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Book SynopsisDirected by Richard Donner and written by David Seltzer, The Omen (1976) is perhaps the best in the devil-child cycle of movies that followed in the wake of Rosemary’s Baby and The Exorcist. Released to a highly suggestible public, The Omen became a major commercial success, in no small part due to an elaborate pre-sell campaign that played and preyed on apocalyptic fears and a renewed belief in the Devil and the supernatural. Since polarising critics and religious groups upon its release, The Omen has earned its place in the horror film canon. It’s a film that works on different levels, is imbued with nuance, ambiguity and subtext, and is open to opposing interpretations. Reflecting the film’s cultural impact and legacy, the name ‘Damien’ has since become a pop culture byword for an evil child. Adrian Schober’s Devil’s Advocate entry covers the genesis, authorship, production history, marketing and reception of The Omen, before going on to examine the overarching theme of paranoia that drives the narrative: paranoia about the 'end times'; paranoia about government and conspiracy; paranoia about child rearing (especially, if one strips away the layer of Satanism); and paranoia about imagined threats to the right-wing Establishment from liberal and post-countercultural forces of the 1970s.

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Book SynopsisOriginally published in 1977 and long out of print, Maurice Yacowar's Hitchcock's British Films was the first volume devoted solely to the twenty-three films directed by Alfred Hitchcock in his native England before he came to the United States. As such, it was the first book to challenge the assumption that Hitchcock's mature period in Hollywood, from the late 1940s to the early 1960s, represented the director's best work. In this traditional auteurist examination of Hitchcock's early work, author Maurice Yacowar considers Hitchcock's British films in chronological order, reads the composition of individual shots and scenes in each, and pays special attention to the films' verbal effects. Yacowar's readings remain compelling more than thirty years after they were written, and someon Downhill, Champagne, and Waltzes from Viennaare among the few extended interpretations of these films that exist. Alongside important works such as Murder!, the first The Man Who Knew Too Much, Secret AgTrade ReviewFor anyone interested in Alfred Hitchcock this is a must for the collection and will invite a new look at those rarer and the lesser known of his films...""- Chris Hick, Filmwerk;""Hitchcock's British Films remains the most illuminating and comprehensive discussion of Hitchcock's work before he moved to California. It is lucid, well balanced in its understandings of the films, informative (especially regarding Hitchcock's use of the novels and plays that were sources of most of his screenplays), and comprehensive.""- Lesley Brill, professor of English at Wayne State University and author of The Hitchcock Romance: Love and Irony in Hitchcock's Films and Crowds, Power, and Transformation in Cinema (Wayne State University Press, 2006);""How welcome to see Hitchcock's British Films back in print. For a long time it was the only full-length treatment of Hitchcock's formative period, and Yacowar's analyses of specific films remain so well judged, articulate, and penetrating that his book has scarcely dated since the day it was published over thirty years ago.""- Thomas Leitch, professor of English at the University of Delaware, co-editor of the forthcoming A Companion to Hitchcock Studies, and author of Perry Mason (Wayne State University Press, 2005)

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Book SynopsisPublished here in its entirety in English, Artaud's Revolutionary Messages collects Antonin Artaud's political, aesthetic and philosophical writings during his travels to Mexico in 1936. Written around the same time as his seminal work The Theatre and its Double, it captures a crucial point in Artaud''s life shortly before he was admitted to a mental asylum in which he was to spend a significant part of his later life. Revolutionary Messages contains conferences that Artaud gave at the University of Mexico, articles from the daily Mexican newspaper El Nacional Revolucionario and a study of three seminal artists of the time influenced by or from Mexico: Franz Hals, Ortiz Monasterio and Maria Izquierdo. Not only will you gain crucial insight into Artaud's time in Mexico and his vision of a total revolution, which he places in distinction to Marxist and Surrealist conceptions of revolution, but you will deepen your understanding of th

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Book SynopsisWritings on Media collects Stuart Hall's most important work on the media, reaffirming his stature as an innovative media theorist while demonstrating the continuing relevance of his methods of analysis.Trade Review“How refreshing and urgent to revisit Stuart Hall’s formative ideas about racism, identity, ideology, and media at the very moment that media has become such a contested site and source of ideological work. Hall’s searing and critical insights about what media does, how it works, and why it matters have never been as pressing as they are today. In our global and national media ecologies where disputes over facts, epistemological turmoil, fake news, and ideological rigidities are routine, Charlotte Brunsdon’s curated collection of Hall’s essays on the media is a remarkable and indispensable gift.” -- Herman Gray, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of California, Santa Cruz“Stuart Hall revolutionized the critical study of media, positioning them—newspapers, photographs, television—as key sites of struggle over cultural meaning and power, and thus as central to the project of cultural studies. Above all, however, Hall did not just write about media but used them prolifically as outlets for critical intervention in the world. This superb set of essays testifies to the uniquely powerful voice of one of the most important public intellectuals in postimperial Britain.” -- Ien Ang, Distinguished Professor of Cultural Studies, Western Sydney University"Brunsdon . . . gifts us with the evolution and contours of Hall’s thought(s) about media more broadly in work he produced mostly in the decade of the 1970s or thereabouts: about photography and the visual arts, about the press, about radio and broadcasting, and finally about television. . . What the American reader learns from this collection is this: Hall was a prescient, energetic thinker of specificity and generality at the same time. . . ." -- Amy Villarejo * Critical Studies in Television *"This is the true magic here: what Hall furnished for us during the course of his life, and what Brunsdon has collected and contextualized in Writings on Media, is an invitation into Hall’s world—to see the world as he did. This vision is bright eyed, and delighted, and serious, and humble. . . . In all of his prose, it is unmistakable just how much Hall absolutely wants you in it with him, and to share his questions, and to identify possible answers, and to figure it out with you. And, that is a very precious gift indeed." -- Max Wiggins * College & Research Libraries *"This series is a veritable motherlode for Hall devotees and neophytes alike. . . . As Brunsdon points out, ensures that even the older or more micro-focused pieces in this volume still have ample value for current scholarship in media, film and cultural studies, and for the broader intersections around the analysis of politics, race, identity and ideological formation." -- Bill Yousman * Screen *Table of ContentsEditor's Note on the Text vii Acknowledgments ix Introduction: A History of the Present / Charlotte Brunsdon 1 Part I. The Photograph in Context Introduction to Part I 15 1. Preface to Black Britain: A Photographic History 23 2. Media and Message: The Life and Death of Picture Post 26 3. The Social Eye of Picture Post 34 4. The Determinations of New Photographs 54 5. Reconstruction Work: Images of Post-war Black Settlement 78 6. Vanley Burke and the "Desire for Blackness" 95 Part II. Media Studies and Cultural Studies Introduction to Part II 101 7. Film Teaching: Liberal Studies 111 8. The World of the Gossip Column 122 9. A World at One with Itself 131 10. Introduction to Paper Voices 141 11. Down with the Little Woman 155 12. Mugging: A Case Study in the Media 162 13. Introduction to Media Studies at the Centre 169 14. The Whites of Their Eyes: Racist Ideologies and the Media 177 Part III. Television Introduction to Part III 201 15. Television as a Medium and Its Relation to Culture 209 16. Watching the Box 237 17. Gogglebox Gigolos 242 18. TV Types 245 19. Encoding and Decoding in the Television Discourse 247 20. Media Power: The Double Bind 267 21. Will Annan Open the Box? 276 22. Which Public, Whose Service? 281 23. Black and White in Television 297 Coda 315 24. Stuart Hall's Desert Island Discs 317 Index 331 Place of First Publication 343

