On My Radar:

How Did I Get Here? A Memoir
by Bruce McCall
Blue Rider Press
Hardcover


From the publisher's website:

Beloved for his strikingly original and wickedly perceptive New Yorker covers, as well as his many Shouts and Murmurs, Bruce is a rare double threat as an artist and writer. Self-taught in both disciplines, his artistic world has captured the imagination of a loyal fan base that includes no less than David Letterman (whom he coauthored a book with) and other satire aficionados. Pulling no punches, How Did I Get Here? chronicles the evolution of his artistic genius as well as his journey from gifted childhood scribbler to passionate automobile enthusiast, a hobby that took him to the heights of the Detroit and Manhattan advertising worlds. His long-held passion for drawing and writing, which mostly lay dormant during his Mad Men days, reemerged later in life as he left the realm of advertising for the world of arts and letters, most notably at the National Lampoon, as a writer for Saturday Night Live in its first incarnation, and then of course at The New Yorker, as well as other Conde Nast magazines, such as Vanity Fair. His is an unorthodox life and career path, traversing through worlds that have now become iconic, giving us rich first-hand insight into Bruce’s unique creative development and process, and providing a rare window into both the highs and the lows that define an artist’s career and life. 

 
With wit, candor, and cover illustrations showcasing Bruce’s storied career, Bruce McCall’s memoir will charm his many fans and anyone who knows and loves the places and eras he describes so well.

On My Radar:

Facebook: The Inside Story
by Steven Levy
Blue Rider Press
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

As a college sophomore, Mark Zuckerberg created a simple website to serve as a campus social network. 
 
Today, Facebook is nearly unrecognizable from its first, modest iteration. In light of recent controversies surrounding election-influencing “fake news” accounts, the handling of its users’ personal data, and growing discontent with the actions of its founder and CEO—who has enormous power over what the world sees and says—never has a company been more central to the national conversation. 
 
Millions of words have been written about Facebook, but no one has told the complete story, documenting its ascendancy and missteps. There is no denying the power and omnipresence of Facebook in American daily life, or the imperative of this book to document the unchecked power and shocking techniques of the company, from growing at all costs to outmaneuvering its biggest rivals to acquire WhatsApp and Instagram to developing a platform so addictive even some of its own are now beginning to realize its dangers. 

Based on hundreds of interviews inside and outside the company, Levy’s sweeping narrative of incredible entrepreneurial success and failure digs deep into the whole story of the company that has changed the world and reaped the consequences.

On My Radar:

One Day: The Extraordinary Story of an Ordinary 24 Hours in America
by Gene Weingarten
Blue Rider Press
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

On New Year’s Day 2013, two-time Pulitzer Prize–winner Gene Weingarten asked three strangers to, literally, pluck a day, month, and year from a hat. That day—chosen completely at random—turned out to be Sunday, December 28, 1986, by any conventional measure a most ordinary day. Weingarten spent the next six years proving that there is no such thing.
 
That Sunday between Christmas and New Year’s turned out to be filled with comedy, tragedy, implausible irony, cosmic comeuppances, kindness, cruelty, heroism, cowardice, genius, idiocy, prejudice, selflessness, coincidence, and startling moments of human connection, along with evocative foreshadowing of momentous events yet to come. Lives were lost. Lives were saved. Lives were altered in overwhelming ways. Many of these events never made it into the news; they were private dramas in the lives of private people. They were utterly compelling.  
 
One Day asks and answers the question of whether there is even such a thing as “ordinary” when we are talking about how we all lurch and stumble our way through the daily, daunting challenge of being human.

On My Radar:

You're on an Airplane: A Self-Mythologizing Memoir
by Parker Posey
Blue Rider Press
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

Have you ever wondered what it would be like talk to Parker Posey? On an airplane, with Parker as your seat companion, perhaps? Parker’s irreverent, hilarious, and enchanting memoir gives you the incredible opportunity. Full of personal stories, whimsical how-tos, recipes, and beautiful handmade collages created by the author herself, You’re On an Airplane is a delight in every way.
 
In her first book, actress and star of movies such as Dazed and Confused, Party Girl, You’ve Got Mail, The House of Yes, and so many more, Posey opens up about the art of acting, life on the set, and the realities of its accompanying fame. A funny and colorful southern childhood prepared Posey for a life of creating and entertaining, which not only extends to acting but to the craft of pottery, sewing, collage, yoga, and cooking, all of which readers will find in this whimsical, hilarious, always entertaining book. Parker takes us into her childhood home, behind the scenes of the indie film revolution in the 90s, the delightful absurdity of the big-budget genre thrillers she’s turned into art in a whole new way, and the creativity that will always be part of both her acting and her personal life.
 
