Most Popular Books by Ben Greenman

"Greenman''s absorbing and entertaining study of Prince and his music compellingly underscores the Purple One''s enduring contributions to pop music." — Publishers Weekly (starred review) Named One of the Best Music Books of the Year by The Wall Street Journal Ben Greenman, New York Times–bestselling author, contributing writer to the New Yorker, and owner of thousands of recordings of Prince and Prince-related songs, knows intimately that there has never been a rock star as vibrant, mercurial, willfully contrary, experimental, or prolific as Prince. Uniting a diverse audience while remaining singularly himself, Prince was a tireless artist, a musical virtuoso and chameleon, and a pop-culture prophet who shattered traditional ideas of race and gender, rewrote the rules of identity, and redefined the role of sex in pop music. A polymath in his own right who collaborated with George Clinton and Questlove on their celebrated memoirs, Greenman has been listening to and writing about Prince since the mid-eighties. Here, with the passion of an obsessive fan and the skills of a critic, journalist, and novelist, he mines his encyclopedic knowledge of Prince''s music to tell both his story and the story of the paradigm-shifting ideas that he communicated to his millions of fans around the world. Greenman''s take on Prince is the autobiography of a generation and its ideas. Asking a series of questions—not only "Who was Prince?" but "Who wasn''t he?" and "Who are we?"— Dig if You Will the Picture is a fitting tribute to an extraordinary talent. "When it comes to funk and words, lyrics and language, there couldn''t be a better pairing than Ben Greenman and Prince." —George Clinton

Memoir of legendary Beach Boy member Brian Wilson

Traces the funk music legend''s rise from a 1950s barbershop quartet to an influential multigenre artist, discussing his pivotal artistic and business achievements with "Parliament-Funkadelic.".

"You have to bear in mind that [Questlove] is one of the smartest motherf*****s on the planet. His musical knowledge, for all practical purposes, is limitless." --Robert Christgau A punch-drunk memoir in which Everyone''s Favorite Questlove tells his own story while tackling some of the lates, the greats, the fakes, the philosophers, the heavyweights, and the true originals of the music world. He digs deep into the album cuts of his life and unearths some pivotal moments in black art, hip hop, and pop culture. Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson is many things: virtuoso drummer, producer, arranger, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon bandleader, DJ, composer, and tireless Tweeter. He is one of our most ubiquitous cultural tastemakers, and in this, his first book, he reveals his own formative experiences--from growing up in 1970s West Philly as the son of a 1950s doo-wop singer, to finding his own way through the music world and ultimately co-founding and rising up with the Roots, a.k.a., the last hip hop band on Earth. Mo'' Meta Blues also has some (many) random (or not) musings about the state of hip hop, the state of music criticism, the state of statements, as well as a plethora of run-ins with celebrities, idols, and fellow artists, from Stevie Wonder to KISS to D''Angelo to Jay-Z to Dave Chappelle to...you ever seen Prince roller-skate?!? But Mo'' Meta Blues isn''t just a memoir. It''s a dialogue about the nature of memory and the idea of a post-modern black man saddled with some post-modern blues. It''s a book that questions what a book like Mo'' Meta Bluesreally is. It''s the side wind of a one-of-a-kind mind. It''s a rare gift that gives as well as takes. It''s a record that keeps going around and around.

“Ben Greenman seems incapable of writing anything dry or familiar or expected. He is one of the most versatile, consistently surprising writers at work today.” —Dave Eggers A diverse and moving collection of witty, fabular, haunting stories about love, infidelity, and the vanishing art of letter writing—from the acclaimed novelist and New Yorker editor Ben Greenman. Fans of the works of Keith Gessen, Ben Kunkel, Nathaniel Rich, and John Wray will find much to love in the beautiful, poignant stories of What He’s Poised to Do.

The Slippage is a wry, wistful tale of marriage, lust, and disconnection from Ben Greenman, the critically acclaimed author of What He’s Poised to Do. William Day must confront some uncomfortable truths about his life and his future when his wife Louisa asks him to build her house. The take-it-or-leave-it demand becomes all the more difficult to swallow when he finds himself grappling with a past recklessness, an ex-girlfirend’s son he considers his own, and his own wants for what lies ahead. Sure to appeal to everyone who has ever been in love and had their heart broken, The Slippage shares uncanny truths about intimacy and modern relationships.

