In 1960 Timothy Leary was not yet famous - or infamous - and Allen Ginsberg was both. Leary, eager to expand his experiments at the Harvard Psilocybin Project to include accomplished artists and writers, knew that Ginsberg held the key to bohemia's elite. Ginsberg, fresh from his first experience with hallucinogenic mushrooms in Mexico, was eager to promote the spiritual possibilities of psychedelic use. Thus, "America's most conspicuous beatnik" was recruited as Ambassador of Psilocybin u...

The debut novel from Peter Conners, bestselling author of Grateful Dead historiesWhen Virgil Frey gets an unexpected phone call from his childhood best buddy, guitarist Richard Payne Knight, urging him to join his band Laverna as a roadie running the merch table on a small club tour through New York state, he decides to go for it. Virgil’s current situation attending a graduate school creative writing program is falling flat, and he’s hoping this new adventure will...

On May 8, 1977, at Barton Hall, on the Cornell University campus, in front of 8,500 eager fans, the Grateful Dead played a show so significant that the Library of Congress inducted it into the National Recording Registry. The band had just released Terrapin Station and was still finding its feet after an extended hiatus. In 1977, the Grateful Dead reached a musical peak, and their East Coast spring tour featured an exceptional string of performances, including the one at C...

Told against the backdrop of the American landscape of the late '80s to the mid-'90s, Growing Up Dead is the story of Peter Conners's journey from straight-laced suburban kid to touring Deadhead. Peter discovered the Grateful Dead in 1985, at the age of 15, through friends who exchanged bootleg tapes of live Grateful Dead concerts. A teenager living in the suburbs of Rochester, New York, he became exposed to an entirely new way of life, and friends who were enjoying more freedom a...

The term "jam band" is used to categorize a type of music that favors improvisation and musicianship over concise riffs, hooks, and traditional songwriting structure. The term also helps define the fiercely dedicated fans of the music as accurately as it does the bands. Much as with the Grateful Dead -- the progenitors of the jam band scene -- the survival of the scene depends upon a symbiotic relationship with fans. Jam bands nurture a close relationship with their fans, fostered through ...

On May 8, 1977, at Barton Hall, on the Cornell University campus, in front of 8,500 eager fans, the Grateful Dead played a show so significant that the Library of Congress inducted it into the National Recording Registry. The band had just released Terrapin Station and was still finding its feet after an extended hiatus. In 1977, the Grateful Dead reached a musical peak, and their East Coast spring tour featured an exceptional string of performances, including the one at Cornell.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The iconic thriller series that inspired the upcoming streaming show on Prime Video, in development now!“A solid, poignant tale of violence against the innocent . . . cool, brisk and polished.”—The Washington Post“The combination of Alex Delaware [and] Detective Milo Sturgis . . . makes for the most original whodunit duo since Watson and Holmes.”—Forbes**In an upscale L.A. neighborhood, a backy...

A biography elucidating the Academy Award–nominee's meteoric rise, his tragic end, and his legacy.At the dawn of the 1990s, a new crew of leading men—Johnny Depp, Nicolas Cage, Keanu Reeves, and Brad Pitt—was rocketing toward stardom. River Phoenix, however, stood in front of the pack. But behind Phoenix's talent and beautiful public face was a young man who had been raised in a cult by nonconformist parents, who was burdened with supporting his family from a young ...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The iconic thriller series that inspired the upcoming streaming show on Prime Video, in development now!Psychologist Alex Delaware and detective Milo Sturgis unravel a shocking crime at a raucous wedding reception in this gripping psychological thriller from the bestselling master of suspense.“Jonathan Kellerman’s psychology skills and dark imagination are a potent literary mix.”—Los Angeles Times**LAPD...

The iconic thriller series that inspired the upcoming streaming show on Prime Video, in development now!**BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Jonathan Kellerman's Victims.The anonymous caller has an ominous tone and an unnerving message about something “real dead . . . buried in your marsh.” The eco-volunteer on the other end of the phone thinks it’s a prank, but when a young woman’s body turns up in L.A.’s Bird Marsh preserve no one’s la...

A New York Times bestseller, Music Is History combines multi-Grammy Award winner Questlove’s deep musical expertise with his curiosity about history, examining America over the past fifty years.Focusing on the years 1971 to the present, Questlove finds the hidden connections in the American tapestry, whether investigating how the blaxploitation era reshaped Black identity or considering the way disco took an assembly line approach...

**WINNER OF THE PEN/**JACQUELINE BOGRAD WELD AWARD FOR BIOGRAPHYNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER“This book is a must for everyone interested in illuminating the idea of unexplainable genius.” —QUESTLOVEEqual parts biography, musicology, and cultural history, Dilla Time chronicles the life and legacy of J Dilla, a musical genius who transformed the sound of popular music for the twenty-first century...