Girls Like Us

Joni Mitchell, Carole King, and Carly Simon remain among the most enduring and important women in popular music. Each woman is distinct: King is the product of outer-borough, middle-class New York City; Mitchell is a granddaughter of Canadian farmers; and Simon is a child of the Manhattan intellectual upper crust. They collectively represent, in their lives and their songs, a great swath of American girls who came of age in the late 1960s. Their stories trace the arc of the now-mythic generation known as "the sixties" - the female version - but in a bracingly specific and deeply recalled way, far from cliché. The history of the women of that generation had never been written - until now - and it is told through the resonant lives and emblematic songs of Mitchell, Simon, and King.

Filled with the voices of many dozens of these women's intimates, this alternating biography reads like a novel - except it's all true, and the heroines are famous and beloved. Sheila Weller captures the character of each woman and gives a balanced portrayal enriched by a wealth of new information.