Books about Music or Musicians

A list of possible reads for Books & Bites Bingo!

Updated March 17, 2023
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Don't tell anybody the secrets I told you : a memoir
Williams, Lucinda
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The iconic singer-songwriter and three-time Grammy winner opens up about her traumatic childhood in the Deep South, her years of being overlooked in the music industry, and the stories that inspired her enduring songs in this "bracingly candid chronicle" (The...
Daisy Jones & the Six : a novel
Reid, Taylor Jenkins
Paper Book
#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER * OVER TWO MILLION COPIES SOLD! A gripping novel about the whirlwind rise of an iconic 1970s rock group and their beautiful lead singer, revealing the mystery behind their infamous breakup--from the author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Malibu...
The storyteller : tales of life and music
Grohl, David
Paper Book
The #1 New York Times Bestseller * Named one of Variety's Best Music Books of 2021 * Included in Audible's Best of The Year list * A Business Insider Best Memoirs of 2021 * One of NME's Best Music Books of 2021 So, I've written a book. Having entertained the...
Nick and Norah's infinite playlist /
Cohn, Rachel.
Paper Book
It all starts when Nick asks Norah to be his girlfriend for five minutes. He only needs five minutes to avoid his ex-girlfriend, who’s just walked in to his band’s show. With a new guy. And then, with one kiss, Nick and Norah are off on an adventure set against the backdrop of New York...
Just kids
Smith, Patti.
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD It was the summer Coltrane died, the summer of love and riots, and the summer when a chance encounter in Brooklyn led two young people on a path of art, devotion, and initiation. Patti Smith would evolve as a poet and performer,...
God save the queens : the essential history of women in hip-hop
Iandoli, Kathy
Paper Book
An NPR Best Book of the Year "Without God Save the Queens, it is possible that the contributions of dozens of important female hip-hop artists who have sold tens of millions of albums, starred in monumental films, and influenced the direction of the culture would continue to go...
This is your brain on music : the science of a human obsession
Levitin, Daniel J.
Paper Book
Whether you load your iPod with Bach or Bono, music has a significant role in your life--even if you never realized it. Why does music evoke such powerful moods? The answers are at last be- coming clear, thanks to revolutionary neuroscience and the emerging field of evolutionary psychology....
Sweet, soft, plenty rhythm : a novel
Warrell, Laura
Paper Book
GMA BUZZ PICK * How do we find belonging when love is unrequited? A "gorgeously written debut" (Celeste Ng, best-selling author of Little Fires Everywhere) filled with jazz and soul, about the perennial temptations of dangerous love, told by the women who love Circus Palmer-...
Jay-Z : made in America
Dyson, Michael Eric
Paper Book
NOW A NEW YORK TIMES, USA TODAY, AND PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY BESTSELLER "Dyson writes with the affection of a fan but the rigor of an academic. ... Using extensive passages from Jay-Z's lyrics, 'Made in America' examines the rapper's...
Heart-shaped box
Hill, Joe.
Paper Book
"Wild, mesmerizing, perversely witty....A Valentine from hell."  --Janet Maslin, New York Times The publication of Joe Hill's beautifully textured, deliciously scary debut novel Heart-Shaped Box was greeted with the sort of overwhelming critical acclaim that is rare for a...
Me
John, Elton
Paper Book
INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER In his first and only official autobiography, music icon Elton John reveals the truth about his extraordinary life, from his rollercoaster lifestyle as shown in the film Rocketman, to becoming a living legend.
Petty : the biography
Zanes, Warren.
Paper Book
The New York Times Bestseller *One of Rolling Stone's 10 Best Music Books of 2015* An exhilarating and intimate account of the life of music legend Tom Petty, by an accomplished writer and musician who toured with Petty. No one...
The ballad of perilous graves
Jennings, Alex
Paper Book
"Funny, wild, witty, and profound."―Victor LaValle "A wild and wonderful debut, teeming with music, family and art."--New York Times "Magical, lyrical, gritty, otherworldly...hype like Bayou Classic in the 90s."<...
Queen of bebop : the musical lives of Sarah Vaughan
Hayes, Elaine M.
Paper Book
Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2017 Washington Post Best Book of 2017 Amazon Editors' Top 100 Pick of the Year Amazon Best Humor and Entertainment Pick of the Year Booklist Top Ten Arts Book Queen of Bebop brilliantly chronicles the life of jazz singer Sarah...
Louis Armstrong, master of modernism
Brothers, Thomas David.
Paper Book
A biography of Louis Armstrong's prolific years in the 1920s and early 1930s, this book examines the cultural forces that shaped his life and, ultimately, jazz itself. Thomas Brothers picks up where he left off with the "compelling" (Literary Review), "scholarly without being scholastic"...
The unsinkable Greta James : a novel
Smith, Jennifer E.
Paper Book
An indie musician reeling from tragedy and a public breakdown reconnects with her father on a weeklong cruise in "a pitch-perfect story about the ways we recover love in the strangest places" (Rebecca Serle, bestselling author of In Five Years) "The characters are...
How music works /
Byrne, David,
Paper Book
How Music Works is David Byrne's remarkable and buoyant celebration of a subject he has spent a lifetime thinking about. In it he explores how profoundly music is shaped by its time and place, and he explains how the advent of recording technology in the twentieth century forever changed...
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A visit from the Goon Squad
Egan, Jennifer.
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE WINNER * With music pulsing on every page, this startling, exhilarating novel of self-destruction and redemption "features characters about whom you come to care deeply as you watch them doing things they shouldn't, acting gloriously,...
The ensemble
Gabel, Aja
Paper Book
Jana. Brit. Daniel. Henry. They would never have been friends if they hadn't needed each other. They would never have found each other except for the art which drew them together. They would never have become family without their love for the music, for each other. Brit is the second...

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