Elvis Day by Day: The Definitive Record of His Life and Music

On the heels of Peter Guralnick's acclaimed two-volume study of the rise and fall of Elvis Presley (Last Train to Memphis and Careless Love) comes a book that chronicles the same epic tale in a manner that's far less weighty than the preceding tomes, but almost as telling. For this quick-hit chronology of the Elvis story, Guralnick and his collaborator, archivist/record producer Ernst Jorgensen, were given access to 35 tons of Presley flotsam that included everything from his first income tax return to a mother lode of unpublished candids. Freed from a narrative structure, the authors chronicle the cultural icon through snippets that capture the mundane (Elvis gets his first Tupelo Public Library card, February 13, 1948) and remarkable (Elvis enlists in the battle against drugs when meeting President Nixon in the White House, December 21, 1970). Little by little, the fragments fit together to form the picture of a man hurtling toward the precipice (March 24, 1977: "Elvis's stage wardrobe is limited to two jumpsuits that he can fit into"). In this sense, Day by Day's scrapbook appearance is deceiving; this is serious business, indeed. --Steven Stolder

• Elvis in Vegas: How the King Reinvented the Las Vegas Show
• Comeback '68 / Elvis: The Story of the Elvis Special
• Live 1969
• Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley
• Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley
• Scotty and Elvis: Aboard the Mystery Train (American Made Music Series)
• Elvis: That's the Way It Is (Two-Disc Special Edition)
• Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley
• Elvis: Truth, Myth & Beyond: An Intimate Conversation With Lamar Fike, Elvis' Closest Friend & Confidant
• Elvis: What Happened?