“Last Train To Memphis” and “Careless Love,” Peter Guralnick
The best of the in-depth attempts to understand Elvis as all things to all people, Guralnick’s two-volume, 1600-page monster (the post-Army being the second half) offers painstaking (and sometimes painful) detail on what life the King was, in fact, leading while worshiped from afar. Sort of a rise-and-fall tale that substitutes The Pelvis for the Roman Empire, and often cited as the greatest rock and roll biography ever written, it’s a must for any Elvis fan.