Words Without Music: A Memoir

by Philip Glass        (Get the Book)
No matter your opinion of Glass’ music, you will like Glass the man. In a straightforward yet often moving voice, he details his early years at the University of Chicago; his move to New York and Juilliard (despite his mother’s warning that, as a musician, he would be living in hotels and traveling for the rest of his life); his studies in Paris and, later, in India; his unbending dedication to being an artist; and, in large part, the men and women from all walks of life who would influence him as he developed “the habit of attention” necessary to compose in genres ranging from high-school band music to symphonies, quartets, concertos, and such operas as Einstein on the Beach and Satyagraha. Glass would support his family working odd jobs part-time for years, finally becoming a full-time composer at age 41. Even so, he has lived the life, immersing himself in theater, art, literature, and music, and he relates here how the arts changed over time, the cultural loss AIDS wrought, and the evolution of his sometimes disparaged minimalist, tonalist compositions (as he posits, “I’m a theater composer”). Aspiring musicians and artists will learn much from Glass, as will general readers, musical or not, who will discover an artistic life exceptionally well lived.  --Booklist

by Michael S. Gazzaniga     (Get the Book)
Gazzaniga may not be a household name, but he is considered one of the most important neuroscientists of our time. In this fascinating memoir, this pioneer in cognitive research offers a behind-the-scenes examination of the work he and his fellow scientists did to uncover the mysteries of the right and left brain—specifically, split-brain research aimed at discovering whether each hemisphere of the brain could learn independently of the other. Gazzaniga is a charmer. Consequently, this is not a dry scientific tome. On the contrary, the personable Gazzaniga—his warmth and good humor virtually jump off the page—recalls his life as a scientist at Caltech, Dartmouth, Cornell, and other institutions, and the ups and downs that came with it. Some biographical details are surprising. For example, Gazzaniga admits that math doesn’t come easy to him and that he usually steers clear of “highly technical discussions of almost everything.” He is also a bit of a name-dropper. With a foreword by Steven Pinker, Gazzaniga’s memoir should delight fans of the television series, The Big Bang Theory, but it will also have tremendous appeal for non-nerds, too. --Booklist

Respect: The Life of Aretha Franklin

by David Ritz    (Get the Book)
 With an outsize musical talent and a troubled family life, Franklin has worked to keep her painful history hidden and has poured everything into her singing. She was the gospel prodigy of the charismatic Baptist preacher C. L. Franklin; her mother separated from the family and died at an early age. Franklin started her career singing in the gospel circuit, one every bit as steeped in earthly temptations as any other genre, before moving into R & B. She was a legend—and a young mother—by her teens, eventually earning for herself the title of Queen of Soul, and she struggled to hold on to it through changes in popular music and challenges by younger singers. Despite tumultuous marriages, bouts with alcoholism and depression, and a reputation as a demanding diva, Franklin has maintained her stature on the strength of her talent and her support for civil rights. She has also been steadfast in protecting her image and her secrets, even in her biography, From These Roots (1999), ghostwritten by Ritz. Some 15 years later, this is his unauthorized attempt to get at the elusive Franklin, the one who so skillfully hid her pain in her music. Drawing on previous work and interviews with those close to Franklin, Ritz offers a portrait of a woman for whom faith and respect are essential. --Booklist

The Mad Boy, Lord Berners, My Grandmother and Me: An Aristocratic Family, a High-society Scandal and an Extraordinary Legacy

by Sofka Zinovieff      (Get the Book)
After discovering a photograph of her grandparents—socialites Robert "the Mad Boy" Heber-Percy and Jennifer Fry—with both their newborn daughter and Robert's longtime and significantly older boyfriend, Lord Berners, journalist Zinovieff was determined to find out what brought them all to live together as an unconventional, yet brief, threesome at the lively Faringdon House. The intrigue surrounding these unusual and formidable individuals is an instant hook, which is only enhanced by their personal histories and struggles. The narrative is also peppered with many creatives of the time—artist Salvador Dalí and authors Evelyn Waugh and Gertrude Stein, to name but a few—who brought with them their own dramatic trysts and pasts during their visits to Faringdon. The cast of characters can feel overwhelming at times; however, brief confusion is well worth the tidbits gleaned from a group with such diverse sexual and political leanings. No one fit the social norm of 1930s and 1940s England, and readers will be eager to gobble up the next piece of gossip. VERDICT While highlighting eccentricities, glamour, and downright debauchery, Zinovieff is also able to capture the humanity in what is a fascinating and eye-opening ancestral history. --Library Journal

