100 books like Fare Thee Well

By Joel Selvin, Pamela Turley,

Here are 100 books that Fare Thee Well fans have personally recommended if you like Fare Thee Well. Shepherd is a community of 10,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Garcia: An American Life

Stuart Coupe Author Of Roadies: The Secret History of Australian Rock'n'roll

From my list on The Grateful Dead (from a music journalist).

Why am I passionate about this?

Stuart Coupe is an Australian music journalist, author, band manager, promoter, publicist, and music label founder. He's best known for his work as a rock writer with Roadrunner, RAM (Rock Australia Magazine), The Sun Herald, and Dolly magazine; the music labels, GREEN Records and Laughing Outlaw; and the author of books including The Promoters, Gudinski, Paul Kelly and Roadies. Coupe is a former manager of the Australian bands the Hoodoo Gurus and Paul Kelly and is currently a presenter on Sydney radio stations 2SER and FBi Radio. He's also known for his writing as a reviewer of crime fiction for the Sydney Morning Herald and for founding the Australian crime fiction magazine, Mean Streets.

Stuart's book list on The Grateful Dead (from a music journalist)

Stuart Coupe Why did Stuart love this book?

This is a big, sprawling biography of the heart and soul of The Grateful Dead - guitarist, songwriter, and troubled musical genius Jerry Garcia. Jackson did his research, interviewing over a hundred people including Garcia, his friends, lovers, and bandmates. Plus he went through thousands of source material documents and probably listened to thousands of concert tapes and recordings. He knows the Dead. He loves the Dead. And he captures the essence of Garcia superbly. It’s been called a definitive portrait and it is.

By Blair Jackson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Garcia as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Examines the life and times of Jerry Garcia, capturing the psychedelic world of the musician and songwriter, his relationship with members of the Grateful Dead, his battle with drug addiction, and his lasting influence on popular music.


Book cover of Living with the Dead: Twenty Years on the Bus with Garcia and the Grateful Dead

Stuart Coupe Author Of Roadies: The Secret History of Australian Rock'n'roll

From my list on The Grateful Dead (from a music journalist).

Why am I passionate about this?

Stuart Coupe is an Australian music journalist, author, band manager, promoter, publicist, and music label founder. He's best known for his work as a rock writer with Roadrunner, RAM (Rock Australia Magazine), The Sun Herald, and Dolly magazine; the music labels, GREEN Records and Laughing Outlaw; and the author of books including The Promoters, Gudinski, Paul Kelly and Roadies. Coupe is a former manager of the Australian bands the Hoodoo Gurus and Paul Kelly and is currently a presenter on Sydney radio stations 2SER and FBi Radio. He's also known for his writing as a reviewer of crime fiction for the Sydney Morning Herald and for founding the Australian crime fiction magazine, Mean Streets.

Stuart's book list on The Grateful Dead (from a music journalist)

Stuart Coupe Why did Stuart love this book?

As good a history of the Dead as you’re likely to find. Scully spent nearly two decades as close to the band as you could get without actually being a member. Great stories and anecdotes and a wonderfully drawn and evocative history of the band from their very early acid-drenched days in the 1960s through to their evolution as one of the most important and loved bands in American music history.

By Rock Scully, David Dalton,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Living with the Dead as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

As a manager for the Grateful Dead, Rock Scully was with the band from its early days in San Francisco to the years it spent touring the globe as one of the most enduring legends in music history. In Living with the Dead , Scully gives a complete account of his outrageous experiences with the band, during years that saw the Grateful Dead transform from a folksy revivalist band to psychedelic explorers of outer space. In addition to close-up portraits of band members Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Pigpen, Phil Lesh, Micky Hart and Bill Kreutzmann, Scully brings into the story…


Book cover of Home Before Daylight: My Life on the Road with the Grateful Dead

Stuart Coupe Author Of Roadies: The Secret History of Australian Rock'n'roll

From my list on The Grateful Dead (from a music journalist).

Why am I passionate about this?

Stuart Coupe is an Australian music journalist, author, band manager, promoter, publicist, and music label founder. He's best known for his work as a rock writer with Roadrunner, RAM (Rock Australia Magazine), The Sun Herald, and Dolly magazine; the music labels, GREEN Records and Laughing Outlaw; and the author of books including The Promoters, Gudinski, Paul Kelly and Roadies. Coupe is a former manager of the Australian bands the Hoodoo Gurus and Paul Kelly and is currently a presenter on Sydney radio stations 2SER and FBi Radio. He's also known for his writing as a reviewer of crime fiction for the Sydney Morning Herald and for founding the Australian crime fiction magazine, Mean Streets.