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Book SynopsisOver the past 25 years, Pixar''s team of artists, writers, and directors have shaped the world of contemporary animation with their feature films and shorts. From classics such as Toy Story and A Bug''s Life to recent masterpieces such as Up, Toy Story 3, and Cars 2, this comprehensive collection offers a behind-the-scenes tour of every Pixar film to date. Featuring a foreword by Chief Creative Officer John Lasseter, the complete color scripts for every film published in full for the first time as well as stunning visual development art, The Art of Pixar is a treasure trove of rare artwork and an essential addition to the library of animation fans and Pixar enthusiasts.

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Book SynopsisTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction 1 • Why We Need Film and Series Suggestions 2 • How Algorithmic Recommender Systems Work 3 • Developing Netflix's Recommendation Algorithms 4 • Unpacking Netflix's Myth of Big Data 5 • How Real People Choose Films and Series Afterword: Robot Critics vs. Human Experts Appendix. Designing the Empirical Audience Study Notes Selected Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"In A Respectable Spell, prominent Brazilian ethnomusicologist Carlos Sandroni contributes important perspectives by detailing the musical transformation of samba from the first recording in 1917 to its codification as a genre, circa 1930." --Journal of Folklore Research Reviews"At long last, we can celebrate the publication of this groundbreaking study in English. Carlos Sandroni's brilliant ‘historical ethnomusicology’ of samba laid the foundations for many subsequent studies, and continues to set a standard in the field. Sandroni is equally adept at fine-grained musical analysis, rich social-historical contextualization, and crisp, clear explanation. Michael Iyanaga's sensitive and graceful translation makes this accessible to a broad international audience for the first time. This book is fundamental for all those interested in samba's emergence and evolution."--Bryan McCann, author of Hard Times in the Marvelous City: From Dictatorship to Democracy in the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro

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Book SynopsisIn this invitation to reflect on the power of performance, Diana Taylor explores the multiple and overlapping meanings of performance, showing how it can convey everything from artistic, economic, and sexual performance, to providing ways of understanding how race, gender, identity, and power are performed.Trade Review"Performance offers scenarios... for active pedagogy, inviting students and others to explore and perhaps undo the links between images and writing, texts and performances, so as to conduct their own performatic appropriations." -- Loren Kruger * Critical Inquiry *"Taylor's fascinating, multicultural analysis of performance explores not only what performance is but also what it does—what it allows one to see, to experience, and to theorize—and 'its complex relation to systems of power.' . . . Recommended." -- M. S. LoMonaco * Choice *"The book is performative and multivocal, combining images of performances in the Americas, Taylor’s narrative essays, and important excerpts from key texts on performance by academics, activists, and artists....The result is a work that gives ample space to artists/artivists as the creators of tactics rather than to performance studies scholars who analyze nonperformance phenomena as performance." -- Patricia Ybarra * TDR: The Drama Review *"Introduction, reflection, and provocation coalesce most successfully in Taylor’s passionate insistence on the necessity of performance and its academic study. Performance, Taylor argues, has real effects, but the nature of those effects is not pre-determined. The wielder determines the worth of the weapon. These passages alone would suffice to make the book a trusted companion of students and senior scholars alike." -- David Calder * New Theatre Quarterly *"This book is a valuable introduction to performance art and performance studies. It is deftly argued and elegantly composed. Taylor concludes by saying that performance is ‘world-making’ and that we need to understand it (208). This book helps us to do just that." -- Adrian Curtin * Studies in Theatre and Performance *“Incredibly important. Performance is a proffer of a new way of looking and thinking about performance.” -- Robert Summers * CAA Reviews *Table of ContentsPreface 1. Framing [Performance] 2. Performance Histories 3. Spect-Actors 4. The New Uses of Performance 5. Performative and Performativity 6. Knowing through Performance: Scenarios and Simulation 7. Artivists (Artist-Activists), or What's to Be Done? 8. The Future(s) of Performance 9. Performance Studies Notes

