Lucinda Williams’s rise to fame was anything but easy. Raised in a working-class family in the Deep South, she moved from town to town each time her father—a poet, a textbook salesman, a professor, a lover of parties—got a new job, totaling twelve different places by the time she was eighteen. Her mother suffered from severe mental illness and was in and out of hospitals. And when Williams was about a year old, she had to have an emergency tracheotomy—an inauspicious start for a singing career. But she was also born a fighter, and she would develop a voice that has captivated millions.

For 30 years as a musician, Rosanne Cash has enjoyed both critical and commercial success, releasing a series of albums that are as notable for their lyrical intelligence as for their musical excellence. Now, in her memoir, Cash writes compellingly about her upbringing in Southern California as the child of country legend Johnny Cash; her relationship with her mother and her famous stepmother, June Carter Cash; and her own development as an artist.

Leon Russell is an icon, but somehow is still an underappreciated artist. He is spoken of in tones reserved not just for the most talented musicians, but also for the most complex and fascinating. His career is like a roadmap of music history, often intersecting with rock royalty like Bob Dylan, the Stones, and the Beatles.

Dylan, who began working on the book in 2010, offers his insight into the nature of popular music. He writes over sixty essays focusing on songs by other artists, spanning from Stephen Foster to Elvis Costello, and in between ranging from Hank Williams to Nina Simone. He analyzes what he calls the trap of easy rhymes, breaks down how the addition of a single syllable can diminish a song, and even explains how bluegrass relates to heavy metal. These essays are written in Dylan’s unique prose. And while ostensibly about music, they are really meditations on the human condition.

In 2009, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band performed at the Super Bowl's halftime show. The experience was so exhilarating that Bruce decided to write about it. That's how this extraordinary autobiography began. Over the past seven years, Bruce Springsteen has privately devoted himself to writing the story of his life, bringing to this audio the same honesty, humor, and originality found in his songs.

Happy Days, The Andy Griffith Show, Gentle Ben - these shows captivated millions of TV viewers in the ’60s and ’70s. Join award-winning filmmaker Ron Howard and audience-favorite actor Clint Howard as they frankly and fondly share their unusual family story of navigating and surviving life as sibling child actors.

Immortalized in Willie Nelson's road song "Me and Paul," Paul English was the towering figure who acted as Willie's drummer, bodyguard, accountant, partner in crime, and right-hand man for 70 years. Together, the two men roamed the country by putting on shows, getting into a few scrapes, and bringing the joy of their music to fans worldwide. Set against the backdrop of the exploding Americana music scene and told in Willie’s inimitable, colorful style, Me and Paul follows the two performers through their decades-long careers.

Merle Haggard was one of the most important country music musicians who ever lived. The Hag tells, without compromise, the extraordinary life of Merle Haggard, augmented by the deep secondary research, sharp detail, and ample anecdotal material that biographer Marc Eliot is known for, and enriched and deepened by more than 100 new and far-ranging interviews.

Laura Dern and Diane Ladd always had a close relationship, but the stakes were raised when Diane developed a sudden life-threatening illness. Diane’s doctor prescribed long walks to build back her lung capacity. The exertion was challenging, and Laura soon learned the best way to distract her mom was to get her talking and telling stories. Their conversations along the way began to break down the traditional barriers between mothers and daughters.

The tales of The Silmarillion are set in an age when Morgoth, the first Dark Lord, dwelt in Middle-earth, and the High Elves made war upon him for the recovery of the Silmarils, the jewels containing the pure light of Valinor. Included on the recording are several shorter works. The Ainulindalë is a myth of the Creation and in the Valaquenta the nature and powers of each of the gods is described. The Akallabêth recounts the downfall of the great island kingdom of Númenor at the end of the Second Age, and Of the Rings of Power tells of the great events at the end of the Third Age.

Mary Gauthier was 12 years old when she was given her Aunt Jenny’s old guitar and taught herself to play with a Mel Bay basic guitar workbook. Music offered her a window to a world where others felt the way she did. Songs became lifelines to her, and she longed to write her own, one day. Then, for a decade, while struggling with addiction, Gauthier put her dream away and her call to songwriting faded. It wasn’t until she got sober and went to an open mic with a friend did she realize that she not only still wanted to write songs, she needed to.

Born dirt poor, Jennings went from country disc jockey to country superstar, leading the revolution in country music with his platinum album The Outlaws. Through his eyes we see the Nashville scene in the early days, and through his honest, no-holds-barred storytelling, we follow his struggle to overcome drugs and impending bankruptcy to establish himself as one of the living legends of country music.

From his earliest work in the 1950s to today, Willie looks back at the songs that have defined his career, from his days of earning $50 each to his biggest hits, from his less well-known songs (but incredibly meaningful to him) to his concept albums. Along the way, he also shares the stories of his guitar Trigger, his family and “family,” as well as the artists he collaborated with, including Patsy Cline, Waylon Jennings, Ray Charles, Merle Haggard, Ray Price, Dolly Parton, and many others.

Rick Bragg closes his circle of family stories with an unforgettable tale about fathers and sons inspired by his own relationship with his 10-year-old stepson.

December is the time of the annual Ceremony at which each twelve-year-old receives a life assignment determined by the Elders. Jonas watches his friend Fiona named Caretaker of the Old and his cheerful pal Asher labeled the Assistant Director of Recreation. But Jonas has been chosen for something special. When his selection leads him to an unnamed man, the man called only the Giver, he begins to sense the dark secrets that underlie the fragile perfection of his world.

