Queens of Noise: The Real Story of the Runaways by Evelyn McDonnell (Da Capo Press)

Evelyn McDonnell provides the complete story of the Runaways, the self-declared “Queens of Noise” – Lita Ford, Jackie Fox, Sandy West, Cherie Currie and Joan Jett – who paved the way for every girl band since from the Go-Gos to L7 to Care Bears on Fire.  Manufactured by producer and manger Kim Fowley, the Runaways’ four-year run includes tales of musical breakthroughs, drugs, violent crimes, the Sex Pistols, sexual experimentation, harassment, jail, Led Zeppelin, spandex jumpsuits, David Bowie, abortion, lawsuits, riots, and much, much more.  Fighting tooth and nail at every step to be accepted, the relentless passion of the Runaways during and beyond their time as a band remains an inspiration for musicians everywhere.

“Scrupulously researched…McDonnell has done her legwork…[and] rightly rehabilitated a pioneering band’s reputation.”
—The New York Times

“Through meticulous research and a stylistic approach that swings between academic and aggressively candid, McDonnell gives these pioneering girls the third dimension they deserve… By treating each of the musicians as an individual finding her place in a rapidly changing world, Queens of Noise provides a multilayered consideration of the Runaways, who ‘could play like the boys, without once pretending they weren’t girls.’”
—Los Angeles Times

“[T]he Runaways’ legacy as trailblazers who opened the doors for other female artists is assured. Queens of Noise is the definitive account of their pioneering career.”
—Seattle Times

“Celebrates the spirit of what could happen when listeners ignore conventional wisdom about girls-in-rock. An almost-feminist manifest… A primer of how bands come together, what they face in the jaws of trying to create arena-sized success without proper management and how it can all go wrong.”
—Paste

“Reversing the curse that plagued the band’s short run, [Queens of Noise] declares: if you haven’t heard of the Runaways, that’s your problem—not theirs.”
—New York Observer

“For a grim and gritty look at the rise and fall of the band, as well as a look at sexual politics in the 70s and in the 70s rock scene, this is a fascinating book. And for fans of The Runaways, like me, this is a must have.”
—Graffiti Magazine

“This book may be the first Runaways project to successfully represent all five members of the classic lineup… Instead of a riot of conflicting opinions, McDonnell skillfully weaves a coherent narrative that looks at both sides of ‘he said, she said,’ or is often the case, ‘she said, she said.’”
—San Antonio Express News

“Brilliant, must-read.”
—The Advocate

I’m Your Man: The Life of Leonard Cohen by Sylvie Simmons (Ecco)

AN INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER

In this major, definitive biography, Sylvie Simmons provides an authoritative and intimate account of Leonard Cohen’s fascinating life. Over the decades, Cohen has morphed from a beloved literary figure in his native Canada, to an internationally recognized and inimitable songwriter, to a performer approaching rock star status. He is and always has been a mixture of extremes – an international celebrity who craves simplicity, a lady’s man who yearns for family yet a family man who continually left home for the road, a self-identified Jew who practices Buddhism, and an entertainer always ambivalent about his writing and performing careers.

Cohen is now reaping the rewards of a lifetime of extraordinary work. Since his return from his extended stay at a mountain-top monastery with his Zen master, he has toured and played to the biggest audiences of his career, been honored with innumerable accolades from his peers, fans and critics, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The world has welcomed him with enthusiasm and warmth, and his triumphant comeback is a reminder that he remains one of the most prolific and influential iconoclasts of our time.

“I’m Your Man is the major, soul-searching biography that Leonard Cohen deserves… a mesmerizing labor of love.”
—Janet Maslin, The New York Times

“A new gold standard of Cohen bios.”
—Los Angeles Times

“This is the bio Cohen long deserved, and it makes every prior Cohen bio practically unnecessary.”
—Rolling Stone (four-and-a-half star review)

Fierce Angels: Living with a Legacy from the Sacred Dark Feminine to the Strong Black Woman by Sheri Parks (Lawrence Hill Press)

Black women are born into an army of “Fierce Angels” – the stereotype of the strong black mother purveyed within black and mainstream cultures – and in many ways this strengthens them. But the role is overwhelming, calling for unreasonable levels of emotional, spiritual and intellectual energy and an unrealistic selflessness. Fierce Angels is the first book written for a popular audience to explore the figure of the Strong Black Woman and traces how and why figures like the Dark Mother, Fierce Angel, Oracle, and Mammy play out in the mythologies of cultures around the world, unearths hidden stories of contemporary women, talks about the drive to make each black woman the next Coretta King, describes how black women hide their accomplishments and the costs of doing so, and talks about how black women’s strengths are now a model for other women worldwide, as well as what the future holds for them. The 2013 paperback includes new chapters and a foreword by Marcia Ann Gillespie.

