Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson

Ben Greenman

The drummer for the Grammy Award-winning group "The Roots" discusses his life as well as hip hop, music criticism, and celebrities.

The World According to Questlove

Mo' Meta Blues

Questlove

In somethingtofoodabout, drummer, producer, musical director, culinary entrepreneur, and New York Times bestselling author, Questlove, applies his boundless curiosity to the world of food. In conversations with ten innovative chefs in America, Questlove explores what makes their creativity tick, how they see the world through their cooking and how their cooking teaches them to see the world. The conversations begin with food but they end wherever food takes them. Food is fuel. Food is culture. Food is history. And food is food for thought. Featuring conversations with: Nathan Myhrvold, Modernist Cuisine Lab, Seattle; Daniel Humm, Eleven Madison Park, and NoMad, NYC; Michael Solomonov, Zahav, Philadelphia; Ludo Lefebvre, Trois Mec, L.A.; Dave Beran, Next, Chicago; Donald Link, Cochon, New Orleans; Dominque Crenn, Atelier Crenn, San Francisco; Daniel Patterson, Coi and Loco'l, San Francisco; Jesse Griffiths, Dai Due, Austin; and Ryan Roadhouse, Nodoguro, Portland

Exploring Creativity with Innovative Chefs

something to food about

Brian Wilson

Memoir of legendary Beach Boy member Brian Wilson

A Memoir

I Am Brian Wilson

Ben Greenman is a writer of virtuosic range and uncanny emotional insight. As Darin Strauss has noted, "Like Bruno Schulz, George Saunders, Donald Barthelme, and no one else I can think of, Greenman has the power to be whimsical without resorting to whimsy." The stories in this new collection, What He's Poised to Do, showcase his wide range, yet are united by a shared sense of yearning, a concern with connections missed and lost, and a poignant attention to how we try to preserve and maintain those connections through the written word. From a portrait of an unfaithful man contemplating his own free will to the saga of a young Cuban man's quixotic devotion to a woman he may never have met; and from a nineteenth-century weapons inventor's letter to his young daughter to an aging man's wistful memory of a summer love affair in a law office—each of these stories demonstrates Greenman's maturity as a chronicler of romantic angst both contemporary and timeless, and as an explorer of the ways our yearning for connection informs our selves and our souls.

Stories

What He's Poised to Do

What songs have made up "your" life s soundtrack? Which have captured your every mood and deepest sentiments? Pop music, like no other form of entertainment or art, is capable of articulating our feelings, desires, joy, and pain. In a few soul-grabbing minutes, artists from every genre from Little Richard to Lou Reed, Willie Nelson to Wu-Tang Clan, Sly and the Family Stone to the Rolling Stones can help us understand our place in our own lives. This collection of short, sharp essays by "New York Times" bestselling author Ben Greenman ("Mo Meta Blues"), organized around a thematic playlist of songs, serves as a reminder of the lyrical power of songwriting and the sonic ability of pop to capture the human experience. Greenman s wit, insight, and honesty are as sweet and satisfying as the hits (and the deep cuts) at the center of each essay."

Essays on Love, Loss, and Life--With a Soundtrack

Emotional Rescue

Hip-Hop Is History

Mariel Hemingway

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 with Mary Karr and Jeanette Walls.

Overcoming the Legacy of Mental Illness, Addiction, and Suicide in My Family

Out Came the Sun

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 Novel

The Slippage

What is it like to be a teen with depressed addicts for parents, a mentally ill sister, and a grandfather who killed himself? In this moving, compelling diary, Mariel Hemingway writes as her teen self to share her pain, heartache, and coping strategies with young readers. “I open my eyes. The room is dark. I hear yelling, smashed plates, and wish it was all a terrible dream.” Welcome to Mariel Hemingway’s intimate diary of her years as a girl and teen. In this deeply moving, searingly honest young adult 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, mental illness, and suicide. Born just a few months after her grandfather, Ernest Hemingway, shot himself, Mariel’s mission as a girl was to escape the desperate cycles of debilitating mental health that had plagued generations of her family. In a voice that speaks to young readers everywhere, she recounts her childhood growing up in 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. 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. Young readers who are sharing a similar painful childhood will see their lives and questions reflected on the pages of her diary—and they may even be inspired to start their own diary to channel their pain. Her voice will speak directly to teens across the world and tell them there is light at the end of the tunnel. • A hugely important subject for millions (around 10% of Americans suffer from depression) of young adults who are perhaps growing up in families with mental illness, suicide, depression, schizophrenia, alcoholism, and depression, or who themselves suffer from it. • Very few memoirs speak directly to YA readers about mental illness, depression, and what it is like growing up in a troubled family. • Mariel Hemingway speaks honestly about her own experiences with depression, eating disorders, and OCD, and how she learned to overcome these issues.

Invisible Girl

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.

Stories by Anton Chekhov

Celebrity Chekhov

A unique and kaleidoscopic look into the life, legacy, and electricity of the pop legend Prince and his wideranging impact on our culture 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.

Funk, Sex, God and Genius in the Music of Prince

Dig If You Will the Picture

George Clinton

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. 75,000 first printing.

Brothas Be, Yo Like George, Ain't That Funkin' Kinda Hard on You?

J. Robert Lennon

Lynne Tillman

Kevin Brockmeier

Carson Mell

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

Electric Literature No. 5

Ben Greenman's monumental yet intimate book on Prince comes a year after the star's death at the age of 57 in an elevator at the legendary Paisley Park complex. With the release of a string of critically acclaimed albums and a new solo tour, the Minneapolis Genius looked set for a renaissance after a quiet-ish (by his standards) decade or so. And then: the silence, forever. Dig If U Will The Picture is a portrait of The Artist, who was also the artist who will be remembered by many as the brightest, most seductive and enigmatic pop star of his generation. In thematically structured chapters, Ben Greenman anatomizes a career and an aesthetic that at times seemed otherworldly. Drawing on over 40 studio albums, a repertoire of 2,000 plus live shows and close analysis of the unreleased highlights of the Vault, Dig If U Will the Picture is a critical consideration of Prince's art, a testimony to the author's deep and abiding personal connection to the work, and a fitting memorial.

Ben Greenman

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