The Rainman's Third Cure: An Irregular Education

By Peter Coyote       (Get the Book)
Besides having an unusual upbringing—influenced greatly by a wealthy, angry father and depressed mother; a brave, smart, and thoughtful housekeeper; a taciturn, skilled groundskeeper; and bebop jazz player Buddy, who taught him that “life could be improvised”—actor-writer Coyote was an astute, remarkable young man, able to hear animals speak and aware, early on, of the separation of mind and body. But he was also crippled by a vow never to “play,” to compete. This engagingly written exploration of his life has a few, sometimes disorienting blank spaces, but those are “covered in detail,” Coyote points out, more than once, in his memoir Sleeping Where I Fall (1998), and readers may prefer to start there for the full story. Still, there’s plenty here, in anecdotes of caring for the hungry in his Digger kitchens in Haight-Ashbury, befriending and learning from Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Gary Snyder (and then following Buddhism for more than 40 years), becoming a respected actor, and raising his own family with the wisdom he carefully garnered as a youngster. --Booklist

Mashi

by Robert K. Fitts     (Get the Book)
Baseball has been and always will be a game of firsts—the first no-hitter, the first night game, the first African American to play in the major leagues. Hidden among those firsts is Masanori Murakami—Mashi—the first native of Japan to play in the major leagues. Called up from the minors in 1964, Mashi pitched only two years for the San Francisco Giants. In 1964 and 1965, he pitched in 54 big league games, all but one in relief, winning five and losing one with nine saves—far from Hall of Fame statistics. But Mashi's rise is a fascinating story, as much off the field as on. Baseball historian Fitts (Banzai Babe Ruth; Wally Yonamine) traces the evolution of baseball in Japan as well as the player's development. Mashi's two seasons with the Giants were closely followed with great pride in Japan, which Fitts so aptly details, meshing baseball with the social impact in America and Japan. He returned to Japan in 1966 and pitched in more than 550 games in a solid career. VERDICT A thoughtful baseball biography of interest to fans of the game, especially considering the increasing number of Japanese players at all levels. --Library Journal

Sartre: A Philosophical Biography

by Thomas R. Flynn    (Get the Book)
Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) was one of the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century. Regarded as the father of existentialist philosophy, he was also a political critic, moralist, playwright, novelist, and author of biographies and short stories. Thomas R. Flynn provides the first book-length account of Sartre as a philosopher of the imaginary, mapping the intellectual development of his ideas throughout his life, and building a narrative that is not only philosophical but also attentive to the political and literary dimensions of his work. Exploring Sartre's existentialism, politics, ethics, and ontology, this book illuminates the defining ideas of Sartre's oeuvre: the literary and the philosophical, the imaginary and the conceptual, his descriptive phenomenology and his phenomenological concept of intentionality, and his conjunction of ethics and politics with an 'egoless' consciousness. (Publisher)

One Way Out: The Allman Brothers

by Alan Paul     (Get Book)

