Ninety-nine percent of the books I read are non-fiction – autobiographies, memoirs, biographies and histories. I mainly read about the lives of musicians, actors and politicians. I have read pretty much every book ever written about Elvis Presley, including all the memoirs written by his friends, co-stars, bandmates and Priscilla. I have also read almost every book written by and about Johnny Cash, Bobby Darin and Lana Turner. I have many books written about the Kennedys (Jack, Bobby and Teddy), but I haven’t read all of them yet. I also read about the history of music and the history of the United States, particularly post-World War II America (the 1950s and 1960s), which is what my degree was in. The other one percent of the books I read are the classics such as The Great Gatsby and Catcher in the Rye. If you would like to see all the books I have read and am going to read, you can check out my page on GoodReads. It is funny because as a kid, I did not like reading at all. In fact in middle school, I chose to take French rather than Challenge Reading because I did want to do book reports. Now I love reading and have over 200 books in my Kindle waiting for me. I have read 10 books so far this year, which is really only one a month. I would like to get on pace to read one book a week, or at least two a month.

I read a lot of music memoirs and biographies, and not just from my favorites like Elvis Presley, Bobby Darin and Johnny Cash. I even read the memoirs of musicians I am not a huge fan of. I just find autobiographies very interesting, I find people’s true life stories very intriguing. I have just finished reading Chrissie Hynde’s memoir Reckless: My Life as a Pretender. Next on my music memoir list waiting for me on my kindle are Patti Smith’s M Train, John Fogerty’s Fortunate Son: My Life, My Music, Jewel’s Never Broken: Songs Are Only Half the Story and Elvis Costello’s Unfaithful Music and Disappearing Ink – all released in the past month. I also have Patti Smith’s first memoir, Just Kids, to read, and Phil Collins announced his memoir will be published next October. And I still have to read Keith Richards’ Life and Woody Guthrie’s Bound for Glory – they are also waiting for me on my kindle. Earlier this year, Paste magazine published a list of the Top 20 Music Memoirs. Check it out here. I have added a few to my reading list.