Fall Book Preview 2015: Hot Rock Reads, From Patti to Petty

John Fogerty, Chrissie Hynde and Carrie Brownstein also set to release memoirs

Andy Greene

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John Fogerty, Carrie Brownstein and Chrissie Hynde

The season for beach reads may be on the way out, but fortunately this Autumn promises plenty of good books to curl up with it inside — especially if you're a fan of rock & roll. Four veterans have written their memoirs, and Tom Petty has opened up to musician-turned-author Warren Zanes in a revealing biography. Get a sneak peek below.

Mandatory Credit: Photo by Brian Rasic/REX Shutterstock (2394869t) Chrissie Hynde Chrissie Hynde in concert, iTunes Festival, Roundhouse, London, Britain - 16 Sep 2014

Scott Legato/WireImage/Getty

Release Date: September 8th

Overview: Hynde chronicles her entire life, from growing up in Ohio to hanging out on the 1970s British punk scene to the wild first few years of the Pretenders.

Motivation: "I'm approaching writing this memoir . . . as I would an album," she said. "I hope it makes you root through your closet and dust off your guitar."

Revelation: Hynde spent so much time with the Sex Pistols that she wasn't surprised when Sid Vicious was arrested for Nancy Spungen's murder. "We were only surprised that he'd stuck it out as long as he had. . . ." she writes. "Who could forget [Nancy's] shriek, a sound not unlike that of an untrained cockatoo. 'Sid — SID! WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO MAKE ME MY FAMOUS CREAM-CHEESE BAGEL? SIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIID!' "

Anthony Cruz

Release Date: October 27th

Overview: The guitarist and Portlandia star remembers her days with pioneering punk band Sleater-Kinney, wrapping up when the group went on hiatus in 2006.

Motivation: "I wanted to have an agency of how I show myself to people, and writing a book is a much easier way of sharing rather than being misconstrued."

Revelation: Brownstein blames herself for Sleater-Kinney's implosion: On the 2006 tour that ended the band for eight years, she suffered from shingles and says she became so consumed by anxiety that she began punching herself in the face. "I saw the enemy and it was me," she writes. "I saw the enemy and it was me; I wanted to destroy it. Pow! I couldn't stop. Thud! You fucking fraud. I was in the ring with only myself."

NEW ORLEANS, LA - MAY 04: John Fogerty performs during the 2014 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival at Fair Grounds Race Course on May 4, 2014 in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Photo by Scott Legato/WireImage)

Scott Legato/WireImage/Getty

Release Date: October 6th

Overview: The full story of Fogerty's life and career, from the rise of Creedence Clearwater Revival to their highly acrimonious breakup in the early 1970s.

Motivation: "I'm just being brutally honest," Fogerty has said. "I'm not trying to shock or surprise anybody. It's just the only way I've been able to exist."

Revelation: When Fogerty's Creedence bandmates demanded to help write songs in the early Seventies, it was the beginning of the end for the group. "The worst thing that ever happened to my band was the Beatles," Fogerty writes, "because the guys in my band thought they could be the Beatles. . . . These guys had no clue about what was necessary. A vision. That's just the truth."

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BARCELONA, SPAIN - MAY 29: Patti Smith performs "Horses" on stage during the third day of Primavera Sound 2015 on May 29, 2015 in Barcelona, Spain. (Photo by Xavi Torrent/WireImage)

Xavi Torrent/WireImage/Getty

Release Date: October 6th

Overview: While Just Kids focused on one era of her life, this book jumps around in time from the death of her husband, Fred "Sonic" Smith, to a meeting of an Arctic explorer's society in Berlin.

Motivation: "I wanted to write whatever I felt like, things from literature to coffee to memories of Fred in Michigan. . . . I hopped on a train and kept going."

Revelation: Shortly before Bobby Fischer died, Smith ran into the chess master in Iceland. "He began testing me immediately by issuing a string of obscene and racially repellent references that morphed into paranoiac conspiracy rants," she writes. " 'Look, you're wasting your time,' I said. 'I can be just as repellent as you, only about different subjects.' " The pair ended up singing Buddy Holly songs for hours.

21 Sep 2014, West Palm Beach, Florida, USA --- Tom Petty of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers perform at the Cruzan Amphitheatre on September 20, 2014. Pictured: Tom Petty --- Image by © Splash News/Splash News/Corbis

Splash News/Corbis

Eight years after teaming up with director Peter Bogdanovich for the documentary Runnin' Down a Dream, Tom Petty is delving even deeper into his past by cooperating with his longtime friend and Del Fuegos guitarist Warren Zanes on Petty: The Biography (due November 10th). Zanes even got estranged former Heartbreakers drummer Stan Lynch to break his long silence and dish on their bitter split. "Petty's story is a band story," says Zanes. "That meant I didn't just need his participation, I needed that band to open up to me. And I needed Stan Lynch to be among them."