Perhaps no music journalist has written as extensively about the Allman Brothers Band as Paul, who has tracked the rock group’s career for 25 years. And his deep familiarity with the band and its music shows everywhere in this fluid account. Framed as an oral history, the biography includes extensive, insightful comments not only from band members but also from players at all levels of the music business, from loyal roadies to gifted producers (including the late Tom Dowd) to money-minded record-company executives. They take us through the milestones, from the early days, when the band crisscrossed the country in the dead of winter packed into an underheated van, to the cusp of massive success and the deaths of bandleader and guitarist Duane Allman and bassist Berry Oakley, to the group’s decision to soldier on in spite of the losses. From the beginning, Allman had a certain vision for his band that included two lead guitarists, two drummers, and the soulful, whiskey-soaked vocals of his brother, Gregg. Improbably, Duane spearheaded a long-haired, multiracial band in the Deep South in the late ’60s, but he was supremely confident, at the tender age of 23, that his blues-based music would transcend any barriers. Augmented by photos and fascinating sidebars, this candid oral history has appeal beyond the Allman Brothers Band’s loyal fan base. --Booklist

Stevie Nicks

by Zoe Howe      (Get the Book)
Janis Joplin, Grace Slick, Stevie Nicks . . . the great female singers who fronted legendary rock bands constitute a list of off-the-hook personalities. This highly engaging biography of Stevie Nicks, whose electric and eccentric involvement in Fleetwood Mac led to her being dubbed by Rolling Stone the “Queen of Rock and Roll,” is written by a distinguished British music journalist. Factually full and consistently fascinating, the life story the author assembles is one of abiding dedication, frequent hurt, and ultimate triumph. Stevie came from Phoenix, and early in her life, she was at home in a fantasy world, plus she knew for a long time that her aim was to be a songwriter. She and boyfriend Lindsey Buckingham’s early musical collaboration led to the pair being absorbed into the British band Fleetwood Mac, and their star-crossed relationship became the stuff of rock legend as they spent more time in bitter public fighting than in harmony. The Mac’s climb to top-rung status held excitement for the members, but drugs and alcohol were definitely part of their scene. The band eventually dissolved (although recently it came together again for a concert tour), but Nicks has enjoyed a solo career in which she could continue to pour her haunting, soul-baring songs. It’s important for fans to note that “the chiffon-clad rock queen image was no stage act”; it has been her armor and confidence builder. And for us, it’s how we know and adore her. --Booklist

Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven

John Eliot Gardiner       (Get the Book)
As conductor of his Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists in more than 50 recordings of Bach's vocal works, Gardiner is the perfect performer to approach this repertory. This book should convince those who know only Bach's instrumental music to explore the heart of Bach's works, the cantatas, passions, and the B Minor Mass. The first half of the book explores the milieu of the irascible and stubborn Bach, who sought perfection in his music in the midst of difficult work conditions and the demands of church and family. Gardiner asks of himself interesting questions: What was life like in the Latin School in Thuringia where Bach studied and in the provincial towns where he worked? What was the theological environment in Bach's Leipzig? Interspersed are Gardiner's own comments on the Bach Cantata Pilgrimage that he made with his choir in 2000. Side studies into the scores themselves, the best being a description of the St. Matthew Passion autograph, are fascinating. For a study of Bach's life and works, Christoph Wolff's Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician (CH, Sep'00, 38-0223) is best, but Gardiner's beautifully written and focused book is also a must for all lovers of Bach. -- Choice

Girl in a band

by Kim Gordon     (Get the Book)
The title of this very fine memoir is understated. The “girl” in question is the guitarist and vocalist of the alt-rock band Sonic Youth, which Gordon and Thurston Moore founded in 1981. Gordon’s chronicle of her youth in Los Angeles, with stays in Hawaii and Hong Kong, is infused with melancholy, because underlying the narrative is the fact that Gordon and Moore married, then painfully broke up. Girl in a Band is also an account of places that no longer exist, such as gritty 1980s New York. Gordon is vulnerable, likable, and humble, a shy and introspective outsider; despite playing in a band for 30 years, she never really considered herself a musician. She writes about her first mentor, John Knight, a conceptual artist who taught her that anything could be viewed in aesthetic terms, and friends and colleagues, including Andy Warhol, Kurt Cobain, and Courtney Love, with great sensitivity. A remarkably astute and observant memoir and tale of finding one’s place in the world, this is a must for Sonic Youth fans and all outsiders-at-heart. --Booklist