With Posey’s memorable, hilarious, and poignant voice, her book gives the reader a feeling of traveling through not only a memoir, but an exploration, meditation, and celebration of what it means to be an artist. Buckle up and enjoy the journey.

On My Radar:

Ghostbuster's Daughter: Life With My Dad, Harold Ramis
by Violet Ramis Stiel
Blue Rider Press
Hardcover
Available 6/5/18

From the publisher's website:

Most of us know Harold Ramis as the writer, director, and actor who brought warmth and humor to the big screen in classics like Animal House, Caddyshack, Ghostbusters, National Lampoon’s Vacation, and Groundhog Day. To his daughter, Violet, he was best known as an amazing father, confidant, and friend. In Ghostbuster’s Daughter, Violet reflects on the life and legacy of her father, providing readers with an extraordinarily candid and insightful look into the man who helped shape modern American comedy. 

Funny, endearing, and vulnerable, Ghostbuster’s Daughter takes readers into the private life of the American comedy icon, from his humble roots in Chicago and ascension into Hollywood stardom to his personal philosophies on life, love, and filmmaking. While the book offers a comprehensive history of her father’s career, Ghostbuster’s Daughter also provides a profound homage to their special father-daughter relationship. Violet weaves anecdotes about her father’s unique and devoted parenting style among stories of her own unconventional upbringing, creating a vivid and dynamic portrait of the man behind the movies. A distinctly offbeat memoir as well as a charming family story for the ages, Ghostbuster’s Daughter is an intimate look at one of America's preeminent comedy filmmakers. 

On My Radar:

Liner Notes:  On Parents & Children, Exes & Excess, Death & Decay, & a Few of My Other Favorite Things
by Loudon Wainwright III
Blue Rider Press
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

Loudon Wainwright III, the son of esteemed Life magazine columnist Loudon Wainwright, Jr., is the patriarch of one of America’s great musical families. He is the former husband of Kate McGarrigle and Suzzy Roche, and father of Rufus Wainwright, Martha Wainwright, Lucy Wainwright Roche, and Lexie Kelly Wainwright. With a career spanning more than four decades, Wainwright has established himself as one of the most enduring singer-songwriters who emerged from the late 1960s. Not only does he perform regularly across America and in Europe, but he is a sought-after actor, having appeared in many movies and TV series.

There is probably no singer-songwriter who has so blatantly inserted himself into his songs. The songs can be laugh-out-loud funny, but they also can cut to the bone. In this memoir, Wainwright details the family history his lyrics have referenced and the fractured relationships among generations: the alcoholism, the infidelities, the competitiveness—as well as the closeness, the successes, and the joy. Wainwright reflects on the experiences that have influenced his work, including boarding school, the music business, swimming, macrobiotics, sex, incarceration, and something he calls Sir Walter Raleigh Syndrome.

Wainwright writes poignantly about being a son—a status that dominates many of his songs—but also about being a parent, a brother, and a grandfather. His lyrics are featured throughout the book, amplifying his prose and showing the connections between the songs and real life. Wainwright also includes selections from his father’s brilliant Life magazine columns—and, in so doing, reestablishes his father as a major essayist of his era. A funny and insightful meditation on family, inspiration, and art, Liner Notes will thrill fans, readers, and anyone who appreciates the intersection of music and life.

On My Radar:

The Princess Diarist
by Carrie Fisher
Blue Rider Press
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

The Princess Diarist is Carrie Fisher’s intimate, hilarious and revealing recollection of what happened behind the scenes on one of the most famous film sets of all time, the first Star Wars movie.  Named a PEOPLE Magazine Best Book of Fall 2016.

When Carrie Fisher recently discovered the journals she kept during the filming of the first Star Wars movie, she was astonished to see what they had preserved—plaintive love poems, unbridled musings with youthful naiveté, and a vulnerability that she barely recognized. Today, her fame as an author, actress, and pop-culture icon is indisputable, but in 1977, Carrie Fisher was just a teenager with an all-consuming crush on her costar, Harrison Ford. 

