2025: A musical year for the book trade
2025 struck a powerful chord in the book trade, delivering an exceptional lineup of music memoirs and biographies. From legendary performers and iconic bands to the people behind the scenes who shaped musical history, the year offered readers an intimate, behind-the-curtain look at fame, creativity, and legacy. Music lovers truly had never had it so good, writes Reeta Ramamurthy Gupta.
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2025 was definitely a year of celebrity memories and accounts from the world of music. Trust me when I say that music fans never had it so good in a single year. Setting the tone is Hitchcock and Herrmann published this October by Steven C. Smith, which talks about the fractured creative friendship between Alfred Hitchcock and musical composer Bernard Herrmann.
Bring out the coffee mug or mulled wine as you will, and settle down for our five Bookstrapping picks of 2025.
1. No two books on music are ever the same! The emotional Last Rites by the late Ozzy Osbourne, a "bitterly hilarious" reflection on his life and his heavy metal legacy, is a completely different book from Truly by Lionel Richie, chronicling his journey from Tuskegee, Alabama, to becoming a global icon.
2. Then there was Wings: The Story of a Band on the Run by Paul McCartney, a deep dive into the 1970s band Wings (not The Beatles) featuring personal memories and rare archival photos. The other Beatles connected books of 2025 were Emmy winner Tim Curry’s Vagabond and Yoko, A Biography by David Sheff, a comprehensive and sympathetic biography of Yoko Ono, detailing her life as an artist, activist, and partner to Beatle great John Lennon.
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3. Even mothers joined the music book offerings with Matriarch by Tina Knowles, the woman who birthed and moulded Beyoncé and Solange, from her childhood in Galveston to building a family empire. Given Beyonce’s popularity, this became a massive cultural favorite.
4. Then comes the wife’s tale with Softly, As I Leave You: Life After Elvis by Priscilla Presley, an intimate account of her decision to leave Graceland (Priscilla Presley transformed Elvis's home, Graceland, into a major tourist attraction and museum after his death) and her journey to find her own identity after Elvis. Add to this The Colonel and the King by Peter Guralnick, a deep exploration of the complex, groundbreaking partnership between Elvis Presley and his manager, Colonel Tom Parker and you have a double treat for biography lovers and massive "Elvis" fanbase worldwide.
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5. The last part of Dolly Parton's trilogy, Star of the Show, My Life on Stage by Dolly Parton released in 2025, in the wake of Songteller (lyrics) and Behind the Seams (fashion). This is something of a photography-memoir hybrid, focusing specifically on her 70 years of legendary live performances.
This compilation cannot be complete without John Williams: A Composer’s Life by Tim Greiving, a biography of the man who scored the soundtrack for iconic films like Star Wars and Jaws. And while on the subject of rockstars, the last line has to belong to The Uncool by Cameron Crowe, an intimate memoir from the Oscar-winning filmmaker and former Rolling Stone journalist about his legendary life in rock and cinema.
“I spent the last decade or so re-interviewing those early subjects like (David) Bowie and Fleetwood Mac, Joni Mitchell and Led Zeppelin,” Crowe told The Associated Press. “The act of looking back on their younger selves brought out the same in me. The book split into two, the first one being a personal memoir. The second one will come out next year, with a lot of new interview material.”
What a musical year for the book trade!