The short and tragic life of Robert Peace : a brilliant young man who left Newark for the Ivy League

by Jeff Hobbs      (Get the Book)
Rob Peace’s father was a very bright drug dealer who served time for murder, leaving Rob in the care of a hardworking mother who wanted more for him than the tough streets of Orange, New Jersey, could provide. Peace started private school in fourth grade, just as his father’s trial was beginning, and developed elaborate emotional and psychological strategies to navigate the neighborhood and “Newark-proof” himself. In high school, he undertook ponderous research to prove his father’s innocence and eventually won a temporary reprieve on a technicality. His brilliance attracted the attention of a benefactor who made it possible for Peace to go to Yale, where he met and roomed with Hobbs. Peace majored in molecular biophysics and biochemistry, worked in the dining hall and biology lab, and sold drugs on the side. In a whirlwind of travel, philosophizing, and caretaking of others, Peace navigated the clashing cultures of urban poverty and Ivy League privilege, never quite finding a place where his particular brand of nerdiness and cool could coexist. His dreams and his reality collided when he was killed at 30 years of age in a drug dispute. Attending Peace’s funeral, Hobbs was struck by the dichotomies of his old roommate’s life and set out to offer a full picture of a very complicated individual. Writing with the intimacy of a close friend, Hobbs slowly reveals Peace as far more than a cliché of amazing potential squandered.   --Booklist

Joe Black : more than a Dodger / Martha Jo Black

by Martha Jo Black    (Get the Book)

After pitching for years in the Negro Leagues and in Cuba, Joe Black finally joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1952 as a 28-year-old rookie and went on to become the National League rookie of the year and win the first game of the World Series, ensuring his place in baseball history as the first African American to win a World Series game. This biography was written by his daughter with an able assist from 33-year AP and UPI journalist Schoffner. Though Black’s baseball star burned briefly—he won only 15 games after his rookie season—he went on to a successful career in business and teaching. The author also delves into her father’s personal and family life in a well-rounded, affectionate, and reasonably objective look into a baseball and business pioneer. An overlooked slice of baseball and African American history.  --Booklist

Life in motion : an unlikely ballerina

by Misty Copeland       (Get the Book)If you'd asked Copeland, soloist for the American Ballet Theatre, when she was a young African American teenager about her vision of the future, she would probably have said that the only thing less likely than her writing a memoir was her becoming a world-class ballerina. But when a teacher encouraged 13-year-old Misty to take ballet at the Boys and Girls Club of Los Angeles, she discovered a hidden talent. Her natural flexibility and grace had her on pointe within two months, something other ballerinas work years to achieve. She was offered lead roles before finishing high school. Her professional success is impressive, but it's not what makes her memoir such an unexpected page-turner. After all, we already know Copeland will overcome racial and socioeconomic bias to claim her spotlight. What keeps us reading is Copeland's intelligent, fair, and warm voice. She speaks with candor about having to lose her luscious curves and cover herself with white makeup to look more acceptable on stage, but she never places blame on those who asked her to do so. Her story is an inspiration to anyone man or woman, black or white who has ever chased a dream against the odds, and the grace with which she triumphs is an example for us all. --Booklist

More love (less panic) : 7 lessons I learned about life, love, and parenting after we adopted our son from Ethiopia

by Claude Knobler      (Get the Book)
Memoir meets self-help in Knobler's enjoyable account of life as an adoptive father. Knobler and his wife had two "perfectly good" biological children, ages four and six, when, moved by an article about AIDS orphans in Africa, they decided to adopt. After the couple spent months navigating through government red tape, they took in five-year-old Nati, whose mother was HIV positive. Nati instantly upended stay-at-home dad Knobler's feeling of being in control of his household. Through this experience, he learned to think more about what was right for his own kids, and less about what American middle-class consumer culture says is best. Knobler's tone is straightforwardly disarming, as when he reveals that his mother, having spent his "entire life frantically trying to find a nice Jewish girl for me to marry so that I could give her nice Jewish grandchildren," was now ill at ease about having an Ethiopian grandchild. This wise account has the potential to reach a large parental audience-not just dads, and not just adoptive parents. --Publisher's Weekly