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Book SynopsisThe 2010s might be remembered as a time of increased polarization in American life. The decade contained both the Obama era and the Trump era, and as the nation’s political fissures widened, so did the gap between the haves and have-nots. Hollywood reflected these divisions, choosing to concentrate on big franchise blockbusters at the expense of mid-budget films, while new players like Netflix and Amazon offered fresh opportunities for low-budget and independent filmmakers. As the movie business changed, films ranging from American Sniper to Get Out found ways to speak to the concerns of a divided nation. The newest installment in the Screen Decades series, American Cinema in the 2010s takes a close look at the memorable movies, visionary filmmakers, and behind-the-scenes drama that made this decade such an exciting time to be a moviegoer. Each chapter offers an in-depth examination of a specific year, covering a wide variety of films, from blockbuster superhero movies like Black Panther and animated films like Frozen to smaller-budget biopics like I, Tonya and horror films like Hereditary. This volume introduces readers to a decade in which established auteurs like Quentin Tarantino were joined by an exceptionally diverse set of new talents, taking American cinema in new directions. Trade Review"American Cinema of the 2010s offers a lively compendium of insights about the complicated relationship between Hollywood cinema and the cultural zeitgeist." -- Virginia Wexman * editor of Directing *Table of ContentsTimeline: 2010s Introduction: Movies and the 2010s DENNIS BINGHAM 2010 Movies and Recessionary Gender Politics MICHELE SCHREIBER 2011 Movies and Masculinity at a Crossroads DAVID GREVEN 2012 Movies and Myths, Heroes, and History RAYMOND HABERSKI JR. 2013 Movies and Personhood ALEXANDRA KELLER 2014 Movies and the Unexpected Virtue of How the Sausage Gets Made DANIEL SMITH-ROWSEY 2015 Movies and Female Agency LISA BODE 2016 Movies and the Solace of Progressive Narratives CYNTHIA BARON 2017 Movies and the Right to Be Heard JULIE LEVINSON 2018 Movies and Revolution MIKAL J. GAINES 2019 Movies, Anniversaries, and the Limits of Looking Back DENNIS BINGHAM Select Academy Awards, 2010–2019 Acknowledgments Works Cited and Consulted Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisMichel Chion is renowned for his explorations of the significance of frequently overlooked elements of cinema, particularly the role of sound. In this inventive and inviting book, Chion considers how cinema has deployed music. He shows how music and film not only complement but also transform each other.Trade ReviewMichel Chion is the most influential sound scholar working today. In Music in Cinema, he examines film music through expansive, multiple lenses, combining histories of different practices with theoretical and analytical insights. Claudia Gorbman’s expert translation retains Chion’s engaging writing style, combining its quirky phrasing and shrewd observations. An intellectual delight. -- Caryl Flinn, University of MichiganEver since his first book on cinema, I have been fascinated by Michel Chion’s approach to sound, music, and speech in relation to the moving image. Without fail, he proposes startlingly original perspectives on movies ranging from the well-known to the rare and obscure. Music in Cinema combines new historical frameworks with significant aesthetic insights, illustrated through hundreds of films. -- Michel Marie, professor emeritus of film studies, University of Paris IIIMichel Chion is the world’s leading scholar of the film soundtrack, and Music in Cinema is one of his greatest works. Clearly written and jargon-free, this account of music in cinema will interest readers from students to film buffs to scholars. I appreciated Chion’s personal spin on this subject and found him making me reevaluate what I thought I knew about soundtrack music. -- Alan Williams, author of Republic of Images: A History of French FilmmakingA highly recommended title and a celebration of the two art forms: film music/film audio and the art of shooting pictures. * Pop Culture Shelf *Table of ContentsTranslator’s NotePrefaceIntroduction: Music Redefined by CinemaPart I: Historical Perspectives1. Dreams and Realities: 1895–19352. Classicism to Modernism: 1935–19753. Back to the Future: 1975–19954. Whither Film Music? 1996–2020Part II: The Three Faces of Music in Cinema5. Music as Element and Means6. Music as World7. Music as Subject, Metaphor, and ModelBy Way of ConclusionGlossaryNotesIndex

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Book SynopsisThe Rolling Stones have long been considered one of the greatest rock-and-roll bands of all time. At the forefront of the British Invasion and heading up the counterculture movement of the 1960s, the Stones' innovative music and iconic performances defined a generation, and fifty years later, they're still performing to sold-out stadiums around the globe. Yet, as the saying goes, behind every great man is a greater woman, and behind these larger-than-life rockstars were four incredible women whose stories have yet to be fully unpacked. . . until now.In Parachute Women, Elizabeth Winder introduces us to the four women who inspired, styled, wrote for, remixed, and ultimately helped create the legend of the Rolling Stones. Anita Pallenberg, Marianne Faithfull, Marsha Hunt, and Bianca Jagger put the glimmer in the Glimmer Twins and taught a group of straight-laced boys to be bad. They opened the doors to subterranean art and alternative lifestyles, turned them on to Russian literature, occult practices, and LSD. They connected them to cutting edge directors and writers, won them roles in art house films that renewed their appeal. They often acted as unpaid stylists, providing provocative looks from their personal wardrobes. They remixed tracks for chart-topping albums, and sometimes even wrote the actual songs. More hip to the times than the rockers themselves, they consciously (and unconsciously) kept the band current--and confident--with that mythic lasting power they still have today.Lush in detail and insight, and long overdue, Parachute Women is a group portrait of the four audacious women who transformed the Stones into international stars, but who were themselves marginalized by the male-dominated rock world of the late '60s and early '70s. Written in the tradition of Sheila Weller's Girls Like Us, it's a story of lust and rivalries, friendships and betrayals, hope and degradation, and the birth of rock and roll.

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Book SynopsisNiemen Enigmatic is the fourth album in the career of Czeslaw Niemen, arguably one of the greatest Polish musicians of all time (from pop and rock to jazz-rock and avant-garde). The book asks how significant was this album? How enduring is its popularity? Has the popularity and meanings changed over time? It does this by unpacking its production, which was unprecedented in the history of the Polish popular music due to its large number of musicians with varied backgrounds, including progressive rock, mixing jazz, rock and soul with classical music. It also examines its appeal to different segments of Polish population, and failure to reach foreign audiences, despite Niemen himself privileging this album, especially its centrepiece, Bema pamieci zalobny rapsod (Mournful Rhapsody in Memoriam of Bem aka A Funeral Rhapsody in Memory of General Bem aka Mourner's Rhapsody), in his attempt to make a career abroad.Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. From an Ordinary Singer to a Prophet: The Life and Career of Czeslaw Niemen 2. From the Poem to Poems: Inspiration, Conception and Production of Niemen Enigmatic 3. Solving the Enigma: What Niemen Enigmatic is About? 4. Like Old Wine: Remembering Niemen Enigmatic Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisFocuses on the genius of Elliott Smith's 1998 debut that remains his defining album, XO. This book provides a take on this widely beloved album, steering clear of the sensationalist suicide angles that have dogged most analysis of Smith's extraordinary work.Trade Review"It was only a matter of time before a clever publisher realized that there is an audience for whom Exile on Main Street or Electric Ladyland are as significant and worthy of study as The Catcher in the Rye or Middlemarch... freewheeling and eclectic, ranging from minute rock-geek analysis to idiosyncratic personal celebration - The New York Times Book Review Ideal for the rock geek who thinks liner notes just aren't enough - Rolling Stone A brilliant series...each one a word of real love - NME Religious tracts for the nock 'n' roll faithful - Uncut"Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Preface Part One: "Making Something From Nothing" - The "Story" of XO - XO Song by Song Part 2: "Pictures of Me" Sources