With these excerpts from her handwritten notebooks, The Princess Diarist is Fisher’s intimate and revealing recollection of what happened on one of the most famous film sets of all time—and what developed behind the scenes. And today, as she reprises her most iconic role for the latest Star Wars trilogy, Fisher also ponders the joys and insanity of celebrity, and the absurdity of a life spawned by Hollywood royalty, only to be surpassed by her own outer-space royalty. Laugh-out-loud hilarious and endlessly quotable, The Princess Diarist brims with the candor and introspection of a diary while offering shrewd insight into the type of stardom that few will ever experience.

With these excerpts from her handwritten notebooks, The Princess Diarist is Fisher’s intimate and revealing recollection of what happened on one of the most famous film sets of all time—and what developed behind the scenes. And today, as she reprises her most iconic role for the latest Star Wars trilogy, Fisher also ponders the joys and insanity of celebrity, and the absurdity of a life spawned by Hollywood royalty, only to be surpassed by her own outer-space royalty. Laugh-out-loud hilarious and endlessly quotable, The Princess Diarist brims with the candor and introspection of a diary while offering shrewd insight into the type of stardom that few will ever experience.

The Princess Diarist is Carrie Fisher’s intimate, hilarious and revealing recollection of what happened behind the scenes on one of the most famous film sets of all time, the first Star Wars movie.  Named a PEOPLE Magazine Best Book of Fall 2016.


When Carrie Fisher recently discovered the journals she kept during the filming of the first Star Wars movie, she was astonished to see what they had preserved—plaintive love poems, unbridled musings with youthful naiveté, and a vulnerability that she barely recognized. Today, her fame as an author, actress, and pop-culture icon is indisputable, but in 1977, Carrie Fisher was just a teenager with an all-consuming crush on her costar, Harrison Ford. 

With these excerpts from her handwritten notebooks, The Princess Diarist is Fisher’s intimate and revealing recollection of what happened on one of the most famous film sets of all time—and what developed behind the scenes. And today, as she reprises her most iconic role for the latest Star Wars trilogy, Fisher also ponders the joys and insanity of celebrity, and the absurdity of a life spawned by Hollywood royalty, only to be surpassed by her own outer-space royalty. Laugh-out-loud hilarious and endlessly quotable, The Princess Diarist brims with the candor and introspection of a diary while offering shrewd insight into the type of stardom that few will ever experience.

The Princess Diarist is Carrie Fisher’s intimate, hilarious and revealing recollection of what happened behind the scenes on one of the most famous film sets of all time, the first Star Wars movie.  Named a PEOPLE Magazine Best Book of Fall 2016.


When Carrie Fisher recently discovered the journals she kept during the filming of the first Star Wars movie, she was astonished to see what they had preserved—plaintive love poems, unbridled musings with youthful naiveté, and a vulnerability that she barely recognized. Today, her fame as an author, actress, and pop-culture icon is indisputable, but in 1977, Carrie Fisher was just a teenager with an all-consuming crush on her costar, Harrison Ford. 

With these excerpts from her handwritten notebooks, The Princess Diarist is Fisher’s intimate and revealing recollection of what happened on one of the most famous film sets of all time—and what developed behind the scenes. And today, as she reprises her most iconic role for the latest Star Wars trilogy, Fisher also ponders the joys and insanity of celebrity, and the absurdity of a life spawned by Hollywood royalty, only to be surpassed by her own outer-space royalty. Laugh-out-loud hilarious and endlessly quotable, The Princess Diarist brims with the candor and introspection of a diary while offering shrewd insight into the type of stardom that few will ever experience.

In My TBR Stack:

The Murder of Sonny Liston: Las Vegas, Heroin, and Heavyweights
by Shaun Assael
Blue Rider Press
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:


On January 5, 1971, Sonny Liston was found dead in his home—of an apparent heroin overdose. But no one close to Liston believed that his death was acci­dental. Digging deep into a life that Liston tried hard to hide, investigative journalist Shaun Assael treats the boxer’s death as a cold case. The result is a page-turning who­dunit that evokes a glorious and grimy era of Las Vegas. 
 
Elvis Presley was playing two shows a night at the International. Howard Hughes was running his empire from the penthouse suite of the Desert Inn. And middle America was flocking to the Strip, transforming it from an exclusive playground for the mob to a mecca for corporate dollars. But the city was also rotting from within. Heroin was pouring over the border from Mexico, and the segregated Westside was on the cusp of a race war. The cops, brutally violent, were barely holding it together. 
 
