Popular culture Books

Book SynopsisIn 2005, the video game World of Warcraft struck the cultural landscape with tidal force. One hundred million people have played WoW in the twelve years since.But those people did more than play. They worked, they fought, they triumphed, they held entire game servers hostage, they even married each other in real life. They developed new identities, swapping their workaday selves for warriors, mages, assassins, and healers. They built communities and rose to lead them. WoW was the world’s first mass virtualization: before Facebook or Twitter, millions of people established online identities and had to reckon with the consequences in their real lives.Blood Plagues and Endless Raids explores this wild, incredibly complex culture partly through the author’s engaging personal story, from absolute neophyte to leader of North America’s top Spanish-speaking guild, but also through the stories of other players and the game’s developers. It is the definitive account of one of the world’s biggest pop culture phenomena.World of Warcraft is more than ones and zeroes, more than lines of code, and so its history must be more than pushing buttons or slaying dragons. It’s the tale of a huge and passionate community of people: the connections they made, the experiences they shared, and the love they held for one another.Trade Review"From the Mulgore plain to Draenor, Tony Palumbi and his avatar, a tauren shaman named Ghando, journey for years through the heroscape of World of Warcraft . Into these depths we plunge, too: Horde and Alliance, raiding and grinding, PvP battles and chat channels, guilds and ganking, leveling up, clearing dungeons, and making friends and enemies along the way. Writing a potent blend of cultural criticism and memoir, Palumbiour Virgil-like guide through a Dantesque digital underworlddescribes these travails with verve, wit, and wisdom. WoW the game may not be 'real,' but what happens there is. Blood Plagues and Endless Raids shows us why we should care." -- Ethan Gilsdorf, author of Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks"[a] fascinating peek inside one of the Internet's most popular online communities." -- Booklist

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Book SynopsisFor more than 75 years, Catwoman has forged her own path in a clear-cut world of stalwart heroes, diabolical villains and damsels in distress. Sometimes a thief, sometimes a vigilante, sometimes neither and sometimes both, the mercurial Catwoman gleefully defies classification. Her relentless independence across comic books, television and film appearances set her apart from the rest of the superhero world. When female characters were limited to little more than romantic roles, Catwoman used her feminine wiles to manipulate Batman and escape justice at every turn. When male villains dominated Gotham on the small screen, Catwoman entered the mix and outshone them all. When female-led comics were few and far between, Catwoman headlined her own series for over 20 years. True to her nature, Catwoman stole the show everywhere she appeared, regardless of the medium. But her unique path had its downsides as well. Her existence on the periphery of the superhero world made her expendable, and she was prone to lengthy absences. Her villainous origins also made her susceptible to sexualized and degrading depictions from her primarily male creators in ways that most conventional heroines didn't face. Exploring the many incarnations of this cultural icon offers a new perspective on the superhero genre and showcases the fierce resiliency that has made Catwoman a fan favorite for decades.Trade Review"Catwoman is the best known and longest running femme fatale in the comics world, with a history behind her creation as sensationally sordid as the feline temptress herself. Tim Hanley, with his uncanny mind for digging out hidden trivia of popular comic characters brings out a side of Catwomen few know, with frank honesty of all her virtues and flaws. This book perfectly distills the complicated 70+ year history of DC's bad girl with a heart of gold. An engaging, entertaining and vastly enjoyable history!" Hope Nicholson, author, The Spectacular Sisterhood of Superwomen"Feed your kitty now, because once you start reading, you won't be able to stop. Tim's words are as mesmerizing as Catwoman herself." Adrienne Barbeau, actress and voice of Catwoman in Batman: The Animated Series, and author of There Are Worse Things I Could Do"Tim Hanley has done it again! His comprehensive history of Catwoman is as engaging and enlightening as his masterworks on Wonder Woman and Lois Lane. As in his previous books, Hanley walks us from Catwoman's on-paper origin through her myriad film and TV incarnations to her modern place in comic books, pulling on cultural and political threads to reveal what makes the world's most famous femme fatale a truly unique feminist hero. Catwoman has outlasted the male artists and writers who have perpetually denied her agency and projected their sexual fantasies onto her. In Hanley, she finds a writer who finally succeeds in honoring her voice." Heather Hogan, senior editor, Autostraddle"Source notes, a bibliography, and an index enhance this scrutiny worthy of a literary scholar - or a devoted comic book connoisseur! The Many Lives of Catwoman is a "must-read" for Catwoman fans, highly recommended." Midwest Book Review"Comic book fan or not, The Many Lives of Catwoman offers an interesting look at society's perception of women over the decades through a fictional avatar used by writers and artists to work through their own issues, misogynistic or otherwise." PopMatters"Featuring trademark obstacles, unappreciated talent, and a bittersweet ending for Finger, Hanley's meticulously researched work sinks its teeth into meaty, historically significant subjects, including female gender stereotypes and homoeroticism." Booklist Online"Hanley's writing is comprehensive and straightforward, and fans and newbies alike will take great pleasure in reading about Catwoman's journey." Publishers Weekly

