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Wayne Kramer of the MC5 shares his new memoir “The Hard Stuff,” the story of his groundbreaking but turbulent career in rock’n’roll, with journalist Adam Davidson.
In January 1969, before the world heard a note of their music, The MC5 was on the cover of Rolling Stone. The missing link between free jazz and punk rock, they were raw, primal, and, when things were clicking, absolutely unstoppable.
Led by legendary guitarist Wayne Kramer, The MC5 was a reflection of the times: exciting, sexy, violent, chaotic, and out of control, all but assuring their time in the spotlight would be short-lived. They toured the country, played with music legends, and had a rabid following, their music acting as the soundtrack to the blue collar youth movement springing up across the nation. Kramer wanted to redefine what a rock 'n' roll group was capable of, and there was power in reaching for that, but it was also a recipe for disaster, both personally and professionally. The band recorded three major label albums but, by 1972, it was all over.
Kramer's story is a revolutionary one, but it's also the deeply personal struggle of an addict and an artist, a rebel with a great tale to tell. The '60s were not all peace and love, but Kramer shows that peace and love can be born out of turbulence and unrest. From the glory days of Detroit to the junk-sick streets of the East Village, from Key West to Nashville and sunny L.A., in and out of prison and on and off of drugs, his is the classic journeyman narrative, but with a twist: he's here to remind us that revolution is always an option.
Adam Davidson is a staff writer at The New Yorker, and a co-founder of NPR's Planet Money program. 
Celeste Ng discusses Little Fires Everywhere at the 2018 National Book Festival.
FROM THE PUBLISHER:
In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is meticulously planned – from the layout of the winding roads, to the colours of the houses, to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules.
Enter Mia Warren – an enigmatic artist and single mother – who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenage daughter Pearl, and rents a house from the Richardsons. Soon Mia and Pearl become more than just tenants: all four Richardson children are drawn to the alluring mother-daughter pair. But Mia carries with her a mysterious past, and a disregard for the rules that threatens to upend this carefully ordered community.
When the Richardsons' friends attempt to adopt a Chinese-American baby, a custody battle erupts that dramatically divides the town and puts Mia and Mrs. Richardson on opposing sides. Suspicious of Mia and her motives, Mrs. Richardson becomes determined to uncover the secrets in Mia's past. But her obsession will come at unexpected and devastating costs to her own family – and Mia's.
Little Fires Everywhere explores the weight of long-held secrets and the ferocious pull of motherhood-and the danger of believing that planning and following the rules can avert disaster, or heartbreak. 
Ian Goldin provides a fascinating and thoroughly accessible introduction to development. This talk answers key questions about what development means, what its impact is and how it can be used for good.
About the book:
What do we mean by development? How can citizens, governments and the international community foster development? The process by which nations escape poverty and achieve economic and social progress has been the subject of extensive examination for hundreds of years.The notion of development itself has evolved from an original preoccupation with incomes and economic growth to a much broader understanding of development. In this Very Short Introduction Ian Goldin considers the contributions that education, health, gender, equity, and other dimensions of human well-being make to development, and discusses why it is also necessary to include the role of institutions and the rule of law as well as sustainability and environmental concerns. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable. 
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor talks with PBS Books co-host Rich Fahle about here books, My Life Story and The Beloved World of Sonia Sotomayor at the 2018 National Book Festival.
FROM THE PUBLISHER:
(My Life Story)
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor tells her own story for young readers for the very first time!
As the first Latina Supreme Court Justice, Sonia Sotomayor has inspired young people around the world to reach for their dreams. But what inspired her? For young Sonia, the answer was books! They were her mirrors, her maps, her friends, and her teachers. They helped her to connect with her family in New York and in Puerto Rico, to deal with her diabetes diagnosis, to cope with her father’s death, to uncover the secrets of the world, and to dream of a future for herself in which anything was possible.
In Turning Pages, Justice Sotomayor shares that love of books with a new generation of readers, and inspires them to read and puzzle and dream for themselves. Accompanied by Lulu Delacre’s vibrant art, this story of the Justice’s life shows readers that the world is full of promise and possibility–all they need to do is turn the page.
(The Beloved World of Sonia Sotomayor)
Sonia Sotomayor, the first Hispanic and third woman appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States, was a young girl when she dared to dream big. Her dream? To become a lawyer and a judge.