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Book SynopsisDespite Warner Brothers Records' conviction that it had mid-wifed the American equivalent of Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, "Song Cycle" wasn't rock music, and it didn't sell like rock music. This title offers an intelligent take on a classic left-field album.Trade Review"Ideal for the rock geek who thinks liner notes just aren't enough--Rolling Stone One of the coolest publishing imprints on the planet--Bookslut A brilliant series...each one a word of real love - NME"Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. I Came Unto West Hollywood 2. Dreams Are Stillborn in Hollywood 3. Let's Assume That We Form a Company 4. Song Cycle 5. Enveloped 6. To Market To Buy 7. Constant Commentary By the Wayside 8. What Is Up the Canyon Will Eventually Come Down 9. Time Is Not the Main Thought 10. That Brought Us Coots to Hoot Bibliography

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Book SynopsisPresents an examination of the classic "Pavement" album, including interviews with band members and record label staff. This book pays attention to Malkmus' growth as a musician and songwriter, both of which are evident everywhere on Wowee Zowee.Trade ReviewCharles puts himself in the center of the book—we read about his aimless college years in Michigan and his discovery of Pavement, whose songs initially seem half hearted, even bratty, but actually contain an undertow of emotion that's hard to articulate. Charles' writing is the same way. He succinctly captures the flavor of being in one's late teens and early 20s without going into unnecessary detail. Finishing school, he undergoes that arduous, interminable crisis of figuring out what to do with life, discovering that one of the only things that still makes sense is Pavement. Charles returns to the band time and again, the music weaving a thread through his life. The book includes unvarnished interviews with members of the band, providing an honest, first-person account of the making of the record. But the heart of the book isn't Pavement; it's Charles, and novelist or no, he has turned in one of the best pieces of rock journalism in recent memory—a no-bullshit, heartfelt manifesto of fandom. * The Portland Mercury *At the core of every 33 1/3 book is the question of roping in readers who may be unfamiliar with the band or album, but Charles is able to resituate Pavement as the everyman band they were during the 90s payday. From tales of major label flirtations (which the band is quick to dismiss as nothing more than random dalliances with the powers-that-be) to the band's reputation as slackers (which finds Stephen Malkmus tossing aside by pointing out the band's relentless touring schedule), Charles covers much more than the time period of Wowee Zowee without abandoning the album's specific importance in their catalog. Part history lesson, part fanzine love letter, Bryan Charles has written a book that is as ambitious and yet as untethered as his subject matter. * Tiny Mix Tapes *[Charles has written] an oral history about the genesis and recording of Pavement's Wowee Zowee album that is infused with his own personal fandom of the band. Charles paints a vivid picture of the band as it wrote and recorded the album through interviews with band members and the creatives who surrounded the production of the album, all the while sharing his own experiences with the album and as a Pavement fan.Mixing the album's history with Charles' own works exceedingly well, and captures not only the essence of Pavement when they recorded Wowee Zowee, but also the indie rock culture of the time. * Largehearted Boy *Pavement’s third album isn’t the most obvious choice for a 33 1/3 book … But the series is more concerned with telling new stories than in re-telling old ones, and Bryan Charles relishes the opportunity to argue for a personal favorite. Wowee Zowee may have been a flop (he even admits a ‘lack of excitement’ when he first heard it), but he shows how the album has gradually revealed a new cohesiveness governing its scattershot aesthetic over the last two decades and how it is now revered by the same listeners who initially shrugged their shoulders. -- Stephen M. Deusner * Pitchfork *

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Book SynopsisThis slipcase edition - limited to just 500 copies - contains an exclusive Slade Christmas card, handsigned by Don, and is the only way to buy this updated edition in hardback.

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Book SynopsisAndy Miller traces the circumstances surrounding The Village Green Preservation Society released in November 1968, and celebrates the songs pieced together by a band who were on the verge of disintegration and who refused to follow fashion.Trade ReviewThis detailed tome leads the reader through the often fraught construction of what is now regarded as Davies's [sic] masterpiece- and, like the best books of its ilk, it makes the reader want to either re-investigate the album or hear it for the first time. * Blender Magazine, October 2003 *Miller takes an in-depth look at the Kinks' nostalgic and autobiographical album, released in 1968 , at the worst possible time, when rock was all about rebellion and psychedelia...This is the sort of focus that my make you want to buy a copy, or dig out your old one. * Rob Mackie, The Guardian *A compelling portrait...Miller's insight into the album's thematic structure is as eloquent as any writing on The Kinks * Philadelphia City Paper *...this is a charming and valuable addition to the series. * Joe Pettit, Ugly Things, Issue 25 *So thorough is Miller's survey of the period. * Pop Culture Press *Kinks commander Ray Davies once described the Beatles as "the boy next door only better." Miller notices this is a deeply autobiographical comment, and he's unquestionably in the tank for both that boy and that boy's nostalgia-driven magnum opus. But Miller tempers his enthusiasm with research, with and detailed-if-straightforward analysis of the songs, the time, the players and the fascinating history of the very English temperament that produced this most English of magnum opuses. * Austin American-Statesman, Oct. 17, 2004 *One of the hallmarks of the 33 1/3 series is the track-by-track runthrough, during which the author proceeds, often in painstaking detail, to describe each song on a given album in order. Occasionally this can be redundant or tedious, but one of the first great examples is in Andy Miller’s book on the Kinks’ finest hour. -- Stephen M. Deusner * Pitchfork *

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Book SynopsisOne of the finest hip-hop albums ever made, A Tribe Called Quest's debut record took the idea of the boasting hip-hop male and turned it on its head. This book explores the album's creation as well as the impact it had on the author at that time - a 17-year-old high-school geek who was into hip-hop, punk, skateboarding, and Dungeons & Dragons.