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Book SynopsisThe Watchman didn’t arrive in a Batmobile but drove a tan, four-door Pontiac. He was in costume, of course—a trench coat, motorcycle gloves, army boots, a domino mask, and a red hooded sweatshirt emblazoned with a W logo. Journalist Tea Krulos had spoken to him over the phone but never face-to-mask. By the end of the interview, he wasn’t sure if the Watchman was delightfully eccentric or completely crazy. But he was going to find out.Heroes in the Night traces Krulos’s journey into the strange subculture of Real Life Superheroes, random citizens who have adopted comic book–style personas and hit the streets to fight injustice. Some concentrate on humanitarian or activist missions—helping the homeless, gathering donations for food banks, or delivering toys to children—while others actively patrol their neighborhoods looking for crime to fight. By day, these modern Clark Kents work as dishwashers, pencil pushers, and executives in Fortune 500 companies. But by night, only the Shadow knows.Well, the Shadow and Tea Krulos. Through historical research, extensive interviews, and many long hours walking patrol in Brooklyn, Seattle, San Diego, Minneapolis, and Vancouver, British Columbia, Krulos discovered what being a RLSH is all about. He shares not only their shining, triumphant moments but some of their ill-advised, terrifying disasters as well. It’s all part of the life of a superhero. As the Watchman explains, “If everyone made little changes in what they did, gave a little more to charity, watched out for their neighbors, we wouldn’t have the problems that we have.”Trade ReviewA "colorful new page-turner." -- Milwaukee AV Club"It probably would have been easy for Krulos to make fun of these people, but, for the most part, he treats RLSH with respect because, if you factor out the comicbookish elements, these are men and women who are risking their own safety to make others feel a bit safer. And it's hard to make fun of that." --Booklist

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Book SynopsisThrough the centuries, prisons were closed institutions, full of secrets and shrouded in mystery. But modern media culture has opened the gates. Dawn Cecil explores decades of popular culture—from Golden Age Hollywood films to YouTube videos, from newspapers to beer labels, hip-hop music, and children's books—to reveal how prison imagery shapes our understanding of who commits crimes, why, and how the criminal justice system should respond.Trade ReviewEngaging and revealing.... With authority and clarity, Cecil provides a sensitive analysis of the popular spectacle of prisons in US culture today. Should be required reading for anyone who wishes to understand why society thinks the way it does about prisons, prisoners, guards, and punishment. Provides a fresh and insightful look into representation of prisons in contemporary television and film. Demonstrates how media depictions of prison life began, how images have changed over time, and how media stories emotionally manipulate and influence public perceptions about punishment and incarceration.... The author challenges educators and students to find ways to create more representative images of prison life as a more complete way of understanding prison subcultures An excellent overiew of the primary forms of media representation [of prison life].... Cecil [also] makes some provocative and powerful arguments.

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Book SynopsisEvery Game of Thrones fan remembers where they were for Ned Stark's untimely demise, can hum the tune of "The Rains of Castamere," and can’t wait to find out Daenerys Targaryen's next move. But do you know the real inspiration for the Red Wedding? Or how to book a trip to visit Winterfell? 100 Things Game of Thrones Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die is the ultimate resource for true fans. Whether you've read all of George R.R. Martin's original novels or just recently devoured every season of the hit show, these are the 100 things all Game of Thrones fans need to know and do in their lifetime. Pop culture critic Rowan Kaiser has collected every essential piece of Game of Thrones knowledge and trivia, as well as must-do activities, and ranks them all from 1 to 100, providing an entertaining and easy-to-follow checklist as you progress on your way to fan superstardom!

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Book SynopsisThis South Korean group is at the forefront of the K-Pop wave sweeping the globe With a phenomenal string of No. 1 albums plus hit singles like Dynamite, ON, Black Swan, and Life Goes On, BTS is on an unstoppable path to greatness! BTS: ONE  is a celebration of the K-Pop group’s international charttopping success as well as the unified community they’ve inspired throughout the world. Including nearly 100 full-color photographs, fans are provided an in-depth look at the lives of RM, J-Hope, Suga, Jimin, V, Jin, and Jungkook. This completely up-to-date volume explores their ever-evolving sound, artistic influences, far-reaching activism, and special relationship with ARMY, whom Jimmy Fallon called “the most loyal, positive, and fun fans that you can ever dream of.”

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Book SynopsisA nostalgic romp through modern NBA history as documented by basketball's most iconic and innovative magazine covers.Every magazine cover is the result of a series of intentional decisions. Cover Story shares the behind-the-scenes stories of these deliberate choices, which led to the most iconic basketball-related magazine covers during a period from 1984 to 2003. Through 100-plus interviews conducted with writers, editors, publishers, photographers, creative directors, and the players themselves, the book explores Michael Jordan’s relationship with Sports Illustrated, Shaquille O’Neal and the hip-hop generation’s impact on newsstands, the birth of SLAM and the inside stories of their most iconic covers, how the 1996 USA women’s basketball team inspired a new era of women’s sports magazines, the competition among publishers to put high school phenom LeBron James on the magazine cover first, and much more.Offering an immersive look at some of the most impactful moments in a golden era for modern basketball, this engaging read will appeal to basketball fans, pop culture enthusiasts, and those who want to take a deep dive into understanding how the individual components of a classic magazine cover come together.Features four full-color inserts showcasing a collection of notable magazine covers!Trade Review"For every kid who turned SLAM magazine covers into posters, this book is for you. Well-researched, nostalgic, and a necessary modern collection of basketball's most iconic magazine covers for a glorious trip down memory lane." DRAKECEREAL, artist"I vividly remember spending hours at the bookstore or supermarket, looking at the covers of Sports Illustrated , SLAM , and all the other classic magazines of that era, hoping to find the next big thing. Cover Story instantly transports you back to the magazine aisle, where a sick glossy photo and some bold text could change the world. Or at least have you believing in the New Jersey Nets." TREY KERBY, No Dunks podcast co-host"Along the way, the covers of magazines like Sports Illustrated and SLAM became not only announcements of stars' arrivals, but also invitations to form more intimate bonds with theman open door to a new kind of relationship with sports. Cover Story is Alex Wong's love letter to that door: to the covers he taped on his walls, to the images and words emblazoned on his brain and heart, to the people who created them, and to the journey they led him on. It's worth your attention." Dan Devine, The Ringer"With this elegiac portrait of the Golden Age of sports magazines, Cover Story ingeniously wrings new life out of the athletic heroes of our past. Delving deeply into the construction of the symbols, narratives, and images long seared into our collective memory, Alex Wong allows us to see beyond the Gods themselves and understand how the myths were actually created." JEFF WEISS, music journalist and founder of Passion of the Weiss