Driving through town with the top of his pink Cadillac down, Sonny Liston was the one celebrity who was unafraid to bridge the two sides of Las Vegas. Cashing in on his fading notoriety in the casinos, he was dealing drugs, working for a crime syndicate, and trying to break into Hollywood—all with a boxer’s faith that he could duck any threat, slip any punch. Heroin addiction was the only knockout blow he didn’t see coming. 
 
The Murder of Sonny Liston takes a fresh look at the legendary boxer, the town he called home, and one of America’s most enduring mysteries.

On My Radar:

Good Vibrations: My Life as a Beach Boy
by Mike Love with James S. Hirsch
Blue Rider Press
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

As a founding member of The Beach Boys, Mike Love has spent an extraordinary fifty-five years, and counting, as the group’s lead singer and one of its principal lyricists. The Beach Boys, from their California roots to their international fame, are a unique American story — one of overnight success and age-defying longevity; of musical genius and reckless self-destruction; of spirituality, betrayal, and forgiveness — and Love is the only band member to be part of it each and every step. His own story has never been fully told, of how a sheet-metal apprentice became the quintessential front man for America’s most successful rock band, singing in more than 5,600 concerts in 26 countries.

Love describes the stories behind his lyrics for pop classics such as “Good Vibrations,” “California Girls,” “Surfin’ USA,” and “Kokomo,” while providing vivid portraits of the turbulent lives of his three gifted cousins, Brian, Dennis, and Carl Wilson. His partnership with Brian has few equals in American pop music, though Mike has carved out a legacy of his own — he co-wrote the lyrics to eleven of the twelve original Beach Boy songs that were top 10 hits while providing the lead vocals on ten of them. The band’s unprecedented durability also provides a glimpse into America’s changing cultural mores over the past half century, while Love himself has experienced both the diabolical and the divine — from Charles Manson’s “family” threatening his life to Maharishi instilling it with peace. A husband, a father, and an avid environmentalist, Love has written a book that is as rich and layered as the Beach Boy harmonies themselves.

On My Radar:

Dave Hill Doesn't Live Here Anymore
By Dave Hill
Blue Rider Press
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

With his signature matter-of-fact humor, comedian and musician Dave Hill explores his increasingly close relationship with his recently widowed father in a series of painfully funny essays you will want to read again and again by the fire, at the beach, in a truck stop men’s room, or just about anywhere. It’s your call, really.

These days, Dave has just the right amount of spare time to write books at home, preferably in his underwear, but things weren’t always perfect. When he found himself pushing thirty while still living with his parents in Cleveland, unsuited for anything but what an “employment expert” vaguely called a career in “art, music, writing, or entertainment,” he decided to visit some friends in New York for the weekend and never left. However, getting his life together wasn’t as easy as he’d hoped, and even an illegally subletted, rent controlled fifth-floor walk-up studio apartment with a (for the most part) working toilet wasn’t glamorous enough to erase the fact that his four siblings were all married with steady jobs and actual human offspring. And in recent years, Dave’s father had grown tired of loaning him cash and living alone in the empty family home, neither of which made much sense to Dave, but whatever.

Through the process of his father’s eventual move to a retirement community, Dave and his dad bonded over the things in life that really matter: scorching-hot rock jams, the gluten allergy craze, eighteen-wheelers, Italian food (pizza and spaghetti), and whatever else could possibly be left after that. Meanwhile, Dave discovered his late-blooming manhood via experiences as disparate and dangerous as a visit to a remote Mexican prison, where he learned that people everywhere love the Eagles, and a martial arts class that pushed his resolve and his groin to their limit. In Dave Hill Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, Hill’s voice is sharp, carefree, laced with just the right amount of profanity, and he is—seemingly despite himself—deeply empathetic as he portrays a difficult time in his family’s life and grows up just enough to realize that maybe he and his dad aren’t so different after all.

In My TBR Stack:

Trespassing Across America: One man's Epic Never-Done Before (And Sort of Illegal) Hike Across the Heartland
by Ken Ilgunas
Blue Rider Press
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

It started as a far-fetched idea—to hike the entire length of the proposed route of the Keystone XL pipeline. But in the months that followed, it grew into something more for Ken Ilgunas. It became an irresistible adventure—an opportunity not only to draw attention to global warming but also to explore his personal limits. So in September 2012, he strapped on his backpack, stuck out his thumb on the interstate just north of Denver, and hitchhiked 1,500 miles to the Alberta tar sands. Once there, he turned around and began his 1,700-mile trek to the XL’s endpoint on the Gulf Coast of Texas, a journey he would complete entirely on foot, walking almost exclusively across private property.

