – My Story of the Folk Music Revival
By Ellen Harper, Sam Barry. 2020
Always a Song is a collection of stories from singer and songwriter Ellen Harper—folk matriarch and mother to the Grammy-winning…
musician Ben Harper.Harper shares vivid memories of growing up in Los Angeles through the 1960s among famous and small-town musicians, raising Ben, and the historic Folk Music Center.This beautifully written memoir includes stories of Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Joan Baez, The New Lost City Ramblers, Doc Watson, and many more.• Harper takes readers on an intimate journey through the folk music revival.• The book spans a transformational time in music, history, and American culture.• Covers historical events from the love-ins, women's rights protests, and the assassination of John F. Kennedy to the popularization of the sitar and the ukulele.• Includes full-color photo insert."Growing up, an endless stream of musicians and artists came from across the country to my family's music store. Bess Lomax Hawes, Joan Baez, Sonny Terry, and Brownie McGee—all the singers, organizers, guitar and banjo pickers and players, songwriters, painters, dancers, their husbands, wives, and children—we were all in it together. And we believed singing could change the world."—Ellen HarperMusic lovers and history buffs will enjoy this rare invitation into a world of stories and song that inspired folk music today.• A must-read for lovers of music, history, and those nostalgic for the acoustic echo of the original folk music that influenced a generation• Harper's parents opened the legendary Folk Music Center in Claremont, California, as well as the revered folk music venue The Golden Ring.• A perfect book for people who are obsessed with folk music, all things 1960s, learning about musical movements, or California history• Great for those who loved Small Town Talk: Bob Dylan, The Band, Van Morrison, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Friends in the Wild Years of Woodstock by Barney Hoskyns; and Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon—and the Journey of a Generation by Sheila Weller.Look What You Made Me Do: The ultimate guide for Taylor Swift fans!
By Kat McKenna. 2024
THE MUST-HAVE HANDBOOK FOR TAYLOR SWIFT FANS, AND THE ONLY COMPANION YOU NEED FOR THE ERAS TOUR! What does it mean…
to be a FAN? If you're a Swiftie, you know that it takes commitment and dedication to be in a fandom. And there's nothing more rewarding than sourcing Taylor Swift news and updates, anticipating new music and meeting fellow fans. But fan culture today is more intense than ever, from trolling to stalkers to online warfare.So how did we get here? Discover the history of the first fandoms, the many Eras of Taylor Swift, the politics of celebrity and cancel culture, and above all: why being a fan is so special. Featuring interview with key Taylor Swift fans and celebrity culture icon DeuxMoi and the founder of Swiftogeddon, this book is the ultimate guide on how to be a fan.Arrangements in Blue: Notes on Loving and Living Alone
By Amy Key. 2023
"[Arrangements in Blue] reflects on a life spent as a single woman and how that affects friendships, freedom, domesticity, family,…
sexuality, the psyche, the self. It observes things about being alone that I have never seen or heard articulated before.... beautiful, effortless.... I haven’t been so obsessed with a book in a long time." —Dolly Alderton “The poet Amy Key’s first book might be the most hyped memoir of 2023 (or at least a close second to Spare)… This raw, gorgeous, pulsing memoir is…the harbinger of a real talent.” —Laura Hackett, Sunday Times [UK] Amy Key—a writer “of rare and strange magic” (Guardian)—probes the art of living without romance in this soul-stirring debut. When British poet Amy Key was growing up, she envisioned a life shaped by love—and Joni Mitchell’s album Blue was her inspiration. “Blue became part of my language of intimacy,” she writes, recalling the dozens of times she played the record as a teen, “an intimacy of disclosure, vulnerability, unadorned feeling that I thought I’d eventually share with a romantic other.” As the years ticked by, she held on to this very specific idea of romance like a bottle of wine saved for a special occasion. But what happens when the romance we are all told will give life meaning never presents itself? Now single in her forties, Key explores the sweeping scales of romantic feeling as she has encountered them, using the album Blue as an expressive anchor: from the low notes of loss and unfulfilled desire—punctuated by sharp, discordant feelings of jealousy and regret—to the deep harmony of friendship, and the crescendos of sexual attraction and self-realization. Finding solace in Mitchell’s songs, Key plumbs Blue’s track list for themes that resonate with her heart’s seasons. Listening to the song “California,” she explores the mixed emotions that come with traveling alone in a world built for couples; she juxtaposes the lonely lyrics of “My Old Man” with the pleasurable art of curating a perfect apartment for one; and with the utmost tenderness, she parses out her decision to not have children with the eloquent “Little Green.” Mapping the evolution of her early conceptions of love through her adulthood, Key offers a tender and nakedly candid celebration of the many forms of intimacy that often go unnoticed. An essential work for both the single and the partnered, Arrangements in Blue is a bold manual for building a life on your own terms.