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Book SynopsisGamers, Multiculturalists, and the Great Coming Apart is the first book to pull together the central features of the American society, character, and history of the global era and its immediate aftermath into a single, powerful, comprehensive, and coherent picture. Seamlessly interdisciplinary, it looks at all facets of recent American society and history as reflecting first the global liberal paradigm that reigned from 1965 until 2016, and then the incipient paradigms that have competed during the years of crisis since.It is the first book to pull together the central features of American society, character, and history since 1965 into a single comprehensive and coherent picture that dissents from key aspects of the long-dominant paradigm. Gamers, Multiculturalists, and the Great Coming Apart describes and extensively analyzes the gamers, the fascinating new upper class that has risen to dominance in this country as in most others during the last half century. It also analyzes the character and circumstances of the middle class, working class, and underclass, laying bare the profound, many-sided conflict between the gamers and the middle and working classes. It also examines the

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Book SynopsisDispatches from the everyday adventures of two regular women in New York. An Atlantic Edition, featuring long-form journalism by Atlantic writers, drawn from contemporary articles or classic storytelling from the magazine’s 165-year archive.Welcome to Lizzie and Kaitlyn’s New York: Join two regular women as they recap small parties, weird dinners, and aimless evenings. Highlights include taking the Q train to Coney Island, an Uber to eat Garbage Plates, and a walk to a Crown Heights birthday party. Eclectic and endlessly funny, these dispatches invite you to get together and go nowhere with nobody all that famous.

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Book Synopsis“Essential for the aspiring filmmaker,” this is an inspiring, tell-all look at the independent film business from one of the industry’s most passionate supporters (Todd Solondz, director of Welcome to the Dollhouse)Hope for Film captures the rebellious punk spirit of the indie film boom in 1990s New York City and its collapse two decades later to its technology-fueled regeneration and continuing streaming-based evolution. Ted Hope, whose films have garnered 12 Oscar nominations, draws from his own personal experiences working on the early films of Ang Lee, Eddie Burns, Alan Ball, Todd Field, Hal Hartley, Michel Gondry, Nicole Holofcener, and Todd Solondz, as well as his tenures at the San Francisco Film Society, Fandor, and Amazon Studios, taking readers through the decision-making process that brought him the occasional failure as well as much success.Whether navigating negotiations with studio executives over final cuts or clashing with high-powered CAA agents over their clients, Hope offers behind-the-scenes stories from the wild and often heated world of “specialized” cinema--where art and commerce collide. As mediator between these two opposing interests, Hope offers his unique perspective on how to make movies while keeping your integrity intact and how to create a sustainable business enterprise out of that art while staying true to yourself. Against a backdrop of seismic changes in the independent film industry, from corporate co-option to the rise of social media and the streaming giants, Hope for Film provides not only an entertaining and intimate ride through the business of arthouse movies over the last decades, but also hope for its future.“There is nobody in the independent film world quite like Ted Hope. His wisdom and heart shine through every page.” —Ang Lee, Academy Award winning director of Brokeback Mountain

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Book SynopsisAbsolutely riveting . . . Essential reading for foodies, java-junkies, anthropologists, and anyone else interested in funny, sardonically told adventure stories.—Anthony Bourdain, author of Kitchen Confidential Full of humor and historical insights, The Devil’s Cup is not only ahistory of coffee, but a travelogue of a risk-taking brew-seeker. In this captivating book, Stewart Lee Allen treks three-quarters of the way around the world on a caffeinated quest to answer these profound questions: Did the advent of coffee give birth to an enlightened western civilization? Is coffee the substance that drives history? From the cliffhanging villages of Southern Yemen, where coffee beans were first cultivated eight hundred years ago, to a cavernous coffeehouse in Calcutta, the drinking spot for two of India’s Nobel Prize winners . . . from Parisian salons and cafés where the French Revolution was born, to the roadside diners and chain restaurants of the good ol’ USA, where something resembling brown water passes for coffee, Allen wittily proves that the world was wired long before the Internet. And those who deny the power of coffee (namely tea drinkers) do so at their own peril.

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Book Synopsis“SADDLE UP! Andes takes us on an exhilarating, dust-kicking ride through the actual origins and history of the first hemispheric Latinx superhero: Zorro.” —Frederick Luis Aldama, editor of Tales from la Vida: A Latinx Zorro’s Shadow explores the masked character's Latinx origins and his impact on pop culture—the inspiration for the most iconic superheroes we know today. Long before Superman or Batman made their first appearances, there was Zorro. Born on the pages of the pulps in 1919, Zorro fenced his way through the American popular imagination, carving his signature letter Z into the flesh of evildoers in Old Spanish California. Zorro is the original caped crusader, the first masked avenger, and the character who laid the blueprint for the modern American superhero. Historian and Latin American studies expert Stephen J. C. Andes unmasks the legends behind Zorro, showing that the origins of America’s first superhero lie in Latinx history and experience. Revealing the length of Zorro’s shadow over the superhero genre is a reclamation of the legend of Zorro for a multiethnic and multicultural America. Trade Review"Zorro's Shadow is a wonderfully fascinating account of a pop specter that has long haunted North America: Zorro, a settler-colonial avenger brought to life by Stephen J. C. Andes's dogged archival research and sharp interpretation." Greg Grandin, author of Fordlandia and The End of the Myth"Zorro's Shadow is the history I've been waiting for all my life, without even knowing it." Jeffrey Mariotte, Goodreads â"...a wildly entertaining journey. Andes leaves no stone unturned in his quest for the first superhero on the continent. Just in time for the original caped crusader's 100th anniversary, you owe yourself a look through this fun and fascinating ride." Kilewy, Goodreads"In this swashbuckler of a ride, Andes powerfully excavates the true significance of that swish-slash Z: the super-symbol that signifies the strength, struggle, and spirit of Latinx folx yesterday, today, and tomorrow." Frederick Luis Aldama, editor of Tales from la Vida: A Latinx"Zorro's Shadow is definitely a 'come for the geeky details, stay for the powerful insight' kind of book. Would recommend!" Noelle, Goodreads