Both a travel memoir and a reflection on climate change, Trespassing Across America is filled with colorful characters, harrowing physical trials, and strange encounters with the weather, terrain, and animals of America’s plains. A tribute to the Great Plains and the people who live there, Ilgunas’s memoir grapples with difficult questions about our place in the world: What is our personal responsibility as stewards of the land? As members of a rapidly warming planet? As mere individuals up against something as powerful as the fossil fuel industry? Ultimately, Trespassing Across America is a call to embrace the belief that a life lived not half wild is a life only half lived.

Now in Paperback:

I Was A Child: A Memoir
by Bruce Eric Kaplan
Blue Rider Press
Trade Paperback

From the publisher's website:

Bruce Eric Kaplan, also known as BEK, is one of the most celebrated and admired cartoonists in America. I Was a Child is the story of his childhood in suburban New Jersey, detailing the small moments we all experience: going to school, playing with friends, family dinners, watching TV on a hot summer night, and so on. It would seem like a conventional childhood, although Kaplan’s anecdotes are accompanied by his signature drawings of family outings and life at home-road trips, milk crates, hamsters, ashtrays, a toupee, a platypus, and much more. Kaplan’s cartoons, although simple, are never straightforward; they encompass an easy irony and dark humor that often cuts straight to the truth of experience. Brilliantly relatable and genuinely moving, I Was a Child is about our attempts to understand the mysteries that are our parents, our families, and ourselves.

On My Radar:

I Was a Child: A Memoir
by Bruce Eric Kaplan
Blue Rider Press
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

Bruce Eric Kaplan, also known as BEK, is one of the most celebrated and admired cartoonists in America. I Was a Child is the story of his childhood in suburban New Jersey, detailing the small moments we all experience: going to school, playing with friends, family dinners, watching TV on a hot summer night, and so on. It would seem like a conventional childhood, although Kaplan’s anecdotes are accompanied by his signature drawings of family outings and life at home-road trips, milk crates, hamsters, ashtrays, a toupee, a platypus, and much more. Kaplan’s cartoons, although simple, are never straightforward; they encompass an easy irony and dark humor that often cuts straight to the truth of experience. Brilliantly relatable and genuinely moving, I Was a Child is about our attempts to understand the mysteries that are our parents, our families, and ourselves.

On My Radar:

Visiting Hours: A Memoir of Friendship and Murder
by Amy Butcher
Blue Rider Press
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

In this powerful and unforgettable memoir, award-winning writer Amy Butcher examines the shattering consequences of failing a friend when she felt he needed one most. Four weeks before their college graduation, twenty-one-year-old Kevin Schaeffer walked Amy Butcher to her home in their college town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Hours after parting ways with Amy, he fatally stabbed his ex-girlfriend, Emily Silverstein. While he was awaiting trial, psychiatrists concluded that he had suffered an acute psychotic break. Although severely affected by Kevin’s crime, Amy remained devoted to him as a friend, believing that his actions were the direct result of his untreated illness. Over time, she became obsessed—determined to discover the narrative that explained what Kevin had done. The tragedy deeply shook her concept of reality, disrupted her sense of right and wrong, and dismantled every conceivable notion she’d established about herself and her relation to the world. Eventually realizing that she would never have the answers, or find personal peace, unless she went after it herself, Amy returned to Gettysburg—the first time in three years since graduation—to sift through hundreds of pages of public records: mental health evaluations, detectives’ notes, inventories of evidence, search warrants, testimonies, and even Kevin’s own confession.

Visiting Hours is Amy Butcher’s deeply personal, heart-wrenching exploration of how trauma affects memory and the way a friendship changes and often strengthens through seemingly insurmountable challenges. Ultimately, it’s a testament to the bonds we share with others and the profound resilience and strength of the human spirit.

On My Radar: Monday Edition

The Leaderless Revolution: How Ordinary People Will Take Power and Change Politics in the 21st Century
by Carne Ross

Hardcover
Blue Rider Press / Penguin USA

From the book publicity:

The Leaderless Revolution explains why our government institutions are inadequate to the task of solving major problems and offers a set of steps we can take to create lasting and workable solutions ourselves. In taking these steps, we can not only reclaim the control we have lost, but also a sense of meaning and community so elusive in the current circumstance. In a day and age when things feel bleak and beyond our control, this powerful and personal book will revive one's sense of hope that a better, more just and equitable order lies within our reach-if only we are willing to grasp it.