A Circle is a Balloon and Compass Both is a collection of stories about love, the most elusive and problematic of all phenomena. With a mix of traditional, literary prose and bold–some might even say irresponsible–experimentation, Ben Greenman explores the ins and outs of modern romance. Expect tears, nudity, and recrimination. From the half-hearted summer affair between a part-time bartender and a married doctor in a Miami hotel to the cryptic pseudo-erotic love letters to a friend who is “more than a friend,” we experience the love of pop songs, the love of cohabitation in Chicago, and love that is so transporting it takes us to the moon–literally. “Like Green Day did for punk rock, and The Matrix for kung-fu flicks, this new collection from New Yorker editor Greenman could well become an advocate for the short story with those who haven’t been interested in the form. Amusing, palatable . . . it’s precisely the sort of thing that can gain a new audience for a genre.” Time Out Chicago “A smart, tightly structured collection . . . playful, wryly comical.” The Brooklyn Rail “Seriously funny.” San Francisco Chronicle “Wildly inventive, sometimes surreal, but tenderly told, these stories give a glimpse of what Phillip K. Dick might have written if he’d allowed himself a sincere broken heart.” Paste Magazine

A swirling 1960s saga of the rise and fall of a true American icon. Rock Foxx is a rock star. But he is not just any rock star - Rock is an outrageous showman whose unprecedented mixed-race, mixed-gender band creates a new, socially conscious kind of music. Then, at the height of his fame, Rock suddenly disappears. In the hands of New Yorker editor Ben Greenman, this pseudo-bio of a fascinating character becomes both highly literary and immensely entertaining, a tale about rock''n''roll and about a complicated but key moment in American history.

New Yorker editor and McSweeney''s contributor Ben Greenman reshapes Russian literature''s most celebrated stories around America''s most popular pop culture icons, probing the deep complexities of Anton Chekov (not to mention those of Cruise or Kardashian). Thought-provoking and funny, these wryly re-imagined tales will be sure-fire favorites for every kind of reader, whether your favorite escapes are celebrity memoirs like L.A. Candy and The Truth about Diamonds, re-conceived classics like Wicked, literary parodies like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, or masterpieces of fiction from authors like Tolstoy, Pushkin and Chekhov himself.

Cuando el hip-hop surgió en la década de 1970, nadie esperaba que se convirtiera en la fuerza cultural que es en la actualidad. Pero para un joven negro criado en una familia musical en Filadelfia, lo era todo. Se quedaba despierto hasta altas horas de la madrugada para escuchar las últimas canciones que emitía la radio. Ahorraba para comprar vinilos en cuanto salían. Incluso empezó a componer sus propias canciones. Ese chico era Questlove. Ahora, en este libro único en su género, Questlove rastrea las fuerzas creativas y culturales que crearon y moldearon el hip-hop en EEUU, destacando tanto las joyas olvidadas pero influyentes como los éxitos innegables que encabezaron las listas de éxitos, y entrelaza este relato con historias que nadie más conoce. Hip-Hop es historia es a la vez un relato íntimo y agudamente descrito, y una teoría exhaustiva de la evolución de uno de los grades movimientos artístico y sociales de nuestro tiempo. Questlove aborda esta crónica del hip-hop con la sabiduría enciclopédica de un fanático obsesivo y la experiencia y la fluidez únicas de alguien que estuvo presente en muchos de los momentos de la historia.

Stories by J. Robert Lennon, Kevin Brockmeier, Lynne Tillman, Carson Mell, and Ben Greenman.

A moving, compelling memoir about growing up and escaping the tragic legacy of mental illness, suicide, addiction, and depression in one of America''s most famous families: the Hemingways. She opens her eyes. The room is dark. She hears yelling, smashed plates, and wishes it was all a terrible dream. But it isn''t. This is what it was like growing up as a Hemingway. In this deeply moving, searingly honest new memoir, actress and mental health icon Mariel Hemingway shares in candid detail the story of her troubled childhood in a famous family haunted by depression, alcoholism, illness, and suicide. Born just a few months after her grandfather, Ernest Hemingway, shot himself, it was Mariel''s mission as a girl to escape the desperate cycles of severe mental health issues that had plagued generations of her family. Surrounded by a family tortured by alcoholism (both parents), depression (her sister Margaux), suicide (her grandfather and four other members of her family), schizophrenia (her sister Muffet), and cancer (mother), it was all the young Mariel could do to keep her head. In a compassionate voice she reveals her painful struggle to stay sane as the youngest child in her family, and how she coped with the chaos by becoming OCD and obsessive about her food, schedule, and organization. The twisted legacy of her family has never quite let go of Mariel, but now in this memoir she opens up about her claustrophobic marriage, her acting career, and turning to spiritual healers and charlatans for solace. Ultimately Mariel has written a story of triumph about learning to overcome her family''s demons and developing love and deep compassion for them. At last, in this memoir she can finally tell the true story of the tragedies and troubles of the Hemingway family, and she delivers a book that beckons comparisons to Mary Karr and Jeanette Walls.

"Focusing on the years 1971 to the present, Questlove finds the hidden connections in the American tapestry, whether investigating how the blaxploitation era reshaped Black identity or considering the way disco took an assembly-line approach to Black genius. And these critical inquiries are complemented by his own memories as a music fan, and the way his appetite for pop culture taught him about America. A history of the last half-century and an intimate conversation with one of music''s most influential and original voices, ''Music Is History'' is a singular look at contemporary America."--