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Book Synopsis"If there's one thing I know, it's crazy. A lot of people have called me crazy. Crazy Kristen! For a while there, it was practically my name. Women all over the world get called crazy every day. But we weren’t born crazy—we were made crazy.” Unpacking the ups and downs of Kristen’s laugh-out-loud funny, sometimes cringe-worthy dating history, He’s Making You Crazy will hold your hand through deep self-reflection—while giving you that push to put on your detective’s hat and hack your man’s email account if you need to. From trapping your boyfriend in ridiculous lies to gathering all your crush’s security question answers on the first date, Kristen shares her no-holds-barred, hysterically funny, and hard-earned advice on men, love, and modern dating. He’s Making You Crazy will give you the motivation you need to get out of an unhealthy relationship (the one that’s making you crazy!), the wisdom to step up and admit when you’re the one in the wrong, and the courage to keep your heart open through it all.Trade Review" He's Making You Crazy is a new anthem for the countless women whose tendency to fall in love fast, frequently, and fully is considered a weakness. Doute chronicles her own romantic history unselfconscious of the dizzying, electric hope she got from being in love over and over again, an act of defiance to the notion that women who love this way can expect and even deserve any and all mistreatment, deceit, or malice from the ones they love." Alana Massey, author of All the Lives I Want"Reading this book is like watching a Judd Apatow rom-com. It's so colorful, funny, and empowering as well. Kristen has been through everything in a relationship and still comes out undaunted and a baddie!" Jayme Foxx, host of CMT's Tattoo Titans

