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[Tues, 15.Aug.06]
:. What Gets Into Us by Moira Crone
Like the works of Flannery O'Connor, this collection transcends the genre of "Southern Literature" and probes deeply into the paradoxes of the psyche and the zeitgeist of modern America.

[Mon, 14.Aug.06]
:. The One Percent Doctrine by Ron Suskind
Unfortunately, as Suskind relates, the mistakes caused by Cheney's doctrine -- a strange mix of interventionist brio and isolationist no-nothing-ism -- would begin to backfire on the actors almost immediately. And so came the torture.

[Fri, 11.Aug.06]
:. Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry, 1890-1919 by Tim Brooks
Tim Brooks’ Lost Sounds is such an accomplishment that no other study on his subject need ever be written.

[Thur, 10.Aug.06]
:. Making Easy Listening: Material Culture and Postwar American Recording by Tim J. Anderson
In Making Easy Listening: Material Culture and Postwar American Recording, Tim J. Anderson shifts the focus away from more familiar approaches to popular music studies in favor of an examination of the creation of the cultural objects, techniques, and industries that played a significant role in popular music as we know it today.

[Wed, 9.Aug.06]
:. Seaworthy by T.R. Pearson
Pearson's style provides the reader a welcoming warmth that contrasts with the frigid cold Willis felt on his travels.

[Tues, 8.Aug.06]
:. BOFFO!: How I Learned to Love the Blockbuster and Fear the Bomb by Peter Bart
Wherever audience and critical reaction has fused together to create a cultural consensus of "this stinks" or "this is amazing," Bart will be right there, ready to nod along with the best of them, and to tell everyone why everyone is right.

[Mon, 7.Aug.06]
:. 1973 Nervous Breakdown: Watergate, Warhol and the Birth of Post-Sixties America by Andreas Killen
As Killen states, the '70s were a "decade of oedipal crises" that "have reemerged with new intensity in our own time.

[Fri, 4.Aug.06]
:. JPod by Douglas Coupland
What's missing from JPod altogether is a sense of the increasingly participatory nature of online culture.

[Thur, 3.Aug.06]
:. Bookmarks: Brief reviews of new and overlooked books
This week: The Cosmic Landscape: String Theory and the Illusion of Intelligent Design -- It's not that we're necessarily special, we're simply a strong statistical probability.

[Wed, 2.Aug.06]
:. I Hate Myself And Want To Die: The 52 Most Depressing Songs You've Ever Heard by Tom Reynolds
Reynolds serves as an admirable tour guide through his murderers' row of craptastically depressing tunes.

[Tues, 1.Aug.06]
:. The Ruins by Scott Smith
The set-up is a tour-de-force, but unfortunately, once you've been lured in, you start to feel like the victim of a bait-and-switch.

[Mon, 31.Jul.06]
:. The Economics of Attention: Style and Substance in the Age of Information by Richard Lanham
Instead of trying to force the idea of total paradigm shift, Lanham instead embraces the possibilities of paradigm oscillation.

[Fri, 28.Jul.06]
:. Bookmarks: Brief reviews of new and overlooked books
This week: Istanbul: Memories of a City — His Istanbul is a cry against the city itself and all that it contains being forgotten.

[Wed, 26.Jul.06]
:. You're Not You by Michelle Wildgen
Wildgen balances the debate by making it a question of trust, not a question of assisted suicide.

[Tues, 25.Jul.06]
:. Hong Kong Connections: Transnational Imagination in Action Cinema by Meaghan Morris, Siu Leung Li, Stephen Chan Ching-kiu
It makes sense that Hong Kong -- a region with a confused identity -- would produce cinema both local and universal.

[Mon, 24.Jul.06]
:. Kamikaze Diaries by Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney
No matter how much they read, how hard they attempted to justify their deaths, the boy pilots ultimately felt lost, afraid to die alone.

[Fri, 21.Jul.06]
:. Bookmarks: Brief reviews of new and overlooked books
This week: Special Edition: Upcoming releases from Bloodaxe Books and Dufour Editions.

[Thur, 20.Jul.06]
:. Altman on Altman by David Thompson
Altman has quite an anecdotal history among his faithful. Any book that claims to dig deeper really has to deliver.

[Wed, 19.Jul.06]
:. Heartbreaker: A Memoir of Judy Garland by John Meyer
Meyer pulls no punches when he describes Garland's ravenous need for Ritalin and vodka. Still, it never feels like he's just reaching for cheap, gossipy prose.

[Tues, 18.Jul.06]
:. Tamerlane: Sword of Islam, Conqueror of the World by Justin Marozzi
How is it possible to botch a biography of Temur? This is a man who rode his Tatar hordes across Asia, leaving ravaged cities and towering piles of skulls in his wake.

[Mon, 17.Jul.06]
:. Yann Andrea Steiner by Marguerite Duras
"Like all men, every day, even if only for a few instants, you become a killer of women." Whose rage is she describing? With outstanding writing like this, it doesn't matter.

[Fri, 14.Jul.06]
:. Bookmarks: Brief reviews of new and overlooked books
FAB places the reader at dinner opposite a woman who talks ceaselessly about herself, but rarely reveals anything genuine -- leading the captive to wonder, "Is there substance here?"

[Thur, 13.Jul.06]
:. Play Between Worlds: Exploring Online Game Culture by T.L. Taylor
If you have no intention of ever playing EverQuest but are still curious about what sort of spells clerics can cast and the contingent ethics of 'kill stealing', this text is for you.

[Wed, 12.Jul.06]
:. The Book of Trouble by Ann Marlowe
For priding ourselves on being so advanced in comparison to what we view as outdated ways of love -- arranged marriage and traditional housewives -- there's a lot of discontent.

[Tues, 11.Jul.06]
:. We Are All Welcome Here by Elizabeth Berg
Berg is such a marvelous writer than she can keep you eagerly reading on for 150-plus pages even when the plot arc is a flat line.

[Mon, 10.Jul.06]
:. American Taxation, American Slavery by Robin Einhorn
By forcefully and persuasively offering a new interpretation of American history, Robin Einhorn has provided the raw material upon which popularizers in the mass media can build. Let us hope they do.

[Fri, 7.Jul.06]
:. Once in a Lifetime: The Incredible Story of the New York Cosmos by Gavin Newsham
In recounting the team's rise to prominence, Newsham mixes in numerous pop culture and historical references that help place this moment in time.

[Thur, 6.Jul.06]
:. The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout, PhD
It is so tastefully informative, well-written, and kindly, that you feel like you're having a cup of tea with a brilliant friend who studies the varieties of sociopathy the way one might memorize every breed of rose.

[Wed, 5.Jul.06]
:. Laurel Canyon: The Inside Story of Rock-and-Roll's Legendary Neighborhood by Michael Walker
Does anyone who might be interested in this book need a lengthy recitation of the Woodstock or Altamont festivals, and their subsequent psychological impact?