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Book SynopsisA collection of short stories - each one a cover version of a song on "Rid of Me".Trade ReviewKate Schatz's "Rid of Me" is less about a particular album than it is about what happens to an album when you listen to it repeatedly--the way it evolves and transforms and ends up plugging into all the right circuits in your brain. In the end, overlaid with all your own fears and desires the album becomes the basis for a new world, stories swelling out of it like ghosts. Schatz's "Rid of Me" is the uncanny double of P.J. Harvey's album: it both offers all the mystery and beauty that fiction at its best can offer and illustrates better than anything else I know the private process of making an album genuinely your own. * Brian Evenson, Director of the Literary Arts Program at Brown University *All the writers I know, at least the cool ones, fantasize being rock stars. Kate Schatz' debut book is the next best thing - a writer turning her engagement with a great album into flesh and blood characters, creepy-sexy plot turns and howling guitar, um, verbal solos. I wish I'd thought of it first. * Rebecca Brown, author of THE TERRIBLE GIRLS. *I'd like to slip this between a few books that I read over and over again: The Lesbian Body by Monique Wittig, Spanking the Maid by Robert Coover, and By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept by Elizabeth Smart. This is a journey, a song, a symphony, a love poem, a cry, a whisper, a nightmare, and, in such an unexpected and joyous way - a sustained arousal. It is at once about torture and love, bondage and caresses, empowerment and submission, femininity and tomboys, entrapment and escape, kidnapping and running away, death and ecstasy. With cruel and luscious women who are teachers, nurses, children, campers, and lovers, we are stripped of our senses and then filled up again with a new way of seeing, reading, sexing, feeling, tasting and loving. * Erin Cressida Wilson, Spirit-Award winning screenwriter of Secretary and Fur *A sexy, earnest tale about two young women searching for the end of the forest, for freedom, for a way to escape their violent and strangling pasts. Rid of Me conjures Anais Nin, Angela Carter, fairy tales, horror movies, punk melodrama, as well as PJ Harvey. It's a fast, fun fall through thin air. * Micah Perks, author of Pagan Time and We Are Gathered Here *The best musical covers occur when some kind of alchemy takes place. What starts out as an act of homage or repetition turns into revelation as the new version throws light on, say, the lyrical subtext or rhythmic potential that seem to have been hidden within the original. Kate Schatz magics a similar sort of transformation in her fictional cover — revolving around two outlaw-lovers, Mary and Kathleen — of PJ Harvey's 1993 album Rid of Me. * San Francisco Bay Guardian *We've said it before and we'll damn well say it again, Continuum's 33 1/3 series of books - wherein a writer is given the freedom to wax lyrical about their favorite album - are not only delightful little collectors items but have also spawned some truly wonderful essays, ranging from techie minded nuts and bolts recording break-downs to marvelous flights of fancy like this little beauty by Kate Schatz. The third writer to take the fiction route for their chosen album (Music From Big Pink by John Niven and Meat is Murder by Joe Pernice being the other two) telling the highly charged erotic tale (what else could it be based on Harvey's equally highly charged and erotic album?) of Kathleen and Mary and their desperate efforts to escape their respective pasts via a kidnapping, a house in the middle of a dark, deeply disturbing, forest and some sapphic shenanigans. Each chapter, both named after and relating to, the album's tracks, moves the story along apace and successfully evokes the albums unsettling lyrics and themes. Writing about music has been in the doldrums for too long, let's have a lot more like this please. * Total Music Magazine *Kate Schatz's delightfully queer work of fiction has all the elements of a solid album: desire, darkness, sex and transformation... This fireball of a read captures an interpretive lyrical undertone as sexy and intoxicating as Harvey's original. * Curve Magazine *Rid of Me takes its cue from PJ Harvey's album of the same title and appropriately veers away from its surface toward an unusual and fictive adventure into the irreverently dark psychology(ies) that made the album popular in the first place. -- Kate Morris * Feminist Review *The idea that we all experience an album differently, that we each create our own version of the album through listening, is a driving force behind the book...[Schatz] shines a lingth on one of the most inspiring aspects of music: how open-ended something as limited as a four-minute pop song truly is. And as she offers her own interpretation of Rid of Me, she also gives us a new interpretation of what it means to write "a book about an album." * erasingclouds.com *In this book, there is no distinction between music, fiction, books and albums. The ambiguity and lyricism -- with threads and fragments from Harvey's lyrics scattered throughout -- compel you to read chapters over and over. They take you like a song on repeat, rubbing you until you bleed. -- Karrie Higgins * The Los Angeles Times *[Schatz] recreates the album's weird push-pull tension, notably in her suspenseful characterization of Mary and Kathleen's mysterious woods. * PopMatters.com *Continuum's 33 1/3 series, which produces lively little volumes of criticism, personal history, and other kinds of "cover lit" on beloved pop and rock albums, has Kate Schatz's fictional riff on PJ Harvey's 1993 Rid of Me, which the online magazine Inkblot once described as "the musical equivalent of a bulldozer tearing through your living room." That review could apply equally well to Schatz's novella. Each chapter, named after tracks like "Rub It 'Til It Bleeds" and "50ft Queenie," takes the reader further into the kidnapping-cum-affair between Kathleen, who has fled an ailing controlling patriarch, and Mary, her captor, who has left a suffocating marriage for an abandoned hunting cabin in the forest. Neither character seems to have any idea of how to heal their abusive pasts; instead, they take their cues from Harvey's unsettling music. Schatz's prose, at time dystopic and surrealist, often really does sound like a rock song. The music winds up accompanying the fiction, which is just as weird and unsettlingly powerful as the album's trademark photo of Harvey's hair rising from the water like a new hybrid animal. * Bitch Magazine *Some albums invade a person so deeply they are driven to obsession. Apparently this was the case for Kate Schatz, who as a teenager was consumed with PJ Harvey's Rid of Me- not surprisingly for an album so deeply drenched with sex, angst and betrayal. Lucky for us, Schatz is now a writer and has channeled her fervor into a narrative inspired by the album about two troubled girls who are mysteriously drawn together to an ominous house in the woods...the story weaves in Rid of Me lyrics and themes of infidelity, lust, and rage, mirroring its track listing as chapter titles. For an album that rips your guts out with stripped-down rock and raw emotion, Rid of Me: A Story is an engaging homage. * Under the Radar Magazine *