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Book Synopsis“We Are the Baby-Sitters Club is the ultimate companion guide for a generation of devout superfans. This book revisits the beloved series through grown-up eyes—but never loses the magic we all felt the moment we cracked open a fresh new book. BSC forever!" —Lucia Aniello, director and executive producer of The Baby-Sitters Club Netflix seriesA nostalgia-packed, star-studded anthology featuring contributors such as Kristen Arnett, Yumi Sakugawa, Myriam Gurba, and others exploring the lasting impact of Ann M. Martin’s beloved Baby-Sitters Club series In 1986, the first-ever meeting of the Baby-Sitters Club was called to order in a messy bedroom strewn with RingDings, scrunchies, and a landline phone. Kristy, Claudia, Stacey, and Mary Anne launched the club that birthed an entire generation of loyal readers. Ann M. Martin’s Baby-Sitters Club series featured a complex cast of characters and touched on an impressive range of issues that were underrepresented at the time: divorce, adoption, childhood illness, class division, and racism, to name a few. In We Are the Baby-Sitters Club, writers and a few visual artists from the original BSC generation will reflect on the enduring legacy of Ann M. Martin’s beloved series, thirty-five years later—celebrating the BSC’s profound cultural influence. Contributors include Paperback Crush author Gabrielle Moss, illustrator SiobhÁn Gallagher, and filmmaker Sue Ding, as well as New York Times bestselling author Kristen Arnett, Lambda Award–finalist Myriam Gurba, Black Girl Nerds founder Jamie Broadnax, and Paris Review contributor Frankie Thomas.One of LitHub's Most Anticipated Books of 2021, We Are the Baby-Sitters Club looks closely at how Ann M. Martin’s series shaped our ideas about gender politics, friendship, fashion and beyond.Trade Review"Reading this anthology was like having a big, boisterous, long-awaited conversation with friends in which we shared our great love of the series, and filled in the parts of us it failed to mirror. It was a joy, a relief, and a homecoming that I hadn't known I needed. More than a book about a series of books, it is an ode to the child readers we were, and the ways we have learned to name the experiences we couldn't find written." Melissa Febos, author of Abandon Me & Girlhood" We Are the Baby-Sitters Club is a complicated paean to Ann M. Martin's serial magnum opus, grappling with its loose ends and blind spots through the passionate insight of grown-up fans; it's a varied volume of deeply personal literary criticism that takes tween girls' lives and culture seriouslyfinally!" Johanna Fateman, founding member of Le Tigre"Turns out there were a whole lot of us obsessed with the Baby-Sitters Club! We Are the Baby-Sitters Club is the ultimate companion guide for a generation of devout superfans. This book revisits the beloved series through grown-up eyesbut never loses the magic we all felt the moment we cracked open a fresh new book. BSC forever!" Lucia Aniello, director and executive producer of The Baby-Sitters Club Netflix series"From brains and bodies to dating and dieting, and from race and representation to the cool, cute, and near queer, this pathbreaking book sheds light on readers' active reception and critical reflections of the pop culture phenoms of their generation. An outstanding work that expertly and insightfully places girls and girlhoods at the center of analysis!" Miriam Forman-Brunell, author of B abysitter: An American History"One of my happiest moments of 2020 was binge-watching Netflix's The Baby-sitters Club with my seven-year-old nieceit was the first time we ever watched something we were equally invested in. I'm excited to keep the BSC vibes going with this fun anthology, featuring work from Myriam Gurba, Kristen Arnett, and others." LitHub"We Are the Baby-Sitters Club made me cry, laugh, and appreciate now more than ever the heart and soul of the BSC. Every contribution feels personal and unafraid to challengewith lovethis well-read series. Ann M. Martin teaches kids a unique lesson in emotional literacy that we now get to enjoyfully grownin the works within We Are the Baby-Sitters Club . If the Baby-Sitters Club was in your life in any way, this anthology is a must-read! Katy Farina, bestselling artist of the Baby-Sitters Little Sister series"The Baby-Sitters Club taught a whole generation of American girls the importance of having a crew. This book is a reunion, a homecoming, an opportunity to connect with all the folks you grew up with but never even knew, a chance to really understand why these seven girls have stayed with us and shaped us for so many years. More than three decades after we joined them for the adventure of a lifetime, We Are the Baby-Sitters Club proves that the best friendships allow us to reminisce, to reflect, and to grow." Brittney Cooper, author of Eloquent Rage"An explorative collection of essays that sends you right back to those nostalgic moments of childhood." Shannon Wright, cocreator of indie bestseller Twins"I picked up this collection because I was obsessed with the BSC as a child. I couldn't put it down because, as an adult, I am obsessed with the complexities of gender, friendship, race, and power. This anthology helped me connect my childhood and adult interests in a way that few things have." Ann Friedman, coauthor of Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close"More than a book about a series of books, it is an ode to the child readers we were, and the ways we have learned to name the experiences we couldn't find written." Melissa Febos, author of Abandon Me  and  Girlhood Table of ContentsForeword Introduction: We Are the Baby-Sitters Club: Marisa Crawford and Megan Milks Say Hello to Your Friends: Girl Groups and Friendship Culture “Fun with Roleplay”: Kristen Arnett “The Same…but Different”: Anjali Khosla “Thirteen Things a Middle-Aged Man Can Learn from The Baby-Sitters Club”: Jack Shepherd “No Boys Allowed: On Girl Groups, Boyfriends, and Kristy’s Great Anxiety”: Megan Milks “Could Mary Anne Save the Soul?”: Jeanne Thornton “Getting Over Claudia and Calories”: Jennifer EppersonFashion Statements: Personal Style in the BSC “What the BSC Wore (And What It Meant)”: Kim Hutt Mayhew “I Want to Be a Claudia but I Know I’m a Stacey”: Marisa Crawford “Guess the Baby-Sitter: A Pop Quiz”: Buzz Slutzky “Scripts of Girlhood: Handwriting and the Baby-Sitters Club”: Kelly BlewettThe BSC and Us: On Seeing Ourselves Reflected (Or Not) “Let’s Talk About Jessi”: Yodassa Williams “The Truth About Being a Pre-Teen Diabetic”: Jami Sailor “Claudia Kishi, My Asian-American Female Role Model of the '90s”: Yumi Sakugawa “The Different Shades of Jessi Ramsey”: Jamie Broadnax “‘I’ve Been Thinking About Families Lately’”: Kristen Felicetti “Kristy and the Secrets of Autism and Ableism”: Haley Moss “Making The Claudia Kishi Club”: Sue Ding “Jessi on the Margins: Black Characters Then & Now”: ChantÉ GriffinBe Bossy: Entrepreneurship and the Business of Babysitting “Kristy’s Invisible Hand and Das Baby-Sitters Club Kapital”: Myriam Gurba “Data-Sitters Club Super-Special: Business Is to Successful as Baby Sitter Is to…”: Quinn Dombrowski, Anouk Lang, Katherine Bowers, Maria Sachiko Cecire, Roopika Risam, Lee Skallerup Bessette “I Am My Own Mr. Mom: Gender, Caregiving, and Labor in the BSC”: Caolan MaddenGreat Ideas: The BSC World Beyond Stoneybrook “Jaded Quitters Club”: Siobhan Gallagher “Could The Baby-Sitters Club Have Been More Gay?”:Frankie Thomas “No Ship Too Small: A Deep-Dive into Baby-Sitters Club Fan Fiction”: Logan Hughes “From Girl Friends to Monster Sitters: How the BSC Spawned a Whole Moral Universe”: Gabrielle Moss

