Image Credit: Ann Clifford/DMI/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images
Cissy Houston, mother of Whitney Houston, has signed a deal with HarperCollins to tell the story of her megastar daughter’s life. The currently untitled book, which is described as the late singer’s “unabridged and unbelievable story,” is slated for February 2013. READ FULL STORY »
Simon Cowell is the latest celebrity to get the biography treatment. Tom Bower’s Sweet Revenge: The Intimate Life of Simon Cowell is on shelves now, and I’ve decided to spare you with the latest edition of “I Read It So You Don’t Have To.” Starting with Cowell’s upbringing in England and continuing through his rocky launch of the The X Factor in the United States, Bower paints a pretty detailed picture of how Simon Cowell became the (very rich) man he is today. Cowell started out working in the mailroom of a music company, and—like him or not—he’s one of the great media moguls of our day.
But Cowell is not an easy man to please, and it’s evident that he doesn’t want to see any of his competitors (he’s looking at you, Simon Fuller) succeed. ”I despise it when somebody who isn’t working with me is successful on their own—it really upsets me. And I wish for their demise.” Way harsh, Tai!
Unless you count yourself a huge Simon Cowell fan, you can probably skip the book. Instead, read on for the highlights of Sweet Revenge, which include some ’90s pop gems and the admission that Simon uses black toilet paper!
Nearly two decades ago, Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Gregg Allman of the Allman Brothers Band headlined sold-out concerts across the country. Behind the scenes, he was tussling with unsuccessful marriages to six different women including Cher, substance abuse, and a battle with hepatitis C. The result: the stories chronicled in My Cross to Bear (out May 1).
In the revealing memoir, the musician opens up about his rocky past, including the defining moments after he discovered the death of his older brother in a motorcycle accident. Allman recounts what it was like to lose his brother in this exclusive clip from the enhanced version of the e-book: READ FULL STORY »
Iconic singer-songwriter Carole King has written a memoir, A Natural Woman, that’s as rich and soulful as one of her hit songs. In it, she writes about her teenage years, during which she wrote her first chart-topper “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?” and takes the reader through her rise to celebrity and her four marriages, including her tumultuous creative and personal partnership with Gerry Goffin. Running through the entire narrative is King’s passionate love and deep knowledge of music, and given that King is an iconic singer-songwriter, the audiobook version, voiced by the author herself, might be the best way to experience her story — she takes frequent breaks from the narrative to break into a cappella renditions of her songs. Check out the clip below to see King sound off on the writing and narrating process. READ FULL STORY »
Cue up “Graduation (Friends Forever)” by Vitamin C (which the Glee kids will hopefully cover later this season to send off seniors Kurt, Rachel, and Finn) and flip through the Official William McKinley High School Yearbook! It may look like a regular yearbook on the outside, but apparently McKinley gossip columnist Jacob Ben Israel had full editorial control, since the theme is — not surprisingly — all glee club all the time. The book hits stores May 1 from Little, Brown, but in the meantime, EW has an exclusive peek at the cover, spreads on Rachel and Blaine, some fun “Most Likely To…” pages, a very helpful “Hookup Chart,” and more. Read on, and H.A.G.S.!
NEXT: Spotlight on Blaine Anderson…
Pop star Justin Bieber’s mom has inked a book deal to tell the story of the role she played in her son’s rise to superstardom.
Pattie Mallette signed a deal with Revell Books to publish, “Nowhere But Up: The Story of Justin Bieber’s Mom.”
The book’s publisher said in a statement Tuesday that Mallette will share details of the trauma, abuse and addiction that plagued her early childhood and young adult years, leading to a suicide attempt when she was 17.
The Stratford, Ontario, native became pregnant at age 18 and gave birth to Bieber in 1994.
The book, written in collaboration with A.J. Gregory, will include a foreward by Bieber. It is slated for release Sept. 18.
All week long, Shelf Life is listing EW’s favorite books of 2011 — sorted into separate categories by genre. Click through the gallery to see our picks for the best music books of the year, starting Steven Tyler’s memoir.
Does The Noise in My Head Bother You?, Steven Tyler: From the EW review: “This book concludes with Tyler securing the Idol gig last year, but the singer recalls how, less than 12 months before, he accidentally ruptured a package of his cocaine in the New York apartment of his (absent) daughter Liv. Drug addicts of a waste-not-want-not disposition — which is to say, all drug addicts — will be glad to know that Tyler ‘snorted it all up, off the counters and everywhere, and got a nice f—ing rail out of it.’”
I admit it: It took me a good 10 years to “get” Chuck Eddy. Reading his early pieces, mostly in The Village Voice, where music editor and ultra-talent-scout Robert Christgau showcased Eddy’s idiosyncratic ardencies (Montgomery Gentry? White Wizzard?) and a prose style that was conversational if your idea of conversation was being hectored by a good-natured obsessive, I was stumped. Eddy defeated my pride in being able to ignore the taste of a critic as long as he or she wrote well. His aesthetic seemed random, if not willfully, showily perverse.
But eventually – through sheer quality; through sheer quantity (as a once and future freelancer myself, I admire a man who churns out well-wrought sentences by the ream) – Eddy won me over. How glad I am to see the publication of Eddy’s new song(s) of himself Rock and Roll Always Forgets: A Quarter Century of Music Criticism (Duke University Press). Glad, first, because it’s truly a representative selection, tracing the slithery paths of Eddy’s enthusiasms from Marilyn Manson to Mindy McCready just to stick with the “M”s, with tart new intros that set up reprints of some of his greatest hits. And glad, second, that there exist publishers still willing to release anthologies of rock writing, since so much great rock criticism remains uncollected, neglected, less forgotten than never known to a wider audience. (Can we get a Tom Smucker book together, please? I’ll edit the damn thing myself.) READ FULL STORY »
We live in a world where Ozzy Osbourne, the “Prince of Darkness” himself, is now the author of not one but two books. His first book, the memoir I Am Ozzy, landed on the New York Times‘ best-seller list last year. And today his second work, Trust Me, I’m Dr. Ozzy: Advice from Rock’s Ultimate Survivor, hits shelves. And who knows? Maybe Dr. Ozzy will similarly find its way onto the best-seller list.
The idea for Dr. Ozzy stemmed from his gig as an advice columnist for The Sunday Times (a column also seen in select issues of Rolling Stone). The book, infused with his own personal stories, is mostly set up in a Q&A format where he answers a wide range of questions varying from sex to mental illness. And while he gives some surprisingly good advice at certain points, he acknowledges that he’s no expert: “I mean, unless the advice is how to end up dead or in jail, I’m not exactly qualified. I’m Ozzy Osbourne, not Oprah f—ing Winfrey.”
So I trudged through the 12-chapter book (so you don’t have to!) to pull out some of the more interesting points. And you can trust me on that. I’m NOT a doctor. Just like Ozzy Osbourne. READ FULL STORY »
Mitch Winehouse, the father of late singer Amy Winehouse, has sold the rights to a book about his daughter to HarperCollins, according to The Bookseller. The book is called Amy, My Daughter and will be published in the summer of next year. Proceeds will go to the Amy Winehouse Foundation, which supports charitable activities that offer support or care to young people. Amy Winehouse’s family set up the foundation following the death of the singer in July.
