East End Books Ptown Presents: James Gavin "George Michael: A Life" Book Event - Monday July 25th at 6pm. James will be in conversatuin with Roger Walker-Dack (Editor in Chief queerguru.com). Help us welcome James Gavin & Roger Walker-Dack to East End Books Ptown for a waterfront & virtual book event. *Plus, special performance by Todd Alsup "Freedom" - The George Michael Experience. See the full show at the Crown & Anchor! FREEDOM: THE GEORGE MICHAEL EXPERIENCE WITH TODD ALSUP via Thunde (thundertix.com)

Signed copies will be available for those who attend in person and virtually. We recommend you buy the book in advance. Your book purchases & ticket donations help us continue to hold these exciting book events. Thanks so much!

This is an in-person waterfront & virtual book event. Registration with Eventbrite is required. Register Here:

Zoom Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85487361744      Meeting ID: 854 8736 1744

*The Zoom link can be used by all who register with eventbrite. Click on the Eventbrite link a few minutes before the event begins. You'll be in a virtual waiting room. We'll let you into the event at the start time.

Listen to a George Michael Playlist: Spotify – GEORGE MICHAEL: GREATEST HITS

George Michael was an extravagantly gifted, openhearted soul singer whose work was both pained and smolderingly erotic. He was a songwriter of true craft and substance, and his music swept the world, starting in the mid-1980s. His fabricated image—that of a hypermacho sex god—loomed large in the pop culture of his day. It also hid—for a time—the secret he fought against revealing: Michael was gay. Soon his obsession with fame would start to backfire. As one of the industry’s most privileged yet tortured men began to self-destruct, the press showed little sympathy. George Michael: A Life (Abrams Press; June 28, 2022; $32.50; Hardcover) explores the compelling story of a superstar whose struggles, as well as his songs, continue to touch fans all over the world. Acclaimed music biographer James Gavin traces Michael’s metamorphosis from the shy and awkward Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou into the swaggering, dominant half of the leading British pop duo of the 1980s Wham!; he then details Michael’s sensational solo career and its subsequent unraveling. With deep analysis of the creative process behind Michael’s albums, tours, and music videos, as well as interviews with hundreds of his friends and colleagues, George Michael: A Life is a probing, definitive portrait of a pop legend. 

James Gavin is a writer and music biographer whose work has appeared in the New York Times, Time Out New York, and Vanity Fair. He is the author of Deep in a Dream: The Long Night of Chet Baker, Is That All There Is?: The Strange Life of Peggy Lee, and Stormy Weather: The Life of Lena Horne. He lives in New York City. 

The definitive biography of George Michael, offering an expansive look at the troubled life of the legendary singer, songwriter, and pop superstar “James Gavin has delivered a stunning, empathic, and peerlessly knowledgeable biography of George Michael. Gavin’s attention to his subject’s artistry, his honest treatment of Michael’s struggles, his sharp-eyed understanding of the last days of record-company dominance, and his comprehension of the shifting tides of gay acceptance in our culture are sublime. The author of biographies of Chet Baker, Lena Horne, and Peggy Lee has, with this book, firmed up his place as one of our very best writers about music and life.” —Sheila Weller, author of Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon—and the Journey of a Generation

PRAISE FOR JAMES GAVIN “A landmark in entertainment biography.” —Hollywood Reporter, for Deep in a Dream: The Long Night of Chet Baker “Magnificent, gripping, marvelously written . . . [It] may just be one of the best biographies about show business, race, love, sex, and music ever written.” ―Liz Smith, for Stormy Weather: The Life of Lena Horne “Wild and wistful . . . a remarkably informed, insightful, definitive look at Manhattan nightlife.” —San Francisco Chronicle, for Intimate Nights: The Golden Age of New York Cabaret “Gavin’s book is fascinating, suspenseful, careful, musically detailed, and insightful.” ―New York Times Book Review, for Is That All There Is?: The Strange Life of Peggy Lee