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Book SynopsisLong before there was Twitter or Facebook, MySpace created an entirely new way to be a lonely, confused teenager—and music was the site’s beating heart. With MySpace, you could finally find your people, your scene, and your home. With new and extensive interviews with scene pioneers and mainstays like Geoff Rickly (Thursday), Gape Saporta (Midtown/Cobra Starship), Chris Carrabba (Dashboard Confessional) and Max Bemis (Say Anything), Tedder has crafted a once-in-a-generation exploration of The Scene that is as forthright as it is tenderly nostalgic. Even beyond emo, Tedder's interviews with artists from Colbie Caillat to Lil Jon stand out in this epic journey through the 2000s and what they meant.MySpace offered excitement and freedom, but it wasn't long before shortsighted business decisions led the site to lose the social media battle to Facebook, and Tedder talked to the executives and employees who saw it happen. Table of ContentsPrologue #1: Into The FoxholePrologue #2: Why We Miss MySpaceChapter One: Back In The DayChapter Two: The My Generation Chapter Three: The Lonely Hearts Club Chapter Four: Top EightChapter Five: Enough Space For EveryoneChapter Six: Top Of The WorldChapter Seven: Blogging OnChapter Eight: The Bottom Falls OutChapter Nine: Kerplunk Chapter Ten: FalloutEpilogue: Space Was The PlaceThe Who’s Who of MySpace Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisFeaturing dozens of interviews with the cast and crew, fans of the franchise, film scholars, former and current cheerleaders, fellow filmmakers, and more. Gabrielle Union, Kirsten Dunst, and Eliza Dushku have all risen to fame since their performances in the original cheer classic, but boldface names like Solange Knowles, Rihanna, Hayden Panetierre, Ashley Tisdale, and more also appeared in Bring It On films. The first-time director who helmed the movie, Peyton Reed, now has multiple Marvel smash hit films under his belt. Not bad for a movie that almost didn’t get greenlit in the first place—but went on to win the box office its opening weekend, gross more than $90.45 million worldwide, and spawn a half-dozen sequels, a Tony-nominated musical, and a whole new genre of female-led films. With the support of the filmmakers and producers, author and pop culture expert Kase Wickman accessed Universal's archives and conducted new interviews with cast, crew, and more for a full reveal of all the stories fans will love in this complete history and examination of the legacy of the greatest cheerleading movie almost never made.Beyond its 20th anniversary, the legacy of Bring It On endures. It’s time we all understood how it changed, like, everything.Table of Contents“Hate Us Cause We’re Beautiful”: How It All Began “I Know You Don’t Think a White Girl Made That Up”: The Script “Missy’s the Poo, So Take a Big Whiff”: Getting the Green Light “Just What I Need”: Finding the Perfect Director “Can She Yell?”: Casting the Movie “Bring It”: Race and Bring It On “Sexy Leslie and Jan-Jan the Cheerleading Man”: Sexuality and Bring It On “So, Is That Your Band or Something?”: The Music of the Movie Dropping the Spirit Stick: Bring It On Goes to Cheer Camp “Cheerocracy”: Filming Bring It On The Unsung Hero of Bring It On: How a Dialogue-Free Scene Became Everyone’s Favorite “Feels Like First”: Expectations vs. Reality The Sequels and Musical Where Are They Now?

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Book SynopsisHow do we create a universe of truthful and verifiable information, available to everyone?In The New Enlightenment and the Fight to Free Knowledge, MIT Open Learning’s Peter B. Kaufman describes the powerful forces that have purposely crippled our efforts to share knowledge widely and freely.Popes and their inquisitors, emperors and their hangmen, commissars and their secret police—throughout history, all have sought to stanch the free flow of information. Kaufman writes of times when the Bible could not be translated—you’d be burned for trying; when dictionaries and encyclopedias were forbidden; when literature and science and history books were trashed and pulped—sometimes along with their authors; and when efforts to develop public television and radio networks were quashed by private industry.In the 21st century, the enemies of free thought have taken on new and different guises—giant corporate behemoths, sprawling national security agencies, gutted regulatory commissions. Bereft of any real moral compass or sense of social responsibility, their work to surveil and control us are no less nefarious than their 16th- and 18th- and 20th- century predecessors. They are all part of what Kaufman calls the Monsterverse.The New Enlightenment and the Fight to Free Knowledge maps out the opportunities to mobilize for the fight ahead of us. With the Internet and other means of media production and distribution—video especially—at hand, knowledge institutions like universities, libraries, museums, and archives have a special responsibility now to counter misinformation, disinformation, and fake news—and especially efforts to control the free flow of information. A film and video producer and former book publisher, Kaufman begins to draft a new social contract for our networked video age. He draws his inspiration from those who fought tooth and nail against earlier incarnations of the Monsterverse—including William Tyndale in the 16th century; Denis Diderot in the 18th; untold numbers of Soviet and Central and East European dissidents in the 20th—many of whom paid the ultimate price. Their successors? Advocates of free knowledge like Aaron Swartz, of free software like Richard Stallman, of an enlightened public television and radio network like James Killian, of a freer Internet like Tim Berners-Lee, of fuller rights and freedoms like Edward Snowden. All have been striving to secure for us a better world, marked by the right balance between state, society, and private gain. The concluding section of the book, its largest piece, builds on their work, drawing up a progressive agenda for how today’s free thinkers can band together now to fight and win. With everything shut and everyone going online, The New Enlightenment and the Fight to Free Knowledge is a rousing call to action that expands the definition of what it means to be a citizen in the 21st century.

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Book SynopsisA searching memoir of a life lived in the flicker of an action film, by the author of I Will Take the Answer In his first memoir, Ander Monson guides readers through a scene-by-scene exploration of the 1987 film Predator, which he has watched 146 times. Some fighters might not have time to bleed, but Monson has the patience to consider their adventure, one frame at a time. He turns his obsession into a lens through which he poignantly examines his own life, formed by mainstream, white, male American culture. Between scenes, Monson delves deeply into his adolescence in Michigan's Upper Peninsula and Riyadh, his role as a father and the loss of his own mother, and his friendships with men bound by the troubled camaraderie depicted in action and sci-fi blockbusters. Along with excursions into the conflicted pleasures of cosplay and first-person shooters, he imagines himself beside the poet and memoirist Paul Monette, who wrote the novelization of the movie while his partner was dying of AIDS.A sincere and playful book that lovingly dissects the film, Predator also offers questions and critiques of masculinity, fandom, and their interrelation with acts of mass violence. In a stirring reversal, one chapter exposes Monson through the Predator's heat-seeking vision, asking him, What do you know about the workings of the hidden world? As Monson brings us into the brilliant depths of the film and its universe, the hunt begins.

