Recent Books Columns

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Friday, December 19 2008

The Vast Immensity of it All: Fear and Loathing on Sunset Boulevard

By Rodger Jacobs

Faces of Sunset Boulevard is, without a doubt, one of the strongest statements about man’s dark fate in the West ever committed to paper in the author and photographer’s chosen form.

(more Deconstruction Zone)

Friday, December 12 2008

The Politics Inside Black Pop

By Mark Reynolds

Will black pop artists still see themselves as outsiders now that a black person is President? Will they use their cultural platform to criticize him if need be, just as they did to help elect him?

(more Negritude 2.0)

Thursday, December 11 2008

Shameful Exposure

By Chris Barsanti

A fiery Kate Winslet saves morality tale in 'The Reader' while a similarly powerful Meryl Streep can't do the same for the overly certain 'Doubt'.

(more The Screener)

Wednesday, December 3 2008

Hughes Oughta Know

By Jennifer Makowsky

The British Library bought Ted Hughes' literary archive, further inspiring film and literary speculation into his life with Sylvia Plath.

(more The Box Office Belletrist)

Monday, December 1 2008

There Was No Way to Tell This Man Was a Monster

By Monte Williams

Scott Keith's Dungeon of Death is a confused, unfocused, meandering account of the most gruesome death yet in an industry known for killing off its performers at startlingly young ages.

(more Lowbrow Literati)

Monday, November 24 2008

Fresh Squeeze with Pulp

By Michael Abernethy

The dimestore novels of the '50s and '60s helped foster the gay rights movement. And many of them aroused their readers while inspiring them.

(more Queer, Isn't It?)

Friday, November 14 2008

The Hardest Work Imaginable: Bukowski’s Wine-Stained Notebook

By Rodger Jacobs

Fear, one must understand, is the lubricant that keeps the wheels of human progress greased. Charles Bukowski understood this concept all too well.

(more Deconstruction Zone)

Monday, October 27 2008

Our Zombies, Our Selves

By George Reisch

Zombies, politicians, and consumers alike seek immediate gratification. But can they be happy?

(more Pop Goes Philosophy)

Thursday, September 25 2008

Retelling the Story of Black Music: Bert Williams, Godfather of the Black Stage & Studio

By Mark Reynolds

Bert Williams in blackface started a conversation about representing blackness within a mainstream context that has continued through virtually every crossover moment in black American life.

(more Negritude 2.0)

Monday, August 25 2008

He’s Lost Control

By Jennifer Makowsky

The kids who grew up in the '90s had the haunted Kurt Cobain; my generation had the tormented Ian Curtis.

(more The Box Office Belletrist)

Tuesday, July 29 2008

Rebel Rebel

By Jennifer Makowsky

The time is ripe for revisiting One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, as we're all aware that individual freedoms are still being suppressed by governments around the world.

(more The Box Office Belletrist)

Monday, July 21 2008

Samuel Fuller, “The Poet of Potboilers”

By Rodger Jacobs

Fuller was a playful but hard-bitten cynic who imposed his sometimes weary, whistling-past-the-graveyard worldview on all those people sitting in the dark.

(more Deconstruction Zone)