Stuart's book list on The Grateful Dead (from a music journalist)

Stuart Coupe Why did Stuart love this book?

Researching a book on the lives and work of road crew was a fascinating, eye-opening, and thoroughly enjoyable, and enlightening experience. It also made me realise how few of those people have told their own stories. In fact, not nearly enough of them start writing road crew folk! But this book was a delightful revelation – a road crew guy, with a great way with words and insights – and telling us about his experiences with one of my favourite rock’n’roll bands of all time. What’s not to like. This may not be the easiest book to find – but like a Grateful Dead show, the reward is often the journey and what you find at the end.

By Steve Parish, Joe Layden,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Home Before Daylight as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This is a look at one of America's legendary rock bands: The Grateful Dead. It is the tale of a man who lived the dream, rising from roadie to manager. It tells a story of music, friendship and redemption, and is filled with stories of memorable shows and the sometimes insane life on the road.


Book cover of Deal: My Three Decades of Drumming, Dreams, and Drugs with the Grateful Dead

Stuart Coupe Author Of Roadies: The Secret History of Australian Rock'n'roll

From my list on The Grateful Dead (from a music journalist).

Why am I passionate about this?

Stuart Coupe is an Australian music journalist, author, band manager, promoter, publicist, and music label founder. He's best known for his work as a rock writer with Roadrunner, RAM (Rock Australia Magazine), The Sun Herald, and Dolly magazine; the music labels, GREEN Records and Laughing Outlaw; and the author of books including The Promoters, Gudinski, Paul Kelly and Roadies. Coupe is a former manager of the Australian bands the Hoodoo Gurus and Paul Kelly and is currently a presenter on Sydney radio stations 2SER and FBi Radio. He's also known for his writing as a reviewer of crime fiction for the Sydney Morning Herald and for founding the Australian crime fiction magazine, Mean Streets.

Stuart's book list on The Grateful Dead (from a music journalist)

Stuart Coupe Why did Stuart love this book?

The subtitle tells you all you really need to know. Kreutzmann was a founding member of the Grateful Dead and there for the whole long, strange trip and – to date – the only band member to pen an insider’s account of exactly what it’s like to be a member of The Grateful Dead. He tells a good story and if the Grateful Dead loom as large in your life as they do mine – well, just image a memoir written by Ringo Starr or Charlie Watts. Drummers sit there doing their stuff – and they see everything.

By Bill Kreutzmann, Benjy Eisen,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Deal as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Grateful Dead are perhaps the most legendary American rock band of all time. For thirty years, beginning in the hippie scene of San Francisco in 1965, they were a musical institution, the original jam band that broke new ground in so many ways. Bill Kreutzmann, one of their founding members and drummer for every one of their over 2,300 concerts, has written an unflinching and wild account of playing in the greatest improvisational band of all time. Everything a rock music fan would expect is here, but what sets this apart is Bill's incredible life of adventure that was…


Book cover of Dark Star: An Oral Biography of Jerry Garcia

Alan Paul Author Of Brothers and Sisters: The Allman Brothers Band and the Inside Story of the Album That Defined the '70s

From my list on books that changed the way I think and write about music.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a journalist, author, guitarist, singer, and songwriter who has spent my career spreading the gospel of the music I love, notably the Allman Brothers Band and the blues masters. I’ve been a Guitar World writer and editor since 1991, profiled countless musicians for The Wall Street Journal, and lived in Beijing for four years, forming a blues band with three Chinese musicians that toured the country, recorded an album, and won awards. That experience has informed everything I’ve done since, including forming Friends of the Brothers, the premier celebration of the music of the Allman Brothers Band. 

Alan's book list on books that changed the way I think and write about music

Alan Paul Why did Alan love this book?

I think that this book unveils Jerry Garcia’s essential, elusive personality better than anything I’ve read, even given the excellent work of David Browne, Blair Jackson, Dennis McNally, and other terrific Grateful Dead biographers.

I learned a lot about how seemingly secondary characters are often particularly honest and illuminating. Robert Greenfield also collaborated with promoter Bill Graham on Bill Graham Presents, the excellent autobiography in oral history format. 