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Book SynopsisWhat does jazz “mean” 20 years into the 21st century? Has streaming culture rendered music literally meaningless, thanks to the removal of all context beyond the playlist? Are there any traditions left to explore? Has the destruction of the apprenticeship model (young musicians learning from their elders) changed the music irrevocably? Are any sounds off limits? How far out can you go and still call it “jazz”? Or should the term be retired? These questions, and many more, are answered in Ugly Beauty, as Phil Freeman digs through his own experiences and conversations with present-day players. Jazz has never seemed as vital as it does right now, and has a genuine role to play in 21st-century culture, particularly in the US and the UK.

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Book SynopsisBach for Violin contains a varied collection of 14 attractive and popular pieces arranged for upper-intermediate standard violinists (Grades 5-7), exploring a range of keys, finger patterns, styles, and moods. The collection covers simpler dance movements and chorale melodies, as well as the solo Gigue from the Partita in E major. Other popular pieces include arrangements of Jesu, Joy of Man''s Desiring and the Bach/Gounod Ave Maria. Each piece is accompanied by background footnotes explaining provenance and points of style.Trade ReviewKathy and David Blackwell have produced an entirely appropriate and beautiful collection for students of the violin to discover and enjoy . . . There are arrangements of arias . . . which contain passages that are so perfect for the violin that it is hard to believe they weren't originally conceived with the instrument in mind. . . . Audio files of the piano accompaniments are available to download (free of charge) from the Blackwells' website, which also contains - what a fantastic and generous idea - cello parts as an alternative or additional part for some of the pieces . . . This is an absolute gem of a book. It is beautifully set out and easy to read, the suggested fingerings are helpful and the choice of repertoire is stimulating and inspiring . . . it contains pieces which are accessible enough to inspire and enthuse, as well as those which will challenge and extend . . . In short, this is thoroughly recommended. * Celia Cobb, The Strad, March 2019 *

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Book SynopsisLonglisted for the Penderyn Music Book PrizeOver the course of a thirteen-album and multi-award-winning career with Squeeze, it was clear from the very beginning that Chris Difford has few peers when it comes to smart, pithy lyricism. In Some Fantastic Place, he charts his life from his childhood in south London to becoming a member of one of Britain''s greatest bands and beyond. Along the way Chris reveals the inspiration and stories behind Squeeze''s best-known songs, and his greatest highs and lows from over four decades of making music.Trade ReviewWith hilarious honesty, Squeeze's frontman reveals how his pop career went well and truly Up The Junction! * MAIL ON SUNDAY *Chris Difford's characteristically dry memoir deals with political conflicts closer to home. Opening with the early, boozy days of Squeeze, it ends in 2016 when the band appeared on The Andrew Marr Show. Spotting then prime minister David Cameron on the sofa, keen to justify his government's decision to knock down old council estates, singer Glenn Tilbrook improvised new lyrics: "I grew up in council housing," he sang, "Part of what made Britain great / There are some here who are hell bent / On the destruction of the welfare state." Difford reports that the PM clapped along, then "came over to us at the end of the show and said, ' You know I think that song is going to be a hit!'" -- Helen Brown * DAILY TELEGRAPH *Loving the Chris Difford autobiography. "Dad said if I joined a rock band I'd be an alcoholic, drug addict & skint. Turns out he was right." -- David HepworthA witty, charming, acutely observed and astonishingly honest account of what it's like to be a successful musician. I was gripped and fascinated. -- Mark EllenSqueeze's music has been a part of my soundtrack since first hearing and seeing them back in the late 70's and Chris's book is just as lively and captivating. It's honest, poignant, laugh out loud funny and is a fascinating peep (warts and all) into the life of one of our most talented wordsmiths. Quite simply, i couldn't put it down. -- Gary CrowleyAs anyone who has listened to "Cool for Cats" or "Up the Junction" will know, Difford's lyrics are superb at noticing the unconscious poetry of everyday life, and the early chapters of this book are tightly packed with the sights, the sounds and especially the smells of his childhood: the "sweetest smell of peat burning on the fire" in his Irish aunt's house, "the dry crusty odour of socks in football boots" at school, or the heady teenage scent of "Brut and spray-on deodorant". -- Robert Douglas-Fairhurst * THE GUARDIAN *This conversational memoir from Chris Difford - one of the principal songwriters of beloved U.K. pop act Squeeze - covers a lot of ground: his south London childhood; the band's career ups and downs; and his non-Squeeze detours, including managing Bryan Ferry."Some Fantastic Place" is distinguished by its admirable candour: Unlike many artists, Difford is reflective about the obstacles he's had to overcome (e.g., flying anxiety, substance abuse, relationship breakdowns), and he is direct and forthcoming about how these things inform his life and music, even in the present. However, Difford's dry sense of humor also shines through - for instance, speaking of the band's first, ill-fated U.S. gig, at The Lighthouse in Bethlehem, New Jersey, he writes, "We literally played to one man and a dog. We were forced to play a second set by the owner. The dog left." Lovely and enriching, "Some Fantastic Place" is very much worth a read. * SALON *

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Book SynopsisThe long overdue autobiography from guitar great and former member of Genesis, Steve Hackett. As with his music, Steve has written a highly detailed, entertaining and embracing tome that charts his life in full, but with a firm emphasis on his years with Genesis that saw the band's meteoric rise to become one of the most successful British bands of all time. Steve talks candidly about his early life, his time with Genesis, and in particular his personal relationships with the other four band members, with great insight into the daily goings on of this major rock band. Naturally A Genesis In My Bed also regales stories of Steve's career since leaving Genesis and the many different journeys that it has taken him on. With his flair for the creative, and a great deal of levity, A Genesis In My Bed is a riveting read. Indispensable for Genesis fans but also essential for general music lovers and avid readers of autobiographies full of heartfelt and emotive tales.

