From the guitarist of the pioneering band Sleater-Kinney, Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl is a candid, funny, and deeply personal look at making a life—and finding yourself—in music.
Before Carrie Brownstein became a music icon, she was a young girl growing up in the Pacific Northwest just as it was becoming the setting for one of the most important movements in rock history. Seeking a sense of home and identity, she would discover both while moving from spectator to creator in experiencing the power and mystery of a live performance.
With Sleater-Kinney, Brownstein and her bandmates rose to prominence in the burgeoning underground feminist punk-rock movement that would define music and pop culture in the 1990s. They were cited as “America’s best rock band” by legendary music critic Greil Marcus for their defiant, exuberant brand of punk that resisted labels and limitations, and redefined notions of gender in rock.
Along the way, Brownstein chronicles the excitement and contradictions within the era’s flourishing and fiercely independent music subculture, including experiences that sowed the seeds for the observational satire of the popular television series Portlandia years later. With deft, lucid prose, Brownstein proves herself as formidable on the page as on the stage. Accessibly raw, honest, and heartfelt, this book captures the experience of being a young woman, a born performer and an outsider, and ultimately finding one’s true calling through hard work, courage, and the intoxicating power of rock and roll.
In the tradition of High Fidelity and Empire Records, Girl Defective is the literary soundtrack to Skylark Martin's strange, mysterious, and extraordinary summer. This is the story of a wild girl and a ghost girl; a boy who knew nothing and a boy who thought he knew everything.
It's a story about Skylark Martin, who lives with her father and brother in a vintage record shop and is trying to find her place in the world. It's about ten-year-old Super Agent Gully and his case of a lifetime. And about beautiful, reckless, sharp-as-knives Nancy. It's about tragi-hot Luke, and just-plain-tragic Mia Casey. It's about the dark underbelly of a curious neighborhood. It's about summer, and weirdness, and mystery, and music.
And it's about life and death and grief and romance. All the good stuff.
Making friends has never been Elise Dembowski's strong suit. All throughout her life, she's been the butt of every joke and the outsider in every conversation. When a final attempt at popularity fails, Elise nearly gives up. Then she stumbles upon a warehouse party where she meets Vicky, a girl in a band who accepts her; Char, a cute, yet mysterious disc jockey; Pippa, a carefree spirit from England; and most importantly, a love for DJing.
Told in a refreshingly genuine and laugh-out-loud funny voice, This Song Will Save Your Life is an exuberant novel about identity, friendship, and the power of music to bring people together.
It's been three years since the devastating accident... three years since Mia walked out of Adam's life forever. Now living on opposite coasts, Mia is Juilliard's rising star and Adam is LA tabloid fodder, thanks to his new rock star status and celebrity girlfriend. When Adam gets stuck in New York by himself, chance brings the couple together again, for one last night. As they explore the city that has become Mia's home, Adam and Mia revisit the past and open their hearts to the future - and each other.
Told from Adam's point of view in the spare, lyrical prose that defined If I Stay, Where She Went explores the devastation of grief, the promise of new hope, and the flame of rekindled romance.
"I'm not Mavis anymore." For years, song bird Nikki Mills (aka Mavis Mills) dreamed of the freedom and lifestyle that came with being a platinum record artist. To get there, she put her career and son first and her love life on hold. Now an international singing sensation, Nikki discovers her reality is very different from what she had imagined. Determined not to be caged by the fan and media circus, Nikki struggles to protect her son, their relationship and lifestyle. That struggle is complicated by her desire for a love life.
The unearthing of Nikki's dark past, known only to her inner circle, creates a paparazzi whirlwind that threatens to destroy her. Can she find the courage to withstand the media storm? Can she transcend her past? How will she resolve matters of the heart? Set between 2000 and 2002, the themes in Song Bird centre on discovery, belonging, transformation, dealing with adversity, and matters of the heart.