Kansas City Women's Music Network: Book List

She Come by it Natural: Dolly Parton and the Women Who Lived Her Songs by Sarah Smarsh 

Growing up amid Kansas wheat fields and airplane factories, Sarah Smarsh witnessed firsthand the particular vulnerabilities—and strengths—of women in working poverty. Meanwhile, country songs by female artists played in the background, telling powerful stories about life, men, hard times, and surviving. In her family, she writes, “country music was foremost a language among women. It’s how we talked to each other in a place where feelings aren’t discussed.” And no one provided that language better than Dolly Parton.

Infused with Smarsh’s trademark insight, intelligence, and humanity, She Come By It Natural is a sympathetic tribute to the icon Dolly Parton and—call it whatever you like—the organic feminism she embodies.

Free e-Book from the Johnson County and Olathe Library

Free Audiobook from the Johnson County and Olathe Library

Preview on Google Books

The Baroness by Hannah Rothschild 

Beautiful and spirited, Pannonica Rothschild, known as Nica, was born in 1913 to eccentric privilege and a storied family history. After marrying well, she settled into a French chateau to bear children and support her husband's war career. But when Nica heard “Round Midnight” by jazz composer Thelonious Monk, everything changed. She abandoned her marriage, found Monk in New York, and devoted herself to him and to other musicians, becoming the unsung philanthropist of the city's Jazz scene.

Hannah Rothschild has given twenty years to the quest of revealing who her great-aunt really was. Drawing on unpublished archival material, private family records and her own interviews, she has produced a fascinating portrait—part musical odyssey, part love story—that showcases a woman ahead of her time who dared to live as she wanted.

Free e-Book from the Johnson County and Olathe Library

Preview on Google Books

LIVING LIKE A RUNAWAY BY LITA FORD

“Heavy metal’s leading female rocker” (Rolling Stone) bares all, opening up about the Runaways, the glory days of the punk and hard-rock scenes, and the highs and lows of her trailblazing career.

Wielding her signature black guitar, Lita Ford shredded the stereotypes of female musicians throughout the 1970s and ’80s. Then followed more than a decade of silence and darkness—until rock and roll repaid the debt it owed this pioneer, helped Lita reclaim her soul, and restored the Queen of Metal to her throne.

Free e-Book from the Johnson County and Olathe Library

Preview on Google Books

BECOMING BEYONCÉ BY J. RANDY TARABORRELLI

Traces the early life and achievements that led to pop icon Beyonce's meteoric group and solo career, sharing insights into the personal toll of her successes.

The first comprehensive biography ever published about America's favorite living pop icon, Beyonce, from New York Times bestselling biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli.

Free e-Book from the Johnson County and Olathe Library

Free Audiobook from the Johnson County and Olathe Library

Preview on Google Books

HUNGER MAKES ME A MODERN GIRL BY CARRIE BROWNSTEIN 

From the guitarist of the pioneering band Sleater-Kinney, the book Kim Gordon says "everyone has been waiting for" and a New York Times Notable Book of 2015-- a candid, funny, and deeply personal look at making a life--and finding yourself--in music.

Before Carrie Brownstein became a music icon, she was a young girl growing up in the Pacific Northwest just as it was becoming the setting for one the most important movements in rock history. Seeking a sense of home and identity, she would discover both while moving from spectator to creator in experiencing the power and mystery of a live performance. With Sleater-Kinney, Brownstein and her bandmates rose to prominence in the burgeoning underground feminist punk-rock movement that would define music and pop culture in the 1990s.

Free e-Book from the Johnson County and Olathe Library

Free Audiobook from the Johnson County and Olathe Library

Preview on Google Books

Just Kids by Patti Smith 

Traces the early life and achievements that led to pop icon Beyonce's meteoric group and solo career, sharing insights into the personal toll of her successes.

The first comprehensive biography ever published about America's favorite living pop icon, Beyonce, from New York Times bestselling biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli.

Free e-Book from the Johnson County and Olathe Library

Free Audiobook from the Johnson County and Olathe Library

Preview on Google Books