Series in Rock
Books in Rock
A Book of Days
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A deeply moving and brilliantly idiosyncratic visual book of days by the National Book Award–winning author of Just Kids and M Train, featuring more than 365 images and reflections that chart Smith’s singular aesthetic—inspired by her wildly popular Instagram. ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Variety, Pitchfork, PopSugar In 2018, without any plan or agenda for what might happen next, Patti Smith posted her first Instagram photo: her hand with the simple message “Hello Everybody!” Known for shooting with her beloved Land Camera 250, Smith started posting images from her phone including portraits of her kids, her radiator, her boots, and her Abyssinian cat, Cairo. Followers felt an immediate affinity with these miniature windows into Smith’s world, photographs of her daily coffee, the books she’s reading, the graves of beloved heroes—William Blake, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, Simone Weil, Albert Camus. Over time, a coherent story of a life devoted to art took shape, and more than a million followers responded to Smith’s unique aesthetic in images that chart her passions, devotions, obsessions, and whims. Original to this book are vintage photographs: anniversary pearls, a mother’s keychain, and a husband’s Mosrite guitar. Here, too, are photos from Smith’s archives of life on and off the road, train stations, obscure cafés, a notebook always nearby. In wide-ranging yet intimate daily notations, Smith shares dispatches from her travels around the world. With over 365 photographs taking you through a single year, A Book of Days is a new way to experience the expansive mind of the visionary poet, writer, and performer. Hopeful, elegiac, playful—and complete with an introduction by Smith that explores her documentary process— A Book of Days is a timeless offering for deeply uncertain times, an inspirational map of an artist’s life.
A Dreamer Of Pictures
Neil Young is arguably the only rock performer and songwriter whose work has retained the respect of a large following while gaining the allegiance of new generations. He has demonstrated a unique ability to combine commercial success with a willful experimentation. His music has encompassed almost every American popular style, from folk to metal, from rockabilly to punk, from rhythm and blues to country; and it is his restless pursuit of new challenges that has led on the one hand to his recognition as one of the few stars who refuses to "sell out," and on the other hand to his being sued by his record company for making albums that were not "characteristic of Neil Young." In A Dreamer of Pictures , David Downing paints an illuminating and entertaining portrait of this contradictory and enigmatic figure. Here we see his childhood in Canada and his first forays into musicmaking; his ups and downs with Buffalo Springfield, Crosby, Stills, and Nash, and Crazy Horse; the privations and excesses of life on the road; his unconventional filmmaking and fundraising ventures; his often absurd political pronouncements; his two marriages; his involvement with his younger son's therapy to combat cerebral palsy; and his continuing musical evolution. Neil Young has taken rock beyond generational boundaries and has helped to establish it as a unique art form; A Dreamer of Pictures is thus a portrait not only of Young, but of rock itself.
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an iconic figure in American musical and cultural history, lauded by Time magazine as one of the hundred most important people of the twentieth century. For nearly fifty years the singer-songwriter has crafted his unique brand of music, from his 1962 self-titled debut album to 2009's #1 hit Together Through Life , appealing to everyone from baby boomers to the twenty-somethings who storm the stage at his concerts. In Bob Dylan: Like a Complete Unknown , literary scholar and music critic David Yaffe considers Dylan from four perspectives: his complicated relationship to blackness (including his involvement in the civil rights movement and a secret marriage with a black backup singer), the underrated influence of his singing style, his fascinating image in films, and his controversial songwriting methods that have led to charges of plagiarism. Each chapter travels from the 1960s to the present, offering a historical perspective on the many facets of Dylan's life and career, exploring the mystery that surrounds the enigmatic singer and revealing the complete unknown Dylan.