“Thought-provoking.”
—Washington Post

“Former NPR host Sheri Parks fearlessly dives into the minefield of race, sex and popular culture in her smart, sharp critical study . . . and debunks stereotypical images of sisters.”
—Essence

“Parks argues that the image of the strong black woman has been as much a burden as a tribute because it has come to be expected that black women will endure all means of hardship in tending to the needs of others. [She] offers a compelling analysis of the toll of the strong image on women who have had enormous responsibilities but – until recently – little control.”
—Booklist

“[A] thorough study.”
—Kirkus

“It’s been more than 30 years since feminist Michele Wallace’s Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman. . . . Parks’ book goes much further. . . . These women are change agents in American life, fiercely human angels, whose stories deserve the kind of complex and nuanced analysis that Parks’ book delivers.”
—Ms.

Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters by Kate Brown (Oxford University Press)

Plutopia won the the 2014 George Perkins Marsh Prize from the American Society for Environmental History (ASEH) and the 2014 Ellis W. Hawley Prize from the Organization of American Historians (OAH).

In the aftermath of WWII and at the height of the Cold War frenzy, both the United States and Russia built plutonium plants around “model cities,” whose citizens were carefully selected and monitored by heavy security to work in these plants and produce plutonium as quickly as possible. In the U.S. it was the Hanford nuclear facility in Washington state and the Russian counterpart — modeled on Hanford — was the Maiak plant in the southern Urals. In over 40 years of operation they each invisibly issued 200 million curies of radioactive isotopes into the environment, endangering not only these model citizens who became sick from radioactivity, but also the rivers, fields and forests surrounding the towns making the areas uninhabitable. Kate Brown — author and academic — has been working for over five years on this untold story and Plutopia is the first book to narrate the history of these disasters in tandem. Brown speaks Russian and other related languages fluently and is the first journalist to get the Russians to relate their experiences in their own words; this, along with her first-hand observations of both areas, access to previously untouched archives and the stories of the Americans results in a powerful narrative and major work.

“Turning up a surprising amount of hitherto hidden material and talkative survivors, Brown (History/Univ. of Maryland, Baltimore County; A Biography of No Place: From Ethnic Borderland to Soviet Heartland, 2005) writes a vivid, often hair-raising history of the great plutonium factories and the privileged cities built around them. … An angry but fascinating account of negligence, incompetence and injustice justified (as it still is) in the name of national security.”
—Kirkus (starred review)

“An unflinching and chilling account.”
—Seattle Times

“Harrowing… Meticulously researched… Plutopia has important messages for those managing today’s nuclear facilities, arguing for caution and transparency.”
—Nature

“One of the Cold War’s more striking perversities never made it to public view. … Brown is a good writer, and she describes with precision the construction of the two sites (a difficult process in the U.S. case, an unbelievably horrid one in the Russian case), the hazardous occupations undertaken by their inhabitants, and the consciously contrived bubbles of socioeconomic inequality both places became.”
—Foreign Affairs

“Brown’s account is unique, partisan and occasionally personal in that she includes some of her thoughts about interviews she conducted… But because she is open and thorough about her sources, those are strengths to be celebrated, not weaknesses to be deplored. It also means her book is engaging, honest and, in the end, entirely credible.”
—New Scientist

“Kate Brown has written a provocative and original study of two cities — one American, one Soviet — at the center of their countries’ nuclear weapons complexes. The striking parallels she finds between them help us — impel us — to see the Cold War in a new light. Plutopia will be much discussed. It is a fascinating and important book.”
—David Holloway, author of Stalin and the Bomb

“Kate Brown has produced a novel and arresting account of the consequences of Cold War Nuclear policies on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Interweaving documentary research in government archives, reviews and revisions of the public record, and a host of personal interviews with the citizens — perpetrators, victims, and witnesses — Brown’s Plutopia makes a lasting contribution to the continuing chronicle of the human and environmental disasters of the atomic age.”
—Peter Bacon Hales, author of Atomic Spaces: Living on the Manhattan Project

The Vast Unknown: America’s First Ascent of Everest by Broughton Coburn (Crown)

Fifty years after the greatest climb in American history, this remarkable story of men and mountain is told in full.

From the bestselling author of Everest: Mountain Without Mercy, The Vast Unknown is a riveting chronicle of the iconic first American expedition to Mt. Everest in May 1963.

“A sweeping account of the first American visitors to Mount Everest’s peak… Coburn’s unhurried, character-driven narrative pays scrupulous attention to the climb’s every detail and to Everest’s majestic natural history… An exhilarating slice of American adventure-sporting history.”
—Kirkus

“Coburn brings this exciting chapter of American mountaineering history to life.”
—Library Journal

“Gripping… Not just another book about mountain climbing, this is also a story of America in the early 1960s.”
—Booklist

“Broughton Coburn has written a book to renew our faith in what it means to believe in each other, and in ourselves. This is what it looked like when ordinary men of extraordinary courage and self-discipline worked through tragedy, dissent, and hardship not for individual glory but toward a common goal. When were we last this self-effacing, this optimistic, this outrageously can-do? A compulsively entertaining read.”
—Alexandra Fuller, author of Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness

“This book is like a time capsule from the Cold War, showing how in 1963, a bunch of crazy American mountaineers embarked on a plan to ascend via the never-before-summited west ridge, while racing a Chinese group to the top.”
—Sacramento Bee