Kim Gordon's 'Girl in a Band'

If the name “Kim Gordon” means nothing to you, and the title of her memoir, Girl in a Band, doesn’t spark interest, then maybe it will be the cover that draws you in: a New York City subway car, Gordon’s slightly upturned chin, messy blonde hair, Taurus band shirt. She looks faintly down her nose at the camera and maybe you think, as her fans always have, that this woman is afraid of nothing.

“The music matters,” Gordon writes in the opening pages of her memoir, “but a lot comes down to how the girl looks. The girl anchors the stage, sucks in the male gaze, and, depending on who she is, throws her own gaze back out into the audience.”