Comrade Rockstar: The Life and Mystery of Dean Reed, the All-American Boy Who Brought Rock 'n' Roll to the Soviet Union
Dean Reed had one of the strangest careers in the history of popular culture. Failing to gain recognition for his music in his native United States, he achieved celebrity in South America in the early 1960s and then, unbelievably, became the biggest rock star in the Soviet Union, where he was awarded the Lenin Prize and his icons were sold alongside those of Josef Stalin. His albums went gold from Bulgaria to Berlin. He made highly successful movies and, naively earnest, was an unwitting acolyte for socialism; everywhere he went, he was mobbed by his fans. And then, in 1986, at the height of his fame, right after 60 Minutes had devoted a segment to him, finally giving him the recognition he had never attained at home, he drowned in mysterious circumstances in East Berlin. Drawn magnetically to his story, Reggie Nadelson pursued the mystery of Dean Reed's life and death across America and Eastern Europe, her own journey mirroring his. As she traveled, the Berlin Wall came down, the Soviet Union crumbled, and Reed became an increasingly alluring figure, his life an unrepeatable tale of the Cold War world. Encountering the characters― musicians and DJs, politicians and public figures, lovers and wives―who peopled Reed's life, Nadelson was drawn further and further into a seedy, often hilarious subculture of sex, politics, and rock 'n' roll. Part biography, part memoir and personal journey, Comrade Rockstar is an unforgettable chronicle of an utterly improbable life
Courtney Love
Courtney Love. The girl with the most cake. The girl with the loudest mouth and the fiercest guitar. The girl of many talents -- not least among them the power to shock. Not since Madonna declared that she was like a virgin has someone in the public spotlight so consistently challenged the notion of what it means to be female -- and what it means to be well behaved. In Courtney Love: The Real Story, Poppy Z. Brite tells the whole truth about the lead singer of the band Hole and uncovers more about this pop culture heroine than any music magazine could ever hope to. Replete with revealing details and photographs, information from Love's inner circle, and excerpts from Love's diaries and letters, this book has the intimacy of secrets told to a friend and delivers revelation after revelation. With equal parts compassion and black humor, Brite chronicles the turbulent lives of Love and introduces us to Love Michelle Harrison, the troubled girl who would be queen of postpunk rock, and her childhood spent shuttled from reform school to former stepfathers to family friends. As a precocious, flamboyant teenager, she hung around backstage after concerts, soaking up the star power she knew she had to possess one day, and then traveled to Japan, Taiwan, and Hong Kong to work as a stripper. Brite also takes us to new-wave Liverpool and to that citadel of grunge, Seattle, to see Courtney come of age in the circus that became alternative music, dishing much along the way about some of the biggest stars of that show from past and present. Brite also sets the story straight about Love's life with Kurt Cobain; the allegations of her drug use that surrounded the birth of their daughter, Frances Bean; and the wreckage of Cobain's suicide. But what emerges out of all the drama is a woman determined not only to survive, but to succeed more than anyone ever expected. As seen from her stunning performance as the wife of the publisher of Hustler magazine in The People vs. Larry Flynt, and her transformation into a runway acolyte, she just may catapult herself out of the mosh pit and into the mainstream. Only Poppy Z. Brite, the acclaimed author of literary horror fiction, whom Publishers Weekly called "a singularly talented chronicler of her generation," could have written this outrageous, comic, and ultimately moving tale of ferocious femininity and fishnet stockings. Courtney Love: The Real Story is a no-holds-barred biography that is as raw as a three-chord punk song -- a work that is as uncompromising and as unforgettable as its subject.
Elton John
Help your little one dream big with a Little Golden Book biography about music icon and "Rocket Man," Elton John. Little Golden Book biographies are the perfect introduction to nonfiction for young readers—as well as fans of all ages! This Little Golden Book about Elton John--the Grammy-award winning singer, pianist, and composer known for hits including "Your Song" and "Benny and the Jets"--is an inspiring read-aloud for young children as well as their parents and grandparents who are Elton fans. Look for more Little Golden Book biographies: • Willie Nelson • Beyoncé • Dolly Parton • Taylor Swift • Tony Bennett
Elton John
Help your little one dream big with a Little Golden Book biography about music icon and "Rocket Man," Elton John. Little Golden Book biographies are the perfect introduction to nonfiction for young readers—as well as fans of all ages! This Little Golden Book about Elton John--the Grammy-award winning singer, pianist, and composer known for hits including "Your Song" and "Benny and the Jets"--is an inspiring read-aloud for young children as well as their parents and grandparents who are Elton fans. Look for more Little Golden Book biographies: • Willie Nelson • Beyoncé • Dolly Parton • Taylor Swift • Tony Bennett
