[1] He is a long time contributing editor at Rolling Stone, writing about music, TV, and pop culture.

His first, a memoir published by Random House in January 2007, is titled Love Is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time.

[4][5] Sheffield's sixth book, released in April 2017, is called Dreaming the Beatles: The Love Story of One Band and the Whole World.

"[9] Sheffield won the ASCAP Foundation's Virgil Thomson Award for Outstanding Music Criticism for Dreaming the Beatles in 2017.

[11] Publishers Weekly says "the unrestrained delight with which Sheffield captures his subject, [mixes] a fan’s exuberance with a music critic’s nuanced analysis.