Unbroken : a World War II story of survival, resilience, and redemption

by Laura Hillenbrand     (Get the Book)
A second book by the author of Seabiscuit (2001) would get noticed, even if it weren't the enthralling and often grim story of Louie Zamperini. An Olympic runner during the 1930s, he flew B-24s during WWII. Taken prisoner by the Japanese, he endured a captivity harsh even by Japanese standards and was a physical and mental wreck at the end of the war. He was saved by the influence of Billy Graham, who inspired him to turn his life around, and afterward devoted himself to evangelical speeches and founding boys' camps. Still alive at 93, Zamperini now works with those Japanese individuals and groups who accept responsibility for Japanese mistreatment of POWs and wish to see Japan and the U.S. reconciled. He submitted to 75 interviews with the author as well as contributing a large mass of personal records. Fortunately, the author's skills are as polished as ever, and like its predecessor, this book has an impossible-to-put-down quality that one commonly associates with good thrillers. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: This departure from the author's previous best-seller will nevertheless be promoted as necessary reading for the many folks who enjoyed the first one or its movie version. --Booklist

by Amy Poehler     (Get the Book)
This book is heavy. Literally heavy, as in surprisingly hard to carry around. Perhaps that's because it's so firmly packed with wit and insight. And all that insight makes it figuratively heavy as well, though you might not notice because of all the wit. Fans of Poehler and her offbeat characters expect her to be outrageous (I'm looking at you, Amber, one-legged, gassy reality star), and there's some of that here, but mostly this is a sweet, funny memoir and a thoughtful look at what it takes to be a woman, a woman in comedy, a divorced woman with children, and, peering into the future, a 90-year-old woman who has plenty of advice to offer middle-aged Amy. In fact, there's lots of advice given here, and it's smart, the kind of stuff your favorite aunt would tell you, albeit, an aunt who once shot a moose on the Weekend Update set while rapping alongside Sarah Palin. She addresses how to treat your career (like a bad boyfriend); how not to torture other women about their life choices; ways to shut people up about your newly single status (Hey, lady, I don't want to fuck your husband). With so much to enjoy and absorb, you may even want to carry this book around, reread it, and underline pertinent-to-your-own-life sentences, which would be perfectly reasonable, except for the fact that it's so darn heavy.   --Booklist

Love, Nina : a nanny writes home

by Nina Stibbe    (Get the Book)
With a who's who at the beginning that ranges from film director Stephen Frears to Maxwell, the author's ex-pony, you might guess this is not your typical memoir. Not only that, but it comprises the tuneful, descriptive letters Nina wrote in the 1980s, while she tried her hand at nannying in London, to her sister, Vic, who stayed basically at home, near Leicestershire, England. The nannied children were young Sam and Will Frears their arty, daffy children's conversations fill the pages living with their sharp, blunt mother, Mary-Kay Wilmers, deputy editor of the London Review of Books. Nina herself, then just 20 and new to the task of being a nanny, was a lover of London and quite the observer, documenting for her sister back home the who, the when, and her full-blown, clever, open-eyed take on the what of life at the Wilmers-Frears. Stibbe notes that nannying is not like a job really, just like living in someone else's life, but what a funny, artist-filled life she lived, and how well she watched and participated. This is an offbeat paean to families, real and cobbled-together, to sisters and siblings, and to communicating with love. It's also a rare and wholly delectable epistolary slice of life. --Booklist

