Have you ever wondered why Lady Gaga decided she was going to be a famous singer?

Or wondered how Chuck Berry feels about being a washed-up rocker in a genre he helped define?

Did you know that in reality, Stephen Colbert is actually a soft-spoken person who is active within his church?

How about that Chris Rock used to sell crack before he became a comedian but never sampled the drug?

Neil Strauss’s “Everyone Loves You When You’re Dead: Journeys into Fame and Madness” is a journalistic anthology of just that — intimate interviews with celebrities that reveal real, authentic moments of truth and help explain part of that person’s being.

Most newspapers and magazines seek to inform the public about what’s new and why they should care about it.  Thus interviewers must cater to a specific style, tone and audience when they compose the articles for which the interviews are carried out for.

That’s exactly what Strauss did for 20 years. Strauss is a best-selling author and ghostwriter who has also had a very extensive entertainment journalism career. He has written numerous articles for such publications as The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Spin, Esquire, Village Voice and others.

In this book, however, Strauss brings to light those parts of the interview that don’t talk about the new album, the upcoming tour or the next movie.  They instead delve into the details of a heroin addiction, a rough childhood, the belief that the interviewee is an alien (a good amount of those appear in the book, actually), etc.

The book is separated into 10 “acts,” with each act consisting of a few drawn out interviews interspersed with several more concise conversations that all yield to a unifying theme.  An interview may be broken up into five parts or may just consist of a few questions (he includes one interview with Lenny Kravitz merely asking him if he ripped off one of Led Zeppelin’s riffs in a song of his).

The subjects range from the well-known (Tom Cruise, Lady Gaga) to the obscure (a pioneer of electronica and industrial called Minimal Man).

To that end, “Everyone Loves You When You’re Dead” is a very entertaining read.  There are some laugh-out-loud moments inside, as well as some “what the %$& just happened” moments.

Through his interviewing style and use of footnotes, Strauss is able to inject part of his own sarcastic and witty writing style into the book.  There is no doubt that he is a master of interviewing people (and a superb writer to boot), and the questions he asks are proof of that.

I mean hey, he even convinced Britney Spears that he can read her mind.

For readers who prefer not to plough straight through a book, Strauss’ work is great in small- to medium-sized doses. Because the book has so many individual interviews within, the reading is somewhat choppy, but the contents are so engaging that the audience should have no problem with the flow.

Readers will find themselves that much more enlightened on the inner-workings of some celebrities’ mind after reading this book. Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing though, has yet to be determined.