The Complicated Life of Moby Grape’s Skip Spence
This bio about Moby Grape’s Skip Spence dissects and casts a glowing light on his work as a composer of some of the most influential music of San Francisco’s psychedelic scene.
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The Art of Psychological Warfare
From marketing manipulation to all-out psychological warfare, Stories Are Weapons clarifies how our world – and worldview – is seldom our own.
2 Tone: Race, Music, and Pop Culture in Thatcher’s UK
2 Tone found a sweet spot between punk anger and pop sensibility that mirrored the myriad poles they were trying to bridge in their band members and audiences.
Zionism, Belonging, and George Eliot’s ‘Daniel Deronda’
George Eliot was not Jewish, but her 1876 novel Daniel Deronda took on the “Jewish question” and brought forth the concept of Zionism with knowledge and grace.
Steve Reich’s Music Echoes in Jordan Mechner’s Graphic Memoir ‘Replay’
Like Steve Reich’s Different Trains, Jordan Mechner’s graphic memoir Replay is a work of introspection that looks to history and tragic synchronicity.
Jules Verne’s ‘20,000 Leagues Under the Sea’ Goes Deeper Than You May Realize
Like its vast ocean setting, Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea goes deeper into pop culture – its tentacles reaching farther than its creature’s – than you may realize.
Christopher Hitchens and Fights Worth Having
You can smell the cigarette ash and Johnnie Walker Black Label on the pages of A Hitch in Time, a gleefully pugilistic posthumous Christopher Hitchens anthology.
Personal Canons: Peter Coviello on Prince, Pavement, and Parenthood
Blending personal experience with popular culture, Peter Coviello seeks to democratize how criticism is understood and practiced in Is There God after Prince?
Stanley Kubrick’s Voracious Vision
Kubrick: An Odyssey by scholars Robert P. Kolker and Nathan Abrams is an ambitious, thorough, and important new take on Stanley Kubrick’s life and work.
‘Suffering Sappho!’ Unghosts the Lesbian in Lesbian Camp
Lesbian camp is not a thing of the past. It evolves and remains relevant to subsequent generations. Suffering Sappho! Unghosts the lesbian in lesbian camp.
Alejandro Zambra’s ‘Chilean Poet’ Is a Tender Ode to Parents and Language
In ‘Chilean Poet’, Alejandro Zambra reaches the sublime through descriptions of everyday routine amongst family members – however they describe themselves.
Eight Great Speculative Fiction Books by Women
Need a break from so-called reality? These eight speculative fiction authors represent the best of the best in the sci-fi genre.