With American Crucifixion, Alex Beam chronicles the history of the Mormon Church through its inception in the mid-1800s to the death of its founding prophet Joseph Smith.

Robert Greenfield’s latest book on The Rolling Stones covers his time with the band during its 10-day European tour prior to leaving England for the south of France, as well as during time at Nellcôte and in Los Angeles and Jamaica while the band wrapped up work on Exile.

In this punctiliously annotated history, Lawrence Goldstone documents the origins of flight from the first man who deigned to strap wings to his arms to try to fly like a bird.

In Experiencing Nirvana, SubPop Records co-founder Bruce Pavitt documents the 1989 Mudhoney and Tad/Nirvana tours through Europe in 1989.

This collection of autobiographical essays from Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen—who might otherwise have become a journalist, or an English teacher, as he explains here—primarily focuses on early influences that found him in Cold War-era suburban New Jersey during his youth, up through his early adulthood and too-square-to-be-a-hippie years.

Intertwined throughout is a recollection of life as The Kinks’ singer/songwriter, in which he depicts a band always in transition (artistic and otherwise) while pulling back the curtain on their uneasy group dynamic.

Wild Tales might be pitched as a tale of rock excess, but it is more about one man’s unrelenting love of music and how it transformed his life.

Linda Ronstadt recently disclosed that she has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and can no longer sing. Simple Dreams finds her taking a look back at her 40-plus year career.

One would think that a 550-page book documenting just three years in any band’s career would be insufferably tedious and mind-numbingly detailed. But this is KISS we’re talking about.