Paul V. Griffith

He had everything—talent, adoring fans, firearms, cash, cars, and mansions—but most importantly, he had women. Lots of women. In Baby, Let’s Play House, music journalist Alanna Nash uses Elvis’s Bacchanalian appetites as the starting point for an exhaustive look at his psychology. Though not always clinically successful, Nash’s portrayal of the King as a doomed sexual superboy is an enthralling, if guilty, pleasure. Alanna Nash will read from and sign copies of Baby, Let’s Play House at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Memphis in January 7 at 6 p.m.

In Elvis: My Best Man, George “GK” Klein details his long history with Elvis Presley, from their years together at North Memphis’s Hume High School through his acceptance, on behalf of Presley Enterprises, of Elvis’s 1986 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction. Though Klein’s account is not unbiased, it nonetheless provides fresh insight into one of the greatest careers in the history of show business. Klein will read from and sign copies of Elvis: My Best Man at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Memphis on January 13 at 6 p.m.

In the day, country music characters like Grandpa Jones, Mel Tillis, and George Jones left a wake of hilarious, poignant, and bawdy tales that Music Row insiders passed around like baseball cards. Of these, none were more often repeated than those involving self-proclaimed “King of Bluegrass” Jimmy Martin, a notorious loose canon. In 1998 music writer Tom Piazza followed Martin on a harrowing visit to the Grand Ole Opry, during which the inebriated singer came close to fisticuffs with at least two members of that venerable institution. Ten years after appearing in The Oxford American, the resulting article, “True Adventures with the King of Bluegrass,” is now available in paperback.

When Clay Travis got a book deal to cover the 2008 University of Tennessee football team, he had no idea he was about to witness the worst season in the program’s 110-year history. The hapless Volunteers won only one of six Southeastern Conference matchups during their twelve-game schedule, which also saw the firing of coaching legend Phil Fulmer. For Travis, a lifetime UT fan, the losses resonated far beyond the arches of Neyland Stadium, the Vols’ home. On Rocky Top channels Travis’s disappointment into a riveting analysis of what’s at stake in the increasingly mercenary world of college athletics.

In Memphis and the Paradox of Place, Wanda Rushing explores the cultural, geographic, and economic influences of a city that holds a unique place in Tennessee and the world. Rushing’s nuanced investigation has real-world implications for Memphis’s future — and for cities such as New Orleans, which seem in a perpetual state of limbo.