Grad student Will Dillard has largely buried memories of the summer he spent at a camp intended to "cure" homosexuality. But when he finds out a horror movie based on the camp is hitting theaters, he's forced to face his past - and his role in another camper's death. As he recounts the events surrounding his "failed rehabilitation", Will strikes out on an impromptu road trip back home to Mississippi, eventually returning to the abandoned campgrounds to solve the mysteries of that pivotal summer.

Paul Beatty's hilarious and scathing debut novel, The White Boy Shuffle, is about Gunnar Kaufman, an awkward, black surfer bum who is moved by his mother from Santa Monica to urban West Los Angeles. There, he begins to undergo a startling transformation from neighborhood outcast to basketball superstar, and eventually to reluctant messiah of a "divided, downtrodden people".

Baby Boy Fisher was raised in institutions from the moment of his birth in prison to a single mother. He ultimately came to live with a foster family, where he endured near-constant verbal and physical abuse. In his midteens he escaped and enlisted in the navy, where he became a man of the world, raised by the family he created for himself. Finding Fish shows how, out of this unlikely mix of deprivation and hope, an artist was born.

Colin Broderick was born in 1968 and spent his childhood in Tyrone County in Northern Ireland. It was the beginning of the period of heightened tension and violence known as the Troubles, and Colin’s Catholic family lived in the heart of rebel country. The community was filled with Provisional IRA members, whose lives depended on the silence and complicity of their neighbors. But even when Colin does ask his parents about these events, he never receives a clear explanation. Desperate to protect her children, Colin’s mother tries to prevent exposure to or knowledge of the harm that surrounds them.

Lit follows Mary Karr's descent into the inferno of alcoholism and madness - and her astonishing resurrection. Karr's longing for a solid family seems secure when her marriage to a handsome, Shakespeare-quoting poet produces a son they adore. But she can't outrun her apocalyptic past. She drinks herself into the same numbness that nearly devoured her charismatic but troubled mother, reaching the brink of suicide. A hair-raising stint in "The Mental Marriott" awakens her to the possibility of joy, and leads her to an unlikely faith.

Mike Leonard is a lucky man. It’s not everyone who gets parents like Jack and Marge. At 87, Jack is a pathological optimist with an inexhaustible gift of gab. Marge, Jack’s bride of 60 years, though cut from the same rough bolt of Irish immigrant cloth, is his polar opposite - pessimistic and proud of it. What was their son, Mike, thinking when he took a sabbatical from his job with NBC News so he could pile these two world-class originals along with three of his grown kids and a daughter-in-law into a pair of rented RVs and hit the road for a month?

A lyrical and authentic book that recounts the story of a border-town family in Brownsville, Texas in the 1980s, as each member of the family desperately tries to assimilate and escape life on the border to become "real" Americans, even at the expense of their shared family history. This is really un-mined territory in the memoir genre that gives in-depth insight into a previously unexplored corner of America.

A literary icon sometimes seen as a bridge between the Beat Generation and the hippies, Ken Kesey scored an unexpected hit with his first novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. His successful follow-up, Sometimes a Great Notion, was also transformed into a major motion picture, directed by and starring Paul Newman. Here, Oregon’s Stamper family does what it can to survive a bitter strike dividing their tiny logging community. And as tensions rise, delicate family bonds begin to fray and unravel.

By age 12, Luis Rodriguez was a veteran of East L.A. gang warfare. Lured by a seemingly invincible gang culture, he witnessed countless shootings, beatings, and arrests, then watched with increasing fear as that culture claimed friends and family members. Before long, Rodriguez saw a way out of the barrio through education and successfully broke free from years of violence and desperation.

Welcome to the childhood of Catherine McClure Gildiner. It is the middle of the 1950s in Lewiston, New York, a small and sleepy American town very near Niagara Falls. No one is divorced. Mothers wear high heels to the beauty salon and children pop Pez candy and swing from vines over a local gorge. But at the tender age of four, it becomes clear to her Cathy's parents that their rambunctious daughter is no ordinary child and they soon put her "to work" at her father's pharmacy.

For years, guitarist Quinn Porter has been on the road, chasing gig after gig, largely absent to his twice-ex-wife Belle and their odd, Guinness records-obsessed son. When the boy dies suddenly, Quinn seeks forgiveness for his paternal shortcomings by completing the requirements for one of his son's unfinished Boy Scout badges. For seven Saturdays Quinn does yard work for Ona Vitkus, the spry 104-year-old Lithuanian immigrant the boy had visited weekly.

Jimmy Webb's words have been sung to his music by a rich and deep roster of pop artists, including Glen Campbell, Art Garfunkel, Frank Sinatra, Donna Summer, and Linda Ronstadt. He's the only artist ever to win Grammy Awards for music, lyrics, and orchestration, and his chart-topping career has, so far, lasted 50 years, most recently with a Kanye West rap hit and a new classical nocturne. Now Webb delivers a snapshot of his life from 1955 to 1970, from the proverbial humble beginnings into a moneyed and manic international world of beautiful women, drugs, cars, and planes.

In the highly anticipated follow-up to Marley & Me, John Grogan again works his magic, bringing us the story of what came first. Before there was Marley, there was a gleefully mischievous boy growing up in a devout Catholic home outside Detroit in the 1960s and '70s. Despite his loving parents' best efforts, John's attempts to meet their expectations failed spectacularly.

In 2009, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band performed at the Super Bowl's halftime show. The experience was so exhilarating that Bruce decided to write about it. That's how this extraordinary autobiography began. Over the past seven years, Bruce Springsteen has privately devoted himself to writing the story of his life, bringing to this audio the same honesty, humor, and originality found in his songs.

This snappy, sassy redemption story set in small-town Montana is "a wild and crazy debut novel by a talented young writer" (Jackie Collins), filled with an uproarious and unforgettable cast of characters you won't want to leave behind.