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Book Synopsis__________''Essential reading'' Rolling Stone''A must read. The best bit of literature currently out there on Kendrick Lamar'' VICE __________Kendrick Lamar is at the top of his game.He has been described as perceptive, philosophical, unapologetic, fearless, and an innovative storyteller whose body of work has been compared to James Joyce and James Baldwin.He is a visionary who will go down as history as one of the most important artists of all time.But what''s so striking about Kendrick Lamar, aside from his impressive accolades, is how he''s effectively established himself as a formidable opponent of oppression, a force for change. Through his confessional poetics, his politically charged anthems, and his radical performances, Lamar has become a beacon of light for many people in America.The Butterfly Effect not only Lamar''s powerful impact on music but also on ourTrade Review'Kendrick Lamar is the most creatively captivating rapper of the past decade. This means inspecting and placing into context his profound legacy is nothing short of a gargantuan task. Fortunately for us, Marcus J. Moore exists. His writing has never been sharper, never been more concise, never been more insightful than it is here. This book is smart, confident, and necessary.' - Shea Serrano, New York Times bestselling author of The Rap Year Book and Movies (And Other Things)'I have a great amount of gratitude for The Butterfly Effect and the triumph of chronicling one of our great artists while they're still here with us. Marcus J. Moore is thoughtful, incisive, and generous in this work, and The Butterfly Effect will hopefully set a blueprint for how we honor the brilliant and living.' - Hanif Abdurraqib, New York Times bestselling author of Go Ahead In The Rain: Notes to A Tribe Called Quest'The Butterfly Effect is much more than a biographical look at the voice of hip hop's new generation. It's an analytical deep dive into the life of that good kid whose m.A.A.d city raised him, and how it sparked a fire within Kendrick Lamar to change history. Through thoughtful prose, strong investigative research, and a deep passion for the subject matter, Marcus J. Moore paints a picture of Kendrick that anyone can admire.' - Kathy Iandoli, author of God Save The Queens: The Essential History of Women in Hip-Hop'Marcus J. Moore's look at Kendrick Lamar beautifully illustrates the power of the word and the great value it holds in the community that birthed hip hop. Therein, we all better understand and appreciate why Black lives -- and rhymes -- matter.' - Sacha Jenkins, Emmy-nominated director of Showtime documentary Wu-Tang Clan: Of Mics And MenMore conversational than scholarly, it's at its most effective when charting Lamar's cultural awakening, prompted in part by a life-changing pilgrimage to South Africa and the death of Trayvon Martin, and the almost parallel rise of Black Lives Matter. It tries to be a lot of things - an artistic biography, a fan letter, an abbreviated history of West Coast hip-hop, an examination of Black art as a vehicle for resistance - and does most of them well. - Washington Post Music journalist Marcus J. Moore's detailed study places Kendrick Lamar's life and music within its proper sociopolitical context, making this essential reading if you want to understand modern rap's most innovative artist. - Rolling Stone

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Book SynopsisThis deluxe enchanted replica of Newt Scamander''s case is loaded with interactive special features to make any fan of the Wizarding World feel like a master Magizoologist. Kit includes:- Collectible replica of the case carried along on Newt''s adventures, as packaging that doubles as a keepsake box, complete with metal locks.- Muggle worthy dial that allows the case to be opened in either non-wizard or wizarding modes. In non-wizard, a trick lid reveals mundane case contents, but in wizarding mode, further wonders are revealed: Sound activation (when in wizarding mode): each time the case is opened, the sound of 1 of 7 different beasts is released.- 128-page, 4-1/4 x 7-inch notebook including images of the beasts encountered along Newt''s journey and field note illustrations. It''s also your Fantastic Beasts-inspired journal, inviting you to describe beasts that you find in your own world. Includes elastic ban

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Book SynopsisRemain in Love tells the story of two bands and a love story (and marriage) that survived them bothTrade ReviewFrom the first time I saw Talking Heads live (CBGB, 1976), I've had a huge thing for Tina Weymouth. And since then I've been biding my time, waiting for the right moment to make my move. But after reading Remain in Love: Talking Heads: Tom Tom Club: Tina by Chris Frantz, it's become pretty clear to me that she's already in a relationship (see pages 1, 3-7, 9, etc.), and what's more, it looks to be serious (pages 18, 20-26, and especially 114). But you know something? That's OK. I'm happy for Tina, and for Chris, a great drummer who has written a great book, though I wish he'd done it a few years earlier -- Bill Murray[Remain in Love] has great storytelling and amazing detail about adventures that Chris and I have shared in our parallel universes. As the Brits say: I'm gobsmacked. I devoured this book and all the memories and all the love Chris has for Tina . . . One of the most potent examples of living the dream -- Debbie Harry, musician and author of 'Face It'Crackling with verve, comedy, calamity, crisp detail, forward motion, and abiding affection, speckled with an all-star cast of punk legends and pop idols, Chris Frantz's Remain in Love is a rock music memoir like none other--a candy kiss with a kick to it. From the grime and tumult of CBGB to the Valhalla gloriosky of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Remain in Love gives the reader a magic carpet ride on the Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club express. It is also a valentine to Frantz's wife, creative partner, and bass guitarist in excelsis, Tina Weymouth, before whom we all gladly curtsey -- James Wolcott, author of the memoir 'Lucking Out'This swift-paced, well written book has the upbeat tone of dreams coming true. Frantz conveys the excitement of his adventures from boyhood to art school to international rock-stardom with honesty and enthusiasm. He didn't miss much in these cherished years. That he managed to keep his joyous spirit alive (and "remain in love") as his various bands accelerate across the globe is a testament to his intelligence and decency. I dare any drummer to write a better book! -- Duncan Hannah, author of '20th Century Boy'Heads and drums and funk and roll: herewith Chris Frantz outs himself as a Writing Head and Raconteur First Class, bringing it on an engaging narrative which combines an enchanting love story with an eye-opening disquisition on the upsides and downsides of being in bands with unsual people -- Charles Shaar Murray, author of 'Crosstown Traffic: Jimi Hendrix and Post-War Pop'I commend Remain in Love to discerning rock fans everywhere * Observer *Frantz has done an effective job of rebalancing the Talking Heads story, offering an angle on the band that fans will relish * Sunday Times *A revealing inside account of the highs and lows of a band who looked and sounded like nobody else -- Olivia Laing * Guardian *a memoir as sharp and sometimes caustic as the music they made * Daily Express *Amidst the bad blood, Frantz offers charming detail of the band's early years * Uncut *A book by a man who is giving the best impression of someone having all the fun * The Herald *The drummer with Talking Heads, one of rock's trailblazing bands, has written a memoir as sharp and sometimes caustic as their music. It's a love letter to both Talking Heads and his wife, the band's bassist Tina Weymouth . . . The book captures 1970s New York, with cameos from Andy Warhol, Brian Eno and James Brown, and makes being in a band sound the most exciting job ever * Daily Mirror *