Eisenhower : soldier and president

by Stepen E. Ambrose     (Get the Book)
Stephen E. Ambrose draws upon extensive sources, an unprecedented degree of scholarship, and numerous interviews with Eisenhower himself to offer the fullest, richest, most objective rendering yet of the soldier who became president. He gives us a masterly account of the European war theater and Eisenhower's magnificent leadership as Allied Supreme Commander. Ambrose's recounting of Eisenhower's presidency, the first of the Cold War, brings to life a man and a country struggling with issues as diverse as civil rights, atomic weapons, communism, and a new global role. Along the way, Ambrose follows the 34th President's relations with the people closest to him, most of all Mamie, his son John, and Kay Summersby, as well as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Charles de Gaulle, Harry Truman, Nixon, Dulles, Khrushchev, Joe McCarthy, and indeed, all the American and world leaders of his time. This superb interpretation of Eisenhower's life confirms Stephen Ambrose's position as one of our finest historians. (Publisher)

The universal tone : bringing my story to light

by Carols Santana    (Get the Book)
Although Santana first captivated the world at his Woodstock performance, his intimate relationship with his guitar had long sustained him. Now, for the first time, the elusive guitarist tells his story in prose that is by turns ragged and sparkling. As he does with his music, Santana uses words to paint pictures, describing the streets of his Mexican hometown of Autlán, his earliest gigs at the El Convoy bar in Tijuana, and his move to San Francisco as a teenager, where his career first took off, with the help of, among others, famous rock promoter Bill Graham. Santana also discusses the sexual abuse he suffered as a child, perpetrated by a neighbor, and his parents' efforts to downplay the incident. He strikes the perfect chord when he traces his ongoing spiritual evolution, attributing his success and the beauty of his music to what he calls the "universal tone": "The story behind the stories, the music behind the music.... With it you realize you are not alone; you are connected to everyone." For him, it all comes back to the music: "It's the fastest way of getting away from the darkness of ego.... It's a blessing to be able to play from your soul and to reach many people."  --Publisher's Weekly

Coming to my senses : one woman's cochlear implant journey

by Claire H. Blatchford     (Get the Book)
Having lost most of her hearing suddenly at age six after suffering from the mumps-"Imagine your hearing being switched off with one quick flick of fate"-former teacher Blatchford (Clarks School for Hearing and Speech, Northampton, Mass.) soldiered on for 60 years before sound returned after she underwent a cochlear implant in 2011. In this measured, useful work, Blatchford explains her careful decision to have the implant after being told by her audiologist that her condition was degenerating ("I thought she was kidding," Blatchford writes in an accompanying poem, "but her face was serious"). Married since 1968, with two grown daughters and several grandchildren, Blatchford recognized how much she was missing and how quickly technology had advanced since she grew up. Having been mainstreamed in school, taught to "speechread" rather than sign, and only fitted with her first hearing aid at age 12, Blatchford writes without a trace of self-pity about her vast loneliness as a child and how she became a master of "bluffing": pretending she understood "was a lot less jarring and less tiring than having to ask people to repeat what they'd said." With her implant, sounds became tactile, with texture and colors she describes lyrically, and she presents amazing revelations regarding her newfound hearing of music, birds, and voices-especially her own voice. With an appendix featuring a technical explanation of the cochlear implant by audiologist Jeanne Coburn, this is a wonderfully inspiring work. --Library journal

On the road with Janis Joplin

by John Byrne Cooke    (Get the Book)
Singer Janis Joplin (1943-70) may have only lived to the age of 27, but she packed an awful lot of living into that short span. In the last five years of her life, she played in three different bands, recorded nearly 200 songs, and performed all over the world, most famously at Woodstock. At her side was Cooke (The Snowblind Moon), her road manager through most of that period. Cooke provides an intimate, affectionate look back at his time with Janis in his newest book. Joplin is a legend and it is all too easy to forget that legends are also people of their times and environments. Cooke's book is a valuable insight into the performer as a living, breathing person, with her own all-too-human strengths and vulnerabilities. The author may be one of the few people left in the world with that kind of perspective on her, so it's a good thing that he is a gifted writer, letting Joplin's vivaciousness and intensity shine throughout the work. VERDICT Rock music fans will love reading this up-close view of Joplin. The end of the book feels like losing her all over again. --Janis Joplin