Pop Culture

• Kevin J.H. Dettmar (ed.)
• Cambridge, 2009
• Paperback, 185 pages
• ISBN: 9780521714945

A towering figure in American culture and a global twentieth-century icon, Bob Dylan has been at the centre of American life for over forty years. The Cambridge Companion to Bob Dylan brings fresh insights into the imposing range of Dylan's creative output. The first Part approaches Dylan's output thematically, tracing the evolution of Dylan's writing and his engagement with American popular music, religion, politics, fame, and his work as a songwriter and performer. Essays in Part II analyse his landmark albums to examine the consummate artistry of Dylan's most accomplished studio releases. As a writer Dylan has courageously chronicled and interpreted many of the cultural upheavals in America since World War II. This book will be invaluable both as a guide for students of Dylan and twentieth-century culture, and for his fans, providing a set of new perspectives on a much-loved writer and composer.

A lively set of new essays on Dylan's work as a writer and composer and on his place in American culture.

Kevin J. H. Dettmar is W. M. Keck Distinguished Service Professor and Chair in the Department of English, Pomona College, California.

• McGuigan, Jim
• Pluto Press; 2009
• Paperback; 282 pages
• 9780745326788

Thomas Frank coined the term 'the conquest of cool'. This book shows how this conquest is at the heart of the dynamics of contemporary capitalism.Jim McGuigan argues that 'cool capitalism' incorporates disaffection into capitalism itself, absorbing rebellion and thereby neutralising opposition to the present system of culture and society.McGuigan explores a huge variety of cultural examples, from the sleek images of mainstream advertising, to the fringes of artistic production, offering a vigourous critique of our understanding of subversion, resistance and counter-culturalism.Has capitalism really colonised our planet? McGuigan shows that there is still some space left for rebellion against the seductive power of the free market economy.

• Stephen Colbert
• Grand Central Publishing, 2007
• Paperback, 223 pages
• ISBN: 9780446582186

I AM AMERICA (AND SO CAN YOU!) is Stephen Colbert's attempt to wedge his brain between hardback covers.  In plain conversational language, not to mention the occasional grunt and/or whistle, Stephen explains his take on the most pressing concerns of our culture:  Faith, Family, Politics...Hygiene.

Stephen Colbert was The Daily Show's longest-running and most diverse correspondent. His personality, insight and overall rightness could only lead to The Colbert Report, a half-hour nightly platform for him to give his take on the issues of the day, and, more importantly, to tell you why everyone else's take is just plain wrong. The show has been hugely successful.

• Mia Kirshner, J.B. MacKinnon, Paul Shoebridge, Michael Simons
• Pantheon; October 2008
• Hardcover; 320 Pages
• 9780375424786

I Live Here is a visually stunning narrative — told through journals, stories, images, and graphic novellas — in which the lives of refugees and displaced people become at once personal and global. Bearing witness to stories that are too often overlooked, it is a raw and intimate journey to crises in four corners of the world: war in Chechnya, ethnic cleansing in Burma, globalization in Mexico, and AIDS in Malawi.

The voices we encounter are those of displaced women and children, in their own words or in stories told in text and images by noted writers and artists. The stories unfold in an avalanche: An orphan goes to jail for stealing leftovers. A teenage girl falls in love in a city of disappeared women. A child soldier escapes his army only to be saved by the people he was taught to kill.

Mia Kirshner’s journals guide us through a unique paper documentary brought vividly to life in collaboration with J.B. MacKinnon, Paul Shoebridge, and Michael Simons, with featured works by Joe Sacco, Ann-Marie MacDonald, Phoebe Gloeckner, Chris Abani, Karen Connelly, Kamel Khelif, and many others.
 

• Davis, Michael
• Penguin; 2009
• Paperback; 384 pages
• 9780143116639

Marking the 40th anniversary of "Sesame Street, Street Gang" traces the story of one of the most important and beloved shows on television--how it got started, nearly failed, and was saved by Elmo. Two 16-page b&w photo inserts.

• David Sedaris
• Back Bay Books, 2008
• Paperback, 323 pages
• ISBN: 9780316154680

"David Sedaris's ability to transform the mortification of everyday life into wildly entertaining art," (The Christian Science Monitor) is elevated to wilder and more entertaining heights than ever in this remarkable new book.

Trying to make coffee when the water is shut off, David considers using the water in a vase of flowers and his chain of associations takes him from the French countryside to a hilariously uncomfortable memory of buying drugs in a mobile home in rural North Carolina. In essay after essay, Sedaris proceeds from bizarre conundrums of daily life-having a lozenge fall from your mouth into the lap of a fellow passenger on a plane or armoring the windows with LP covers to protect the house from neurotic songbirds-to the most deeply resonant human truths.  Culminating in a brilliant account of his venture to Tokyo in order to quit smoking, David Sedaris's sixth essay collection is a new masterpiece of comic writing from "a writer worth treasuring" (Seattle Times).

David Sedaris is the author of the books Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, Me Talk Pretty One Day, Holidays on Ice, Naked, and Barrel Fever. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker and Public Radio International's "This American Life."

• David A. Berona
• Abrams, 2009
• Hardcover, 256 pages
• ISBN: 9780810994690

This book is not currently in stock, but is available to order (1-2 weeks).

“Wordless books” were stories from the early part of the twentieth century told in black and white woodcuts, imaginatively authored without any text. Although woodcut novels have their roots spreading back through the history of graphic arts, including block books and playing cards, it was not until the early part of the twentieth century that they were conceived and published. Despite its short-lived popularity, the woodcut novel had an important impact on the development of comic art, particularly contemporary graphic novels with a focus on adult themes. Scholar David A. Beronä examines the history of these books and the art and influence of pioneers like Frans Masereel, Lynd Ward, Otto Nückel, William Gropper, Milt Gross, and Laurence Hyde (among others). The images are powerful and iconic, and as relevant to the world today as they were when they were first produced. Beronä places these artists in the context of their time, and in the context of ours, creating a scholarly work of important significance in the burgeoning field of comics and comics history.

David A. Beronä is a member of the visiting faculty for the Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, Vermont. A recognized scholar on woodcut novels and wordless books, Beronä is also the library director at Plymouth State University, New Hampshire and a reviewer and contributor to <I>International Journal of Comic Art, Print Quarterly, and Library Journal. He lives in Gilmanton, New Hampshire.

• Mandy Moore & Leanne Prain (eds.)
• Arsenal Pulp Press, 2009
• Paperback, 231 pages
• ISBN: 9781551522555

On city street corners, around telephone posts, through barbed wire fences, and over abandoned cars, a quiet revolution is brewing. “Knit graffiti” is an international guerrilla movement that started underground and is now embraced by crochet and knitting artists of all ages, nationalities, and genders. Its practitioners create stunning works of art out of yarn, then “donate” them to public spaces as part of a covert plan for world yarn domination.