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Book SynopsisIn the 1940s and 1950s, hundreds of art documentaries were produced, many of them being highly personal, poetic, reflexive and experimental films that offer a thrilling cinematic experience. With the exception of Alain Resnais’s Van Gogh (1948), Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Le Mystère Picasso (1956) and a few others, most of them have received only scant scholarly attention. This book aims to rectify this situation by discussing the most lyrical, experimental and influential post-war art documentaries, connecting them to contemporaneous museological developments and Euro-American cultural and political relationships. With contributors with expertise across art history and film studies, Art in the Cinema draws attention to film projects by André Bazin, Ilya Bolotowsky, Paul Haesaerts, Carlo Ragghianti, John Read, Dudley Shaw Aston, Henri Storck and Willard Van Dyke among others.Trade ReviewThis remarkable book charts the development, as well as the public and critical acceptance, of the art film documentary at the mid-point of the 20th century. In a series of elegantly written and deeply perceptive essays by some of the most respected authorities in the field, such classic films as The Mystery of Picasso (1956), Henry Moore (1951), and the experimental feature film Pictura (1951) are brought back to public attention in a volume that is an essential text for both cinema historians and art lovers as well. A dazzling volume in every respect – bravo! -- Wheeler Winston Dixon, James Ryan Professor of Film Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USAIt is not well-known today that in the aftermath of World War II, emerging trends in media and international alliances, ideas about mass communication and the democratization of culture, and representation of national identity converged to produce a "golden age" of films about art and artists in Europe and the U.S. Art in Cinema is an invaluable resource on the mid-century heyday of the art documentary. -- Susan Felleman, Professor, Art History & Film and Media Studies, University of South Carolina, USATable of ContentsPreface and Acknowledgements Introduction: The Mid-Century Celluloid Museum, Steven Jacobs (Ghent University & Antwerp University, Belgium) & Dimitrios Latsis (Toronto Metropolitan University, Canada) 1. The Institutional Breeding Grounds of the Postwar Film on Art, Birgit Cleppe (Ghent University, Belgium) 2. American Art Comes of Age: Documentaries and the Nation at the Dawn of the Cold War, Dimitrios Latsis (Toronto Metropolitan University, Canada) 3. Art History with a Camera: Rubens (1948) and Paul Haesaerts’s Concept of Cinéma Critique, Steven Jacobs (Ghent University & Antwerp University, Belgium) & Joséphine-Charlotte Vandekerckhove (Ghent University, Belgium & Verona University, Italy) 4. Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti’s Critolfims and Beyond: From Cinema to Information Technology, Emanuele Pellegrini (IMT School for Advanced Studies, Italy) 5. André Bazin’s Art Documentary in Saintonge, Angela Dalle Vacche (Georgia Institute of Technology, USA) 6. Projecting Cultural Diplomacy: Cold War Politics, Films on Art, and Willard Van Dyke’s The Photographer, Natasha Ritsma (Loyola University Museum of Art, USA) 7. Henry Moore and A Sculptor’s Landscape: Modernity, the Land and the Bomb in Two Television Films by John Read, John Wyver (University of Westminster, UK) 8. Creative Process, Material Inscription and Dudley Shaw Ashton’s Figures in a Landscape (1953), Lucy Reynolds (University of Westminster, UK) 9. Neoplasticism and Cinema: Ilya Bolotowsky’s Experimental Films on Art, Henning Engelke (Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany) Mid-Twentieth-Century Art Documentaries: A Selected Bibliography About the Authors Index

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Book SynopsisWhen Dylan came off the 1966 tour he was completely exhausted. The world thought he had the answers but Dylan was lost, crushed by the weight of expectations. The next 13 years saw Dylan trying to find his direction home. He found it when someone threw a Bible on stage and he found Christianity.

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Book SynopsisWhy try to fit in when it''s so fun to stand out? Loki knows a thing or two about making friends with the right people and getting to the top. Let the Marvel Cinematic Universe''s most mischievous Asgardian show you how to live life on your own terms.Known across the universe for his unique sense of style, charm, and supreme self-confidence, Loki is perfectly placed to give you great tips on how to manage those pesky sibling rivalries or change the mindset of those who always seem to be disappointed in you. Teaming pithy advice with iconic images and witty quotes from almost a decade of blockbuster Marvel Studios movies, Be More Loki is the perfect gift tongue-in-cheek guide to doing things a little differently for family, friends, and colleagues alike. Shake up the status quo with Loki''s special brand of alternative thinking! 2021 MARVEL

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Book SynopsisA fascinating deep-dive into the minds of killers and criminals from the creators of the UK's number one true crime podcast, Redhanded.

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