Recent things:
The Trail of the Tramp - Leon Ray Livingston - Ye olde hobo stories tolden in ye olde writing style that makes my teeth hurt (okay, maybe just late 19th centurey writing style, but still), plus the stories weren't that great. This guy put out something like 15 volumes of these adorable "true tales" of hobo life. Individual titles fetch around $100 for a first edition. Save your money. If you're interested in this kind of thing,
read the AK Press books.
Snakes! Guillotines! Electric Chairs!: My Adventures in The Alice Cooper Group - Dennis Dunaway and Chris Hodenfield - not bad, way better than I was expecting, but my expectations are extremely low for rock and roll memoirs. Plus he had a writer write the thing (I assume, since "Chris Hodenfield" wasn't in the band or anything). Worth a read if you liked the group, not so much if you didn't care. Some amusing sour grapes around Alice's eventual (inevitable?) split from the group to go solo. Dennis is right though, the original band was the best rock band Alice ever fronted.
Living Like a Runaway: A Memoir - Lita Ford - you know this is a memoir because it says so right in the title. I can't tell you what I thought because I'm having a hard time remembering even one page of it. The only memorable part was where she said (at two different points in the book) that it creeped her out that Joan and Sandy were queer. She quit the band after their first rehearsal, in fact, it creeped her out so much. But she came back and stuck it out, but toward the end of the story reminds us that, hey, she didn't even really want to be there, because, you know,
fags.
Queens of Noise: The Real Story of the Runaways - Evelyn McDonnell - the only kind of book where my expectations are lower than a rock and roll memoir is a rock and roll biography. This one had all the earmarks of a bio so questionable that it had to be labeled "unauthorized," but it wasn't labeled that way, and it was an excellent read. Just the right balance between historical detail and storytelling. If you grew up in the 70s, or just want to soak up some music history, you should read it.
Kalamazoo Gals: A Story of Extraordinary Women & Gibson's "Banner" Guitars of WWII - John Thomas - a long title, and a long, repetitive, amateurish book. But - a great story. Who knew that it was a primarily female workforce that turned out Gibson guitars during WWII? You'd be excused for not being aware of that, considering that little was known about the "banner" Gibsons, and the guy who ran the company back then said they didn't even make guitars during WWII. Must read for every guitar aficionado.
Kim Gordon - Girl in a Band - we saw Kim Gordon on the Los Angeles stop of her tour for the release of this book. Poor Aimee Mann was given the impossible task of "interviewing" someone who clearly didn't want to speak, or even, I thought, be seen. Well, the book was just like a print version of that disastrous evening. Evasive, unclear, stingy, grudging - why the fuck bother if that's how you're going to approach something? It took me over a year to finish, that's how unexcited I was to open it up.