Features, reviews, interviews, and lists about books including cultural commentary and history, non-fiction, literature, and more.
Art critic Alex Coles demonstrates in his convention-challenging Crooner: Singing from the Heart From Sinatra to Nas that crooning is a vocal style and image encompassing theatrical exaggeration and heartfelt reality.
Tom Lucas’ parody Research Randy and the Mystery of Grandma’s Half-Eaten Pie of Despair fuses elements of H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos into an Edward Stratemeyer world.
In their pseudo-creativity and occasionally malevolent capriciousness, generative AI programs resemble an order of magical spirits from another age.
Understanding the appeal of Doomsday Clock has nothing to do with it being a good or bad comics series. The real question is: does it matter?
Melissa Broder’s quality of being “terminally online” lends Death Valley an air of immediacy that grounds its surreal, dazzling moments in poignant emotional realism.
Corporate villainy! Creative tyranny! Dangerous foes and tough allies! MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios blasts the superhero movie universe with the studio’s massive, messy history.
If the future of work is interaction with intelligent machine counterparts, workers’ cognitive and emotional experiences will undergo a seismic shift.
With graphic novel Summer of Hamn, rap legend and now visual artist Chuck D has produced his second, strong, COVID-era work of art and social commentary.
In The Jewish Son, Daniel Guebel invokes Kafka’s “Dearest Father” to tell the story of a complicated father-son relationship.
The “interviews and encounters” in Prine on Prine reveal John Prine’s care for others, and his self-deprecation and nonchalance about his accomplished career.
Robert Wringham’s Rub-A-Dub-Dub slips neck-deep into the wet hot mess of middle-age angst. From the comfort of his bath, so to speak, he talks about it.
Bernie Taupin, legendary songwriting partner of Elton John, reveals all in a new book detailing his creative partnership, hatred of touring, and love of cowboys.
