In her latest biography, award-winning author Holly George-Warren explores the life and music of Janis Joplin, the singer-songwriter who rose to fame in the late 1960s for her powerful, blues-inspired vocals.

Born in the small Texas town of Port Arthur, Joplin was an early admirer of music, particularly the legendary blues and jazz artists, such as Lead Belly, Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, and Odetta. As a teenager, Joplin befriended a group of like-minded outcasts and began frequenting roadhouses along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast, one of the few places where she and her friends could hear the music they enjoyed. By her senior year of high school, Joplin had developed a reputation for her outrageous behavior and progressive views toward race and sexuality and became shunned by her peers. She fled to Austin to study art and began performing music at small venues on campus and around town. Soon, Joplin fled again. This time to San Francisco to check out its emerging music scene. Joplin would go on to achieve musical success; however, following her long battle with substance abuse, she died from an accidental heroin overdose in 1970 at the age of 27.

Drawing on her extensive review of archival materials and interviews with Joplin’s friends, family, and bandmates, George-Warren creates a moving account of Joplin’s complex and painful life, one she spent “trying to find a way to reconcile her ambitions as a singer with her desire for some kind of loving attachment.”

About the Author

Holly George-Warren is a two-time Grammy nominee and the award-winning author of sixteen books, including the New York Times bestseller The Road to Woodstock (with Michael Lang) and the biographies Janis: Her Life and Music, A Man Called Destruction: The Life and Music of Alex Chilton, and Public Cowboy No. 1: The Life and Times of Gene Autry. She has written for a variety of publications, including Rolling Stone, The New York Times, The Village Voice, and Entertainment Weekly. George-Warren teaches at the State University of New York in New Paltz.

Publisher: ‎ Simon & Schuster

During a short trip across the border while writing Deep South, acclaimed travel writer Paul Theroux met and heard unforgettable stories from several migrants. Following the experience, he vowed to return. Now he is back. This time, despite the warnings, he drives deeper into Mexico “to destroy the stereotypes” and to see its people as they really are.

Beginning in San Ysidro, California, near San Diego, Theroux heads east along the border, exploring both sides of the frontier before turning south into Mexico. He shares disturbing statistics and details from his conversations with locals about horrific acts of the “unspoken” cartels. He visits a shelter, where he finds deportees who are “soft-spoken, humbled, half starved, and hopeless” but refuse to let the fence define them.

Driving farther into the interior, Theroux finds “no roadblocks, no bandits, only sunlight and mesquite and mariposas, the blue-gray silhouette of the Sierra Madre in the distance.” In the mostly new city of Monterrey, among the steel mills and the campus of the technical university, Theroux strikes up a conversation with a group of bikers, who are also software engineers. Through the steep brown hills of the Chihuahuan Desert, he finds “no traffic going south, but a succession of convoys of eighteen-wheelers” heading north on Route 57, known as the NAFTA Highway. Along the way, he also finds colonial cities “brutally martyred in the cause of modernization” and residents desperately trying to hold on to their culture. In Mexico City, Theroux teaches a writing workshop, explores Mexican literature, and laments that magic realism is a popular genre here because it “disguises reality” and allows the reader to escape what life is really like.

During his travels across the country, Theroux has firsthand encounters with corruption by police and local officials, but he also makes many new friends “along the plain of snakes.”

An enlightening journey across a country that defies stereotyping.

About the Author

Paul Theroux is the author of many highly acclaimed books. His novels include Burma Sahib, The Bad Angel Brothers, The Lower River, Jungle Lovers, and The Mosquito Coast, and his renowned travel books include Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, On the Plain of Snakes, and Dark Star Safari. He lives in Hawaii and on Cape Cod.

Publisher: Mariner Books

Just in time for the annual harvest season, Crush by John Briscoe provides a fascinating and comprehensive look at the dramatic history of the California wine industry. California’s superb climate and geography established its wine industry; however, its native grapes did not. California’s first viticulture actually began after the Mission grape was brought to the region by its Franciscan fathers. Since then, its winemakers have continued to face obstacles, including vine-destroying plague, the near-total destruction of an earthquake, and the drying effects of governmental restriction. They have also endured the effects of unscrupulous dealers, fluctuations in the market, and the resurrection of Prohibition-era rhetoric. Despite the odds, they have prevailed.

With vivid and passionate detail, Briscoe explores the unlikely ascendance of California wine from the first harvest to its amazing triumph at the Paris Wine Tasting of 1976 and beyond.

About the Author

John Briscoe is a San Francisco poet, award-winning author, and lawyer. A noted wine and food writer, he is the author of Tadich Grill: The Story of San Francisco’s Oldest Restaurant.

Publisher: University of Nevada Press