By Robert Greenfield,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Dark Star as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

For more than thirty years, Jerry Garcia was the musical and spiritual center of the Grateful Dead, one of the most popular rock bands of all time. In Dark Star, the first biography of Garcia published after his death, Garcia is remembered by those who knew him best. Together the voices in this oral biography explore his remarkable life: his childhood in San Francisco; the formation of his musical identity; the Dead's road to rock stardom; and his final, crushing addiction to heroin. Interviews with Jerry's former wives, lovers, family members, close friends, musical partners, and cultural cohorts create a…


Book cover of No Simple Highway: A Cultural History of the Grateful Dead

Bob Beatty Author Of Play All Night! Duane Allman and the Journey to Fillmore East

From my list on the crossroads of music, culture, history, and place.

Why am I passionate about this?

An academically trained historian, I'm a Music Obsessive/History Geek/Southerner/Guitarist/Public Historian/Teacher/Interpreter/Writer/Fan who studies the intersection of music, culture, history, and place. I grew up devouring Mom’s Beatles and Dad’s country records. My life changed in 6th grade when I got my first guitar and discovered the blues. In 7th grade I wrote a research paper on the hippies. That’s when I fell in love with the counterculture. Throughout my life I’ve interwoven my love of the blues, punk rock, the Allman Brothers Band, and the Jam Depression collective as a historian, fan, and musician. My enduring passion culminated in a Ph.D. and the publication of Play All Night! Duane Allman and the Journey to Fillmore East. 

Bob's book list on the crossroads of music, culture, history, and place

Bob Beatty Why did Bob love this book?

Since their 1965 founding, the Grateful Dead have been one of the counterculture’s most enduring institutions.

No Simple Highway answers why, placing the band in the context of its times through three utopian ideals central to the band and its fans: Ecstasy (not just drugs, but an “urge to transcend”), Mobility, and Community. The band, Richardson argues, is “the American experiment in action.”

You’ll learn how the band wove multiple strands of American music with literature, folklore, the counterculture, and the visual arts into a truly unique musical tapestry whose express purpose was as part of a live music experience.

This music-as-participation dynamic meant the audience was as important to the Dead as the music they played. This book had a major impact on how I approached the band/audience story for my own Allman Brothers research. 

Crossroads: Postwar America, youth counterculture, audience, San Francisco

By Peter Richardson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked No Simple Highway as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

For almost three decades, the Grateful Dead was America's most popular touring band. No Simple Highway is the first book to ask the simple question of why―and attempt to answer it. Drawing on new research, interviews, and a fresh supply of material from the Grateful Dead archives, author Peter Richardson vividly recounts the Dead's colorful history, adding new insight into everything from the Acid Tests to the band's formation of their own record label to their massive late career success, while probing the riddle of the Dead's vast and durable appeal.

Arguing that the band successfully tapped three powerful utopian…


Book cover of Any Old Way You Choose It

Ljubinko Zivkovic

From my list on music in the late sixties and seventies.

Why am I passionate about this?

Popular music in all its shapes and forms has permeated my life since my pre-teen years and has remained both an intimate and professional preoccupation of mine throughout my life, even when I was doing other things professionally. Books dealing with all aspects of music, from artist biographies to its cultural and social examinations have been and remain that essential element that both fuel and satisfy that interest and give it that expanded feature it needs. As somebody who has a degree in journalism and had careers as a journalist, diplomat, and a translator, and now as a freelance writer, music and books on music remain that thread that connects them all.

Ljubinko's book list on music in the late sixties and seventies

Ljubinko Zivkovic Why did Ljubinko love this book?

In many ways, this book by one of the rock critic veterans covers almost exactly the period in modern music history that relates to my perspective book. It is a collection of his early writings, partly at the time when he was the music editor at Village Voice. Personally, Christgau is one rock critic that perfected the art of album/single reviews.

By Robert Christgau,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Any Old Way You Choose It as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

An invaluable compendium showcasing a new sub-genre of writing not yet contained by the established boundaries of journalism or criticism.


Book cover of Sweat: The Story of the Fleshtones, America’s Garage Band

Thomas Kitts Author Of Ray Davies: Not Like Everybody Else

From my list on rock music and rock bands.

Why am I passionate about this?

Over the years, as a Professor of English at St. John's University, NY, I have shifted my research from American literature to popular culture, specifically rock music, a passion first ignited when I watched the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show, and re-ignited time and time again over the years. I have written articles, reviews, interviews, and a few books and I edit Popular Music and Society and Rock Music Studies.

Thomas' book list on rock music and rock bands

Thomas Kitts Why did Thomas love this book?

