1.
Shy: The Alarmingly Outspoken Memoirs of Mary Rodgers, by Mary Rodgers and Jesse Green
This memoir by the late daughter of the composer Richard Rodgers (who, as Noël Coward put it, “positively peed melody”), and mother of the Tony-winning composer Adam Guettel, offers a window onto the life of a showbiz family—Mary Rodgers herself wrote the tunes for the 1959 hit musical Once upon a Mattress, among other shows, and then, in a career pivot, the 1972 children’s novel Freaky Friday, as well as its screen adaptation. Bill Cosby, Barbara Barrie, and Leonard Bernstein all make appearances in Shy, assembled by Jesse Green, chief theater critic for The New York Times, and reviewed by Joanne Kaufman here.
2.
Power Failure: The Rise and Fall of an American Icon, by William D. Cohan
This exhaustively researched and insightful history of General Electric from AIR MAIL Writer at Large William D. Cohan puts into enlightening context the company’s groundbreaking rise, its cult of financial leadership and success—once the envy of the world—and its unimaginable fall. You can read Cohan’s inside story on the making of Power Failure here.
