Recent Books Features

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Wednesday, August 5 2009

Pot, Skinny-Dipping, and Freedom Rock: Woodstock and the Year of the Outdoor Music Festival (Part 2)

By Rob Kirkpatrick

PopMatters presents the second part of a chapter on Woodstock from Kirkpatrick's recent book 1969: The Year Everything Changed. Part two covers Woodstock appearances by the Who, the Band, Jimi Hendrix and more.

Monday, August 3 2009

James Rollins

By PopMatters Staff

Best-selling author James Rollins reveals a talent to PopMatters 20 Questions not otherwise seen in his many books -- beware, kitties and politicians, lest he approach you wielding a scalpel.

Pot, Skinny-Dipping, and Freedom Rock: Woodstock and the Year of the Outdoor Music Festival (Part 1)

By Rob Kirkpatrick

Today and Wednesday, PopMatters is presenting a chapter on Woodstock from Kirkpatrick's recent book 1969: The Year Everything Changed. Part one covers the run-up to the festival as well as those early sets by the Grateful Dead and Janis Joplin.

Wednesday, July 29 2009

It’s All Too Beautiful

By David Banash

A suspicion of beauty is vital if one hopes to have any relation to it that isn't completely compromised; as Walter Benjamin said, beauty is the other side of the coin of injustice.

Wednesday, July 22 2009

Ridley Pearson

By PopMatters Staff

Ridley Pearson, New York Times bestselling author of killer crime fiction and award-winning author of young readers’ books, rather fancies himself a bit like George Clooney and Harold, of Harold and His Purple Crayon -- sans the blanket, of course.

John Updike: The Final Ornament

By Michael Antman

Ever the completist, John Updike had managed to finish his life-long project of drawing and connecting the things of his world. A kind of psychic recycler, he never let anything go to waste.

Friday, July 17 2009

An Unlikely Candidate for Influence: ‘Naked Lunch’ at 50 Years Young

By Dave Teeuwen

William S. Burroughs changed the way writers would think of honesty in literature, achieving the mark of true greatness in 20th century literature by releasing the last banned book in the United States.

Wednesday, July 15 2009

A Glimpse of a Fast-changing China

By Jack Patrick Rodgers

‘Factory Girls’ and ‘The People's Republic of Capitalism’ give us a snapshot of the dramatic changes China is undergoing.

Monday, July 13 2009

The Pogues and Irish Cultural Continuity

By Pádraic Grant

Shane MacGowan's awareness and adaptation of trends in the literary world, along with the narrative quality and structural experimentation of his work, should cement his status as both a musical and literary figure.

Monday, June 22 2009

Aleksandar Hemon

By PopMatters Staff

“Hell,” Hemon tells PopMatters 20 Questions, “is being stuck at an airport without a book, starving for thought, forced to watch CNN.” Heaven might be a bathtub full of Turkish coffee …

Friday, June 19 2009

Bumming Smokes in Paris and London: George Orwell’s Obsession with Tobacco

By Josh Indar

Cigarette smoke so permeates George Orwell’s stories it almost leaves stains on one’s fingers when reading his books.

Friday, June 12 2009

Love Your Big Brother: What Orwell’s ‘1984’ Tells Us About 2009

By Nav Purewal

George Orwell’s seminal book can equip its readers with the intellectual apparatus necessary to see through the routine mendacity and stupefying barrage of euphemism that plagues contemporary political life.

Thursday, May 21 2009

How Radiohead’s Business Model Shook Up the Music Industry

By Greg Kot

Ripped: How the Wired Generation Revolutionized Music tells the story of a new grassroots music industry, created by the laptop generation, with the fans and bands in charge.

Tuesday, May 19 2009

China Underground: The Uighur Jimi Hendrix

By Zachary Mexico

Like almost no other music in China, the kid’s improvising. He’s rattling off little motives from Spanish folk songs and then, without notice, shifting his fingering patterns and taking the music in completely new directions.

Sunday, May 17 2009

Christopher Potter

By PopMatters Staff

Christopher Potter captures the universe as we know it between the covers of his compelling book, You Are Here, but closer to home, it's Doctor Who that captures his fancy.

Wednesday, May 13 2009

How It Could Be Different: An Interview with Sarah Katherine Lewis

By Nicole Solomon

The sex worker turned memoir author and columnist discusses the egalitarian nature of the sex industry, the devaluation of the body, and why you should just go ahead and eat that bacon if you want it.

Wednesday, April 22 2009

‘Japanese Goth’: A Manifesto for the Beautiful Macabre

By Oliver Ho

This book seeks to place Japan's fashion subculture known as "Gothic Lolita" on a continuum of fine art, fashion and literature.

A Fan’s Notes: An Interview with Journalist Bob Drury

By Steven Ward

Newspaperman, magazine journo and best-selling author Bob Drury tells PopMatters about his prolific career in journalism and the path from newspapers to magazines to the New York Times best-seller list.

Sunday, April 19 2009

Augusten Burroughs

By PopMatters Staff

What do you get when you mix Lolita, Dexter and Ignatius? Something like Augusten Burroughs.

Wednesday, April 15 2009

China Underground: The Slacker

By Zachary Mexico

In this excerpt from PopMatters' new book China Underground, Zachary Mexico tells us about the tall, handsome Liu Jianfeng, of stylish clothes and beautiful hair -- for whom time is running out.

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