Entertainment Memoir

Reese Witherspoon’s grandmother Dorothea always said a combination of beauty and strength made Southern women “whiskey in a teacup”. We may be delicate and ornamental on the outside, she said, but inside, we’re strong and fiery. Reese’s Southern heritage informs her whole life, and she loves sharing the joys of Southern living with practically everyone she meets. She takes the South wherever she goes with bluegrass, big holiday parties, and plenty of Dorothea’s fried chicken.

Malcolm Evans, the Beatles’ long-time roadie, personal assistant, and devoted friend, was an invaluable member of the band’s inner circle. A towering figure in horn-rimmed glasses, Evans loomed large in the Beatles’ story, contributing at times as a performer and sometime lyricist, while struggling mightily to protect his beloved “boys.” He was there for the whole of the group’s remarkable, unparalleled story: from the Shea Stadium triumph through the creation of the timeless cover art for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and the famous Let It Be rooftop concert.

All Things Aside is a punchy, honest, incisive book that shares a view of the world through the eyes of the inimitable Iliza Shlesinger. From the macro to micro, Shlesinger tackles it all with her no-bullshit comedic style. Throughout the book, Shlesinger dives from one subject into the next, making her hilarious asides the basis of her stories, much like she does in her stand-up comedy. Topics range from dissecting social expectations to the notion that products marketed specifically to women are scams, and all manner of things in between.

A Fine Romance begins with Bergen's charming first husband, French director Louis Malle, whose huge appetite for life broadened her horizons and whose occasional darkness never diminished their love for each other. But her real romance begins when she discovers overpowering love for her daughter after years of ambivalence about motherhood.

A Recorded Books Audio Original production of songs and stories performed by Dolly herself, Dolly Parton, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics goes beyond the glitz, glamour, and rhinestones to the warmth, heart, and soul of a treasured pop-culture icon.

Sona Movsesian didn’t wake up one day and decide to become the World’s Worst Assistant. Achieving such greatness is a gradual process—one that starts with long hours and hard work before it eventually descends into sneaking low-dosage edibles into your lunch and napping on your boss’s couch.

In 2016, Bob Dylan sold his personal archive to the George Kaiser Foundation in Tulsa, Oklahoma, reportedly for $22 million. As the boxes started to arrive, the Foundation asked Clinton Heylin—author of the acclaimed Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades and 'perhaps the world's authority on all things Dylan' (Rolling Stone)—to assess the material they had been given. What he found in Tulsa—as well as what he gleaned from other papers he had recently been given access to by Sony and the Dylan office—so changed his understanding of the artist.

From private feuds and on-set disasters to fanfare that swept the nation and the realities of child stardom, culture journalist Ashley Spencer offers the first unauthorized look at the heyday of TV’s House of Mouse, featuring hundreds of exclusive new interviews with former Disney executives, creatives, and talent to explore the highs, lows, and everything in between.

How to Make It in the New Music Business, since its first publication in 2016, has become the go-to resource for musicians eager to make a living in a turbulent industry. Widely adopted by ambitious individuals and music schools across the world and considered "the best how-to book of its kind" (Music Connection), this essential work has inspired tens of thousands of aspiring artists to stop waiting around for that "big break" and take matters into their own hands.

Kid Congo Powers has been described as a “legendary guitarist and paragon of cool” with “the greatest resume ever of anyone in rock music." That unique imprint on rock history stems from being a member of not one but three beloved, groundbreaking, and influential groups—Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, the Cramps, and last but not least, The Gun Club, the wildly inventive punk-blues band he co-founded. Some New Kind of Kick begins as an intimate coming-of-age tale.

Erika Jayne didn't make it this far by holding back. Now, in her first-ever memoir, the fan favorite star of Bravo's The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills bares her heart, mind, and soul. In Pretty Mess, Erika spills on every aspect of her life: from her rise to fame as a daring and fiery pop/dance performer and singer; to her decision to accept a role on reality television; to the ups and downs of family life (including her marriage to famed lawyer Tom Girardi, 33 years her senior). There's much more to Erika Jayne than fans see on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.

The first and most complete narrative biography of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, by acclaimed music journalist and Rolling Stone senior writer David Browne.

Diane Rehm has hosted a show on WAMU in Washington, D.C. since 1979. In Finding My Voice, this nationally acclaimed public radio personality shares the fascinating story of her life. Diane grows up with rigid Christian Arab parents who give her little self confidence. Her father is distant, and her mother has a violent temper. Diane’s first husband is as inaccessible as her father, and her life as a housewife is disappointing. But when she begins working at WAMU, she embarks on a path of self-discovery and transformation.

Doomed to Fail explores the heaviest music the world has ever heard, tracing doom, sludge, and post-metal as their own distinct (and incredibly loud) traditions. Anselmi covers the bands and musicians that have impacted those styles most - Black Sabbath, Candlemass, Melvins, Eyehategod, Godflesh, Neurosis, Saint Vitus, and many others - while diving into the cultural doom that has spawned such music, from the bombing of Birmingham and hurricane devastation of New Orleans to glaring economic inequality, industrial alienation, climate change, and widespread addiction.

In 1999, a former dishwasher from Detroit named Marshall Bruce Mathers III became the most controversial and polarizing musical artist in the world. He was an outlier, a white artist creating viable art in a black medium, telling stories with such verbal dexterity, nimble wit, and shocking honesty that his music and persona resonated universally. In short, Eminem changed the landscape of pop culture as we knew it. In 2006, at the height of his fame and one of the biggest-selling artists in music history, Eminem all but disappeared.

In 2018, Colton Haynes woke up in a hospital. He’d had two seizures, lost vision in one eye, almost ruptured a kidney, and been put on an involuntary psychiatric hold. Not yet thirty, he knew he had to take stock of his life and make some serious changes if he wanted to see his next birthday. As he worked towards sobriety, Haynes allowed himself to become vulnerable for the first time and discovered profound self-awareness. He had millions of social media followers who constantly told him they loved him.

Once upon a time a girl said, ‘In India, real people don’t become movie stars’. The same girl became the biggest crossover star. That very girl can’t walk around in New York City now ‘without being mobbed’. That’s Priyanka Chopra for you. The quintessential ‘Girl Uninterrupted’. She came from a small-town middle-class family in North India. During the Miss India contest, she was grilled by none other than Shah Rukh Khan. She prevailed and won the hearts of millions.

What happens when Paul Simon, widely considered one of the greatest songwriters in music history, and Malcolm Gladwell, the bestselling author and podcast host, sit down together, with a tape recorder and a guitar? Miracle and Wonder: Conversations with Paul Simon is part memoir, part investigation, and unlike any creative portrait you’ve ever heard before.

In the spring of 1980, an unexpected group of musical eccentrics came together to play their very first performance at a college party in Athens, Georgia. Within a few short years, they had taken over the world–with smash records like Out of Time, Automatic for the People, Monster and Green. Raw, outrageous, and expressive, R.E.M.’s distinctive musical flair was unmatched, and a string of mega-successes solidified them as generational spokesmen.

George Michael was an extravagantly gifted, openhearted soul singer whose work was both pained and smolderingly erotic. He was a songwriter of true craft and substance, and his music swept the world, starting in the mid-1980s. His fabricated image—that of a hypermacho sex god—loomed large in the pop culture of his day. It also hid—for a time—the secret he fought against revealing: Michael was gay. George Michael: A Life explores the compelling story of a superstar whose struggles, as well as his songs, continue to touch fans all over the world.