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Book Synopsis

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Book Synopsis

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Book Synopsis

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Book Synopsis

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Book SynopsisWelcome reader. Please, make yourself comfortable: pull your chair nearer the fire, put your feet up on the dog, settle your cheeks into the toilet seat. This is The Memeing of Life, an exhaustive, exhausting, guide to the world of internet memes. Perhaps you have no idea what a meme is, so have bought this little book to expand your small mind. Possibly you’re the sort of friendless berk who is already an expert but has picked the book up in order to poke holes in it. Whoever you are, wherever you're from, you're in the right place: prepare to learn everything you need to know about the greatest thing the internet has to offer – memes!

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Book SynopsisImmerse yourself in the world of the Peaky Blinders with this entertaining cultural guide to the hit BBC TV show!Welcome to The World of Peaky Blinders, a cultural guide to the world that inspired the hit BBC drama. This fun compendium of trivia, quizzes and 'how-to' guides will teach you how to dress, talk, drink and thrive like a Peaky Blinder. Journey back into postwar Britain and meet television's most notorious family of charismatic characters - as well as the real gangsters who inspired the show.Master the skills that Tommy and the gang relied upon to make their way in life, shuffle through the soundtrack to their adventures and test your knowledge on the ins and outs of the Shelby empire. So, don your flat cap and head to the Garrison. Thomas Shelby will see you now.

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Book SynopsisMr. Jurgenson makes a first sortie toward a new understanding of the photograph, wherein artistry or documentary intent have given way to communication and circulation. Like Susan Sontag’s On Photography, to which it self-consciously responds, The Social Photo is slim, hard-bitten and picture-free. – New York Times A set of bold theoretical reflections on how the social photo has remade our world.With the rise of the smart phone and social media, cameras have become ubiquitous, infiltrating nearly every aspect of social life. The glowing camera screen is the lens through which many of us seek to communicate our experience. But our thinking about photography has been slow to catch-up; this major fixture of everyday life is still often treated in the terms of art or journalism. In The Social Photo, social theorist Nathan Jurgenson develops bold new ways of understanding photography in the age

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Book SynopsisFor nearly fifty years, Vivian Gornick's essays, written with her characteristic clarity of perception and vibrant prose, have explored feminism and writing, literature and culture, politics and personal experience. Drawing writing from the course of her career, All That is Given illuminates one of the driving themes behind Gornick's work: that the painful process of understanding one's self is what binds us to the larger world.In these essays, Gornick explores the lives and literature of Alfred Kazin, Mary McCarthy, Diana Trilling, Philip Roth, Joan Didion, and Herman Melville; the cultural impact of Silent Spring and Uncle Tom's Cabin; and the characters you might only find in a New York barber shop or midtown bus terminal. Even more, All That Is Given brings back into print her incendiary essays, first published in the Village Voice, championing the emergence of the women's liberation movement of the 1970s. Alternately crackling with urgency or lucid with insight, the essays in All That Is Given demonstrate one of America's most beloved critics at her best.Trade Review"Gornick's language is so fresh and so blunt; it's a quintessentially American voice, and a beautiful one." -- Dwight Garner * The New York Times *She deserves as much credit as any writer alive for codifying the current form of the personal essay -- Nora Caplan-Bricker * The Cut, New York Magazine *She presents her interview subjects like characters in literature, as the protagonists of their own experience, and, for that reason, the book is not simply documentary but a work of literature, too, rich, moving, and contradictory. -- Alexandra Schwartz * The New Yorker *Her unrepentant belief in strong feeling as the heartbeat of any political approach to the world explains why, though many good histories of American communism have appeared since Romance, none have captured, elevated, and lit up the experience in quite the same way. -- Lana Dee Povitz * Los Angeles Review of Books *Written with her usual cogency, verve, and elegance -- George Scialabba * Boston Review *Vivian Gornick is more than a formidable intelligence, she's an entire sensibility. The essays collected here show how a mind shapes and becomes itself in engagement with the writers, thinkers, social facts and theories of her many days. The voice, at once her own and the expression of an entire culture-New York, working class, feminist, Jewish, both open-minded and skeptical-is a gift to be handed down from one generation to the next. You're holding that voice in your hands. -- Marco Roth, author of The ScientistsWe all talk the talk about public intellectuals nowadays. Vivian Gornick walks the walk. The essays in Taking a Long Look could not be more direct, more authoritative, more alive with the pleasures of discovery or alert to the ambiguities of argument. Whether writing literary or political criticism, memoir, or feminist polemic, her mastery is assured. -- George Scialabba, author of How to Be Depressed[Taking a Long Look] is illuminating and a welcome addition to the astute critic's oeuvre. * Publishers Weekly *Vivian Gornick is more than a formidable intelligence, she's an entire sensibility. The essays collected here show how a mind shapes and becomes itself in engagement with the writers, thinkers, social facts and theories of her many days. The voice, at once her own and the expression of an entire culture-New York, working class, feminist, Jewish, both open-minded and skeptical-is a gift to be handed down from one generation to the next. -- Marco Roth, author of The ScientistsThe lasting value of her work lies in her commitment to the question of what it means to feel "expressive": to experience the feeling that tells a person "not approximately, but precisely" who they are. -- Dayna Tortorici, The New York Review of BooksVivian Gornick is one of the most important essayists of all time. Whether writing on the self, feminism, isolation or politics, she is urgent, sharp-eyed and vital. A superb collection. -- Sinéad Gleeson, author of ConstellationsAn engaging collection of sharp, lively essays. * Kirkus Reviews *Taking A Long Look is a magisterial volume of essays which span fifty years of cultural and feminist interrogation. -- Lauren LeBlanc * Observer *An exhilarating trip. -- Elodie Rose Barnes * Lucy Writers *Gornick's work is frequently an examination of the seams of history and her unflinching focus shows how things might have been shaped, and perhaps still could be. * Morning Star *Incisive * New York Times *Magisterial -- Lauren LeBlanc * Observer *To read Gornick is to firstly fall in love with the act of reading ... The closeness of her reading resembles an archivist collecting items to store, cataloguing little details invisible to others ... In Gornick's hands, everything has a story to tell. -- Barathi Nakkeeran * Chicago Review of Books *In having another occasion to consider Gornick, there are more opportunities to celebrate what makes her writing so distinctly her own-she is the rare writer who always wants to find, in a chorus, a voice. -- Haley Mlotek * Hazlitt *Vivian Gornick's brilliant half-century writing career can't be captured in a single essay or volume. To engage with her writing is to be left wanting more of her writing. -- Liza Featherstone * Jacobin *Reading Vivian Gornick often feels like watching someone paint: you're not sure, at first, what it's going to be, but you're happy to follow her brushstrokes as the picture emerges ... Gornick repeatedly goes further, looks longer, risks more. -- Claire Lowdon * Times Literary Supplement *Taking a Long Look [shows] Vivian Gornick's consistency as a searing writer and canny thinker. -- Nell Beram * Shelf Awareness *Captivating. Through Gornick, we observe and understand the undertow of politics in an individual's everyday life; we glimpse pain, loneliness and hopefulness. -- Lynn Enright * Irish Times *Gornick is well regarded as a stylist, and her sentences, elegant and precise, are sometimes complex but never unnecessarily ornate ... [Her essays] are lively, well observed, and particularly recommended to students of 20th-century intellectual history. -- J. Oliver Conroy * The Washington Examiner *Gornick has a sharp, authoritative mind and doesn't mince words. -- Michael Quinn * Red Hook Star-Revue *Gornick never deals the simplistic, polemical blow; instead, she mines her own hard-won experience and profound and honest ambivalence about great writers (with great flaws) to illuminate their significance as well as our collective life and times. -- Melissa Benn * Books of the Year 2021, New Statesman *This compulsive collection functions as a primer to a mind whose vitality is hard to match ... [Gornick's] insights have lost none of their brilliance. -- Hephzibah Anderson * The Observer *

