The Gospel According to Coco Chanel
by Karen Karbo
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Shooting Stars
by LeBron James and Buzz Bissinger
(Penguin, $27)
LeBron James’ new book about his high school teammates “reads like a better-than-average young adult novel,” said Dwight Garner in The New York Times. There’s plenty of charm in its story about four close friends who pull one another through boyhood challenges and then carry their Akron high school team to a national championship. But it’s a “measured, modest book,” not nearly as memorable as co-author Buzz Bissinger’s classic football tale, Friday Night Lights.
Official Book Club Selection
by Kathy Griffin
(Ballantine, $25)
This new memoir by comedian Kathy Griffin doesn’t skimp on the blunt-spoken “celebrity dish” upon which she’s built her career, said Teresa Budasi in the Chicago Sun-Times. But Griffin also strikes “a delicate balance between the personal and the professional.” As satisfying as it is to learn that Britney Spears in real life is “as dumb as a stick,” Griffin is just as merciless when discussing her own divorce or her near-fatal liposuction.
The 50th Law
by 50 Cent and Robert Greene
(HarperStudio, $20)
“As celebrity self-help books go,” this new effort from rapper 50 Cent is “surprisingly readable,” said Oliver Burkeman in the London Guardian. Co-author Robert Greene, whose Machiavellian The 48 Laws of Power became a cult hit in hip-hop circles, doesn’t try to write in the ex–drug dealer’s voice. But as he extols fearlessness as the secret to 50’s success, what fascinates is the cynicism of this book’s advice. The lesson? Don’t worry about being authentic: Tend to your public image.