Elton John
Help your little one dream big with a Little Golden Book biography about music icon and "Rocket Man," Elton John. Little Golden Book biographies are the perfect introduction to nonfiction for young readers—as well as fans of all ages! This Little Golden Book about Elton John--the Grammy-award winning singer, pianist, and composer known for hits including "Your Song" and "Benny and the Jets"--is an inspiring read-aloud for young children as well as their parents and grandparents who are Elton fans. Look for more Little Golden Book biographies: • Willie Nelson • Beyoncé • Dolly Parton • Taylor Swift • Tony Bennett
Elton John
Help your little one dream big with a Little Golden Book biography about music icon and "Rocket Man," Elton John. Little Golden Book biographies are the perfect introduction to nonfiction for young readers—as well as fans of all ages! This Little Golden Book about Elton John--the Grammy-award winning singer, pianist, and composer known for hits including "Your Song" and "Benny and the Jets"--is an inspiring read-aloud for young children as well as their parents and grandparents who are Elton fans. Look for more Little Golden Book biographies: • Willie Nelson • Beyoncé • Dolly Parton • Taylor Swift • Tony Bennett
Fantastically Great Women Who Worked Wonders
''Significantly more engaging and inspiring than the rival Rebel Girls'' GUARDIAN ''It''s hard to imagine any group of primary-aged children who wouldn''t be inspired'' BOOKSELLER ''An absolute must-have for every young person’s bookshelf'' HUFFINGTON POST Kate Pankhurst, descendent of suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst, is back with a brand new wildly brilliant and accessible book about incredible women in the world of work. What do you want to be when you grow up? It’s a BIG question that everyone is asked from an early age. Discover eye-opening facts about a collection of go-getting women who have pioneered careers in a kaleidoscope of different industries. · Climb to the top of Everest with fearless mountaineer Junko Tabei · Calculate mind-fizzing formulas with mathematician Katherine Johnson · Make brilliant scientific discoveries with Rosalind Franklin · Travel high up in the sky in a hot-air balloon with Sophie Blanchard Overflowing with beautiful illustrations and astounding facts, Fantastically Great Women Who Worked Wonders is the perfect introduction to just a few of the most incredible women who helped shaped the world we live in. A fantastic gift for girls and boys alike! List of women featured: Junko Tabei, Sophie Blanchard, Maria Merian, Elizabeth Magie, the London Matchgirls, Rosa May Billinghurst, Katherine Johnson, Annette Kellerman, Katia Krafft, Rosalind Franklin, James Barry, Madam C.J. Walker, Lotte Reiniger. Series featured as part of the Blue Peter Book Club
Finding Woodstock
On the Road to Eden Woodstock, Vietnam and the Tocks Island Dam—all hot button issues that divided a nation and a town. The Sixties were filled with a mix of conflict and hope, with madness and music, and the Delaware River became ground zero for that fight. In Finding Woodstock , author Jeff Widmer reflects on one of America’s most turbulent times as he examines the promise of a generation and the decade that shaped our lives. A companion to the novel Born Under a Bad Sign , this collection of short essays provides the backstory to a generation that is still trying to get back to the garden. With original photography by the author. Jeff Widmer has written seven novels, including the crime series featuring real estate agent CW McCoy ( Peak Season, Permanent Vacation ) and the defrocked journalist named Brinker ( Mr. Mayhem, Mr. Magic ). He is also the author of several works of nonfiction, including the Spirit of Swiftwater , a chronicle of vaccine-makers at the turn of the twentieth century.
Great Lost Albums(With: David Quantick,Martyn Waites,Stav Sherez)
We can all name the classic rock and pop albums of the last 50 years. But what about the great lost albums? The albums that fell behind the back of the musical sofa? The albums that, in a very real sense, have been completely made up by the authors of this book? It took a bestselling crime writer, or three, to hunt down these 50 lost classics, and an award-winning TV comedy scriptwriter to buy them a pint and make them write it. From the 1960s to the 2000s, with track listings and full histories, Great Lost Albums reveals the recordings that, just perhaps, never existed, but really should have. Albums include: Bob Dylan's legendary collaboration with Liberace; Joy Division's "musical theater" period; Coldplay's IKEA Sessions, including "Conscious Uncoupling (See Leaflet for Details)" and "In my Place (There's a Lovely HEMNES Shelving System)"; The Who's magisterial, abandoned rock opera "Bingo Wizard"; Kraftwerk's hastily deleted Christmas album, featuring the melancholic classic "I Wish to Return this Item"; and many, many more.