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Book SynopsisTHE PERFECT GIFT BOOK YOU'VE BEEN LOOKING FOR ALL YEAR.Zoomers vs. Millennials, let the battle begin! Culture Wars brings the intergenerational online feud to the page.Skinny jeans vs. flares, side-parts vs. curtains, lol vs. sksksksksk and a whole lot of sardonic existential dread; this is the PERFECT gift for Gen Zs and Millennials alike.This hilarious book explores the internet's most popular and viral memes, from parodying everything Millennials hold sacred (yes, we're talking about Harry Potter), to mocking Zoomers' sense of fashion.So whether you're looking for a satirical, laugh-out-loud gift book for a cheugy Millennial, or hoping to entice a TikTok teen into reading a book, Culture Wars has you covered.

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Book SynopsisIn this searching, elegant essay, critically acclaimed writer Katherine Angel examines the place of fathers in contemporary culture with her characteristic mix of boldness and nuance, asking how the mixture of love and hatred we feel towards our fathers-and patriarchal father figures-can be turned into a relationship that is generative rather than destructive.Moving deftly between psychoanalysis from Freud to Winnicott, cultural visions of fathering from King Lear to Ivanka Trump, and issues from incest to #MeToo, Angel probes the fraught bond of daughters and fathers, women and the patriarchal regime. What, she asks, is this discomfiting space of love and hate-and how are we to reckon with both fealty and rebellion?As in her earlier Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again, Angel proves herself yet again to be one of the most perceptive feminist writers at work today.Trade ReviewThis is a brave and brilliant book by one of the most insightful and articulate writers at work today. Katherine Angel is unafraid to look head on at the forgotten figure in feminism's critique of patriarchy: the father. All of us, daughters and sons, mothers and fathers, are enriched by confronting these libidinal energies, these daddy issues at the centre of all of our lives. -- Lauren Elkin, author of FlâneuseIn this impressive and intelligent examination of the father figure, Angel expertly intersects the subject with feminism, mythology, Donald Winnicott, Brett Kavanaugh and more. Her unstinting eye and intellectual vigour make Daddy Issues an engaging interrogation. It feels utterly vital in the context of #MeToo and the political flux the world currently finds itself in. -- Sinéad Gleeson, author of Constellations: Reflections from LifeEffortlessly moving from the novels of Virginia Woolf to the theories of psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott, Angel demonstrates a sharp intellectual acuity in her elucidation of the cultural mythos surrounding "daddies." The result is a valuable contribution to the feminist understanding of fatherhood. * Publishers Weekly *In this cheekily titled feminist analysis, author Katherine Angel dissects the patriarchy with a sharp combination of individual psychology and cultural critique. An exciting follow-up to Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again. -- Alison Foreman * AV Club *Katherine Angel's astute observations on the impact of the #MeToo movement, the retrenchment of feminism by younger women, and our current state of gender relations is compelling. -- Roberta E. Winter * New York Journal of Books *An examination of our often prurient fascination with the dynamic, and that fascination's inherent misogyny. [Angel's] thought-provoking approach is to argue that our society has overlooked the place of daddies in 'daddy issues.' To prove the point, she dexterously analyzes a variety of literary works, historical figures like Virginia Woolf's father, Leslie Stephen, and contemporary tabloid examples, like Meghan Markle and Ivanka Trump. -- Annie Hamilton * New York Times Book Review *

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