A Brain Wider Than the Skyby Andrew Levy
A new illness memoir chronicles the author’s struggle with crippling mental anguish.
In his new memoir, Andrew Levy details how a migraine is so much more than just a head-splitting headache; it is a disease that has the potential to damage both professional and personal life. Along with the mental pain, a migraine sufferer also often must cope with the consequences of depression. Levy, who suffered from the occasional migraine for half his life, was struck with a terrible attack in his 40s. The migraines became so brutal that he was essentially reduced to a shell of his former self—bedridden and prone to a migraine attack at the slightest stimulus, such as sweets or a sip of whiskey. Along with his own experience, which he elegantly describes (Levy is a writing professor), the author also connects with other famous figures plagued with the affliction, such as Nietzsche, Charles Darwin, and Elvis Presley. The memoir delves into the almost-demented obsession he developed with the illness, an experience sure to elicit empathy from those that have endured a serious disease, whether it be physical, mental, or both.
Lowside of the Roadby Barney Hopkyns
A new biography provides partial access into one of music’s most inaccessible personalities.
No less cryptic than his brooding vocals, the enigma of Tom Waits' personality is so carefully concealed that even Barney Hopkyns—most relentless of rock scribes—struggled to crack it. Hopkyns' latest biography, Lowside of the Road, attempts to unpack the riddle of Los Angeles singer/songwriter Tom Waits, but does so with only partial success. After all, "How do you write a sophisticated, penetrating biography of such a studiedly impenetrable figure when his ferociously tamped-down public image amounts to an enigma wrapped in a torn scarf within an old tarpaulin guyed into place with a total media lockdown?" The Independent asks. The answer: with studied musical analysis and a series of exclusive interviews with his inner circle. (Hopkyns also dusted off a collection of magazine pieces published about Waits during his more gregarious days.) The result is a "career biography of the highest class, full of considered judgment, wise contextualisation and detailed analysis: Read it and you will have nothing less than a firm grasp of what 'Tom Waits' means."
We Two: Victoria and Albertby Gillian Gill
A revisionist biography reduces the machismo of the Victorian era's most famous romance.
The typical, antiquated view of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert's romance as rulers of England at the peak of its global empire is that Victoria was a hapless heir to the throne, who only became happy when she relinquished power to her lover (and first cousin). Gillian Gill sets to straighten out this popular notion in what Publisher's Weekly called "A lively, perceptive, impressively researched biography." Her research, which includes an examination of the pair's love letters, finds that the two lived in harmony and were a precursor to the "21st-century power couple." Gill depicts a remarkable relationship at the pinnacle of power in the 19th century, in which husband and wife shared an unstoppable ambition along with a longing for intimacy (a rarity among British royalty at the time). It was precisely this competitiveness combined with affection that created a love that defined an era.
My Remarkable Journey by Larry King
The legend of television loosens the suspenders in his new tell-all.
With his signature voice and look, Larry King has rubbed elbows with virtually every major celebrity and public figure from the past 30 years. But his tremendous success has made him quite the celebrity as well, with the requisite sloppy marriages and even a meeting with a son he didn't know he had. King's new book, his 11th, is described as a "let-it-all-out" book that does not whitewash the more difficult and controversial periods in King's colorful life. Referring to his numerous divorces, he writes, "I was young, impetuous, and lonely." He also addresses a "low point" in his life, when he faced a grand larceny charge in the early 1970s, according to USA Today. But there are also the remarkable anecdotes one would expect from a man with such an impressive career. An excerpt published by Vanity Fair highlights King's tremendous luck, which helped him land a rare interview with Old Blue Eyes himself, Frank Sinatra. At the time, King was dead broke. Nevertheless, Sinatra saw something in the young radio man, and predicted, "You're going to be hearing a lot about him."
The Brethrenby Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong
A 1979 look behind the scenes of the Supreme Court is worth dusting off.
With the retirement of Supreme Court Justice David Souter, America's highest court enters a transition period that will be defined by the role of its newest appointee (whomever that may be). Obama's appointment of a new judge warrants a re-exploration of Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong's The Brethren, which documents this phase through the lens of then-president Richard Nixon's four new appointees: Warren Burger, Harry A. Blackmun, Lewis F. Powell, Jr., and William Rehnquist. Woodward's reporting reveals how Nixon's justices grew into their roles on the bench while they collaborated to write some of the most monumental decisions in U.S. history, including, ironically, a ruling on the Watergate tapes and executive privilege that would lead to Nixon's eventual impeachment.
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