As Justice Sotomayor explains, "When I was a child my family was poor and we knew no lawyers or judges and none lived in our neighborhood. I knew nothing about the Supreme Court and how much its work in reinterpreting the Constitution and the laws of the United States affected peoples' lives. You cannot dream of becoming something you don't even know about. That has been the most important lesson of my life. You have to learn to dream big dreams."
Sonia did not let the hardships of her background—which included growing up in the rough housing projects of New York City's South Bronx, dealing with juvenile diabetes, coping with parents who argued and fought personal demons, and worrying about money—stand in her way. Always, she believed in herself. Her determination, along with guidance from generous mentors and the unwavering love of her extended Puerto Rican family, propelled her ever forward. 
James Fallows and Deborah Fallow discuss Our Towns: A 100,000-Mile Journey into the Heart of America at the 2018 National Book Festival.
FROM THE PUBLISHER:
A vivid, surprising portrait of the civic and economic reinvention taking place in America, town by town and generally out of view of the national media. A realistically positive and provocative view of the country between its coasts.
For the last five years, James and Deborah Fallows have been traveling across America in a single-engine prop airplane. Visiting dozens of towns, they have met hundreds of civic leaders, workers, immigrants, educators, environmentalists, artists, public servants, librarians, business people, city planners, students, and entrepreneurs to take the pulse and understand the prospects of places that usually draw notice only after a disaster or during a political campaign.
The America they saw is acutely conscious of its problems—from economic dislocation to the opioid scourge—but itis also crafting solutions, with a practical-minded determination at dramatic odds with the bitter paralysis of national politics. At times of dysfunction on a national level, reform possibilities have often arisen from the local level. The Fallowses describe America in the middle of one of these creative waves. Their view of the country is as complex and contradictory as America itself, but it also reflects the energy, the generosity and compassion, the dreams, and the determination of many who are in the midst of making things better. Our Towns is the story of their journey—and an account of a country busy remaking itself. 
The podcast host of “Talk Music Talk with boice” partners with 33 1/3 to present a panel featuring four authors from the series who discuss the books they wrote on their favorite albums/ Featuring from left to right, moderator boice-Terrel Allen, George Grella (Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew), Christopher Weingarten (Public Enemy’s It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back), Amanda Petrusich (Nick Drake’s Pink Moon), and Ryan Leas (LCD Soundsystem’s Sound of Silver).
33 1/3 is a series of books in which each volume written about a single album and is published by Bloomsbury.
boice-Terrel Allen is a podcaster, author and musician originally from Pittsburgh and currently lives in New York City. He's published three books of fiction (Screwball Comedy/Stories Going Steady, Janet Hurst and The Daughters of a Mother), edited an anthology of multicultural fiction and poetry (Coloring Book) and released two music albums (How to Be an Adult and Get Me Audio, Vol. 1). His podcast, Talk Music Talk, originated in 2015 and has released over 160 episodes. Talk Music Talk is a weekly interview podcast featuring long-form discussions with singers, songwriters, authors, producers and others who are connected to music of all genres. The show can be streamed on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, SoundCloud and is also available as an app. www.talkmusictalk.com www.333sound.com
George Grella started as a musician and then accidentally became a writer. He has played classical, jazz, improvised music, funk, show tunes, and more, from CBGB to Weill Recital Hall. His music writing career began in earnest in 2008, when he started the Big City blog, and since then has contributed to, among others, Signal to Noise, Downbeat, WQXR, the New York City Jazz Record, NewMusicBox, and Music & Literature. He currently writes for the New York Classical Review and is the music editor of the Brooklyn Rail.
Christopher R. Weingarten is a contributing editor at Rolling Stone.
Amanda Petrusich is the author of several books about music, including Do Not Sell at Any Price: The Wild, Obsessive Hunt for the World’s Rarest 78rpm Records, which was named one of the best books of 2014 by NPR, Slate, and BuzzFeed. Petrusich is a staff writer at The New Yorker, and the recipient of a 2016 Guggenheim Fellowship in nonfiction. Her work has also appeared in the New York Times, the Oxford American, Pitchfork, GQ, Esquire, Playboy, Spin, The Nation, The Atlantic, and elsewhere.
Ryan Leas is a Contributing Editor for Stereogum. He has also written for Deadspin, GQ, Noisey, and the Village Voice
