Also of interest ... in celebrities as authors

Influence

by Mary-Kate Olsen and Ashley Olsen (Razorbill, $35)

Yes, there is such a thing as “a coffee-table book that’s more than worth a read,” said Amy Odell in NYMag.com. Budding fashion moguls Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen have managed it. The text of their first published work consists solely of interviews with famous designers, photographers, artists, and tastemakers. The former child stars clearly hope to sidestep the spotlight by using this tactic, and it works. “We’re talking long, involved, revealing interviews that are, you know, entertaining.”

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The Way I Am

by Eminem (Dutton, $40)

Eminem tells his life story better on record than on paper, said Martin Caballero in the Boston Herald. The rapper’s “impressive” new scrapbook volume includes lengthy, first-person accounts of certain critical junctures in a career that recently has been stalled by a self-imposed four-year hiatus. But “the most captivating” elements of the book are its reproductions of his lyrics sheets. “Exploding with ideas,” these pages deliver “the most direct insight into Eminem’s creative process yet seen.”

Don’t Mind If I Do

by George Hamilton and William Stadiem (Touchstone, $26)

In a fall season crowded with memoirs from ex-Hollywood pretty boys, said Janet Maslin in The New York Times, George Hamilton’s is “the one with the most flair.” The son of a bandleader and a “gold-digging Southern glamour girl,” Hamilton learned early how to milk the glamorous life to the max. He doesn’t spill secrets on every starlet or princess he’s squired, but he and his co-author have “an ear for dishy anecdotes” and an aptitude for self-deprecating humor.

Pieces of My Heart

by Robert J. Wagner with Scott Eyman (HarperEntertainment, $26)

Robert Wagner’s look back provides “by far” the richer immersion in Old Hollywood, said Cathleen McGuigan in Newsweek. Raised by a relatively well-off L.A. family, Wagner was “a star before he was an actor,” and played the game like a gentleman. In Pieces, he’s candid about his event-filled life and “always astute” in sketching profiles of the older stars he befriended or delineating how exactly the old studio system worked.