Not many books are written about bands that labor in the trenches for over thirty years with little success. The Fleshtones formed in New York City in the mid 1970s, one of many new wave/punk bands seeking to fulfill their rock-‘n’-roll dream. Today, they are still looking to achieve that dream. Since 1982, they have released over 20 albums, none achieving commercial success. With just the right combination of humor and seriousness (like The Fleshtones themselves), Sweat documents the band’s bad luck, bad management, bad record contracts, bad decisions, and self-destructive behaviors. Always on the brink of breaking through, “The Fleshtones,” as lead-signer Peter Zaremba put it, “have stared in the face of success and laughed.”

By Joe Bonomo,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Sweat as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

It's June 2001. Keith Streng steers a cramped mini-van north along Lincoln Avenue in Chicago while Peter Zaremba, Bill Milhizer and Ken Fox sprawl in the back nursing hangovers and road weariness. They pull into the Apache, quaintly described as a "hooker hotel" by local folk, and drag their gear and merchandise into a decrepit room. Blood is splattered on the ceiling, roaches scurry on the walls and grainy porn blares on the television. Next door, two obese half-naked guys sit on a bed with an enormous bottle of cheap bourbon between them, staring idly at the TV.The Fleshtones are…


Book cover of Fillmore East: The Venue That Changed Rock Music Forever

Seth Mallios Author Of Let it Rock! Live From San Diego State

From my list on die-hard rockers.

Why am I passionate about this?

While it is tempting to insist that the reason we wrote a five-volume set on the history of local rock ‘n’ roll was as context for rescuing the famed 1976 “Backdoor Mural,” it’s not entirely true. Jaime and I love live music, mark major life events with important musical milestones, and delight in bizarre musical tangents. Music moves us, history matters, and the intersection of song and society is profound, elucidating, and eternally relevant.

Seth's book list on die-hard rockers

Seth Mallios Why did Seth love this book?

Frank Mastropolo gives ample justification for why Fillmore East was hailed as The Church of Rock ’n’ Roll in his book, Fillmore East: The Venue That Changed Rock Music Forever. The text brims with photographs, memorabilia, and first-hand accounts of the most legendary shows to occur at the legendary East Village (NYC) locale.

By Frank Mastropolo,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Fillmore East as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

ONE OF THE BEST MUSIC BOOKS OF THE YEAR! – BEST CLASSIC BANDS

"Fillmore East is the simply the best book on rock and R&B of 2021... a must-read for any fan of the music of the ’60s, ’70s and beyond." — Reel Urban News

"With interviewees including Taj Mahal, John Mayall, Dave Davies, Mark Farner, Roger McGuinn and many more, the story takes in a magical place at a magical time. There are heavy bills and many choice recollections." – MOJO magazine

"Mastropolo’s book will provide a boatload of memories for those lucky enough to have been there and…


Book cover of The Happy Ever After Playlist

DK Marie Author Of Taste of Passion

From my list on summer romance beach reads.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a romance writer. I've written four contemporary romances with heat, heart, and humor and have a new series coming out in early 2023. I'm also an avid reader of romanceall genres from rom-com to historical to paranormal. I've been reading them since college and have devoured thousands of romance stories since my loved bloomed for them. I'm a firm believer I need to read stories to be able to write them—or maybe it's just an excuse to read more fantastic books and claim it's part of my writing process. Lol. Either way, it has allowed me to recommend romance stories to you with pleasure and ease.

DK's book list on summer romance beach reads

DK Marie Why did DK love this book?

This is such a great book! I loved it even more than the author's first (which was also very good). Though be warned you might get some side eyes if you read this one on the actual beach as it will have you laughing out loud one minute and swallowing back tears the next. I adore it when books are able to give me a wide range of emotions. This one might be a little heavier than the other books on my list, but the author does a fantastic job balancing humor and heartbreak. I recommend this book to those who love romance mixed with laughter and lots of heart.

By Abby Jimenez,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Happy Ever After Playlist as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From the New York Times bestselling author of Part of Your World comes a romantic comedy full of "fierce humor and fiercer heart" about how one adorable puppy brings together two perfect strangers (Casey McQuiston, NYT bestselling author of Red, White & Royal Blue).

Artist Sloan Monroe just can't seem to get her life on track. But one trouble-making pup who randomly jumps into her car with a "take me home" look in his eyes is about to change everything. With Tucker by her side, Sloan finally starts to feel more like herself. Then, after weeks of unanswered texts, Tucker's…


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