Books

'Garage': A Visually and Intellectually Rich Study of a Seemingly Blank Space

Olivia Erlanger and Luis Ortega Govela's Garage challenges the beguiling, energizing, and yet limiting power of the garage in America as a symbol of escape and reinvention.

Books

Fracturing to Survive in Tanya Tagaq's 'Split Tooth'

Inuk musician/writer Tanya Tagaq's first novel, Split Tooth, tells a magical, fucked-up story about teenage girls' adolescence in the Arctic.

Books

Michael Cho's 'Shoplifter' Showcases What He Does Best

Existential loneliness and small comforts are perfectly conveyed in three simple colors in Michael Cho's graphic novel, Shoplifter.

Books

The Enigma of Russian Dada

If art is about the fostering and maintenance of traditions, then the Russians were proposing a kind of anti-art. An exploration of the exhibition catalog, Russian Dada 1914-1924.

Books

Short Stories: Women in the Workplace

Lucia Berlin, Na'am al-Baz, Mia Alvar, Hananah Zaheer, and Laura van den Berg share the seldom-told stories of women's lives in the blue- and white-collar worlds.

Books

'Aquinas and the Market' and the Possibility of a "Truly Humane Economic System"

With Aquinas and the Market, economist and theologian Mary L. Hirschfeld begins a necessary conversation between economic and theological sectors, in the academy and, one hopes, outside the ivory towers and seminaries, to calculate our ultimate worth.

Books

'Room to Dream', in which David Lynch Has a Conversation with His Own Biography

Room to Dream brims with detail but the real David Lynch remains elusive.

Books

'Protest Kitchen' Is Often, Like Our Politics, Unsettling

Carol J. Adams and Virginia Messina's Protest Kitchen provides easy, everyday tips to help make positive change in the world, but it might best be read with the comfort of a vegan Irish Cream in hand.

Books

John Berger was a Lifelong Cultural Agitator with a Valuable Point of View

Joshua Sperling's biography of John Berger is more of an art history text that's focused on specific social and political elements as they are connected through Berger's perspective.

Books

Ursula K. Le Guin: Old Soul, New Worlds

Arwen Curry's documentary, Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin, shows how, in Le Guin's writings, fantasy can be viewed as both a different way of seeing and understanding the past, and a new way of seeing the present -- and what the future could be.

Film

'Vita Nostra' Is a Tantalizing Fantasy That Forces Us to Question Our Own Humanity

Sergey and Marina Dyachenko's Vita Nostra is a mysterious Ukrainian sci-fi / fantasy / fairy tale whose unsettling questions will linger.

Books

'The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle' Is a Stellar Mystery Yarn

Travel journalist Stuart Turton borrows and remixes the best of the genre in his fiction debut, The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle.

Books

From Paris, with Poetry: On Henri Cole's 'Orphic Paris'

Henri Cole's Orphic Paris mines the city of light to illuminate the ends of his art.

Books

Nathan Gelgud's 'A House in the Jungle' Plays with Perception

Nathan Gelgud's image-within-an-image work in his latest, A House in the Jungle, echoes a larger world-within-a-world meta-context.

Books

'She Would Be King', an Afrofuturist Novel of Nation-Making in Liberia

Wayétu Moore's She Would Be King is an important exploration of power, identity, and belonging at a major historical junction in African diasporic and Liberian history.

Books

'Fault Lines' Traces the Roots of Today’s Polarized America

Kevin M. Kruse and Julian E. Zelizer show that the deep divisions currently roiling America have been long in the making in their work, Fault Lines.

Books

'Best American Nonrequired Reading 2018'

Is there still any credence to the idea of non-required reading?

Books

The 80 Best Books of 2018

The authors' whose works we share with you in PopMatters' 80 Best Books of 2018 -- from a couple of notable reissues to a number of excellent debuts -- poignantly capture how the political is deeply personal, and the personal is undeniably, and beautifully, universal.

Books

'The Best American Comics 2018' Beautifully Showcases the Diversity and Creativity of the Medium

This year's collection includes many independent and self-published artists; no mainstream or superhero comic in sight.

Books

Pop Ten

The 70 Best Albums of 2018

Jackie Chan's 10 Best Films

The Best Progressive Rock/Metal of 2018

The 20 Best Americana Albums of 2018

The 100 Greatest Alternative Singles of the '80s: Part 1: 100 - 81

The Best Metal of 2018

Collapse Expand Pop Ten

Mixed Media

Collapse Expand Mixed Media

PM Picks

Collapse Expand Pm Picks

Olivia Erlanger and Luis Ortega Govela's Garage challenges the beguiling, energizing, and yet limiting power of the garage in America as a symbol of escape and reinvention.

Inuk musician/writer Tanya Tagaq's first novel, Split Tooth, tells a magical, fucked-up story about teenage girls' adolescence in the Arctic.

Existential loneliness and small comforts are perfectly conveyed in three simple colors in Michael Cho's graphic novel, Shoplifter.

If art is about the fostering and maintenance of traditions, then the Russians were proposing a kind of anti-art. An exploration of the exhibition catalog, Russian Dada 1914-1924.

The follow-up to Martin's bestselling Primates of Park Avenue, Untrue, digs into recent scientific research and explains why monogamy may be a fool's errand.

Lucia Berlin, Na'am al-Baz, Mia Alvar, Hananah Zaheer, and Laura van den Berg share the seldom-told stories of women's lives in the blue- and white-collar worlds.

With Aquinas and the Market, economist and theologian Mary L. Hirschfeld begins a necessary conversation between economic and theological sectors, in the academy and, one hopes, outside the ivory towers and seminaries, to calculate our ultimate worth.

Room to Dream brims with detail but the real David Lynch remains elusive.

Carol J. Adams and Virginia Messina's Protest Kitchen provides easy, everyday tips to help make positive change in the world, but it might best be read with the comfort of a vegan Irish Cream in hand.

Joshua Sperling's biography of John Berger is more of an art history text that's focused on specific social and political elements as they are connected through Berger's perspective.

Arwen Curry's documentary, Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin, shows how, in Le Guin's writings, fantasy can be viewed as both a different way of seeing and understanding the past, and a new way of seeing the present -- and what the future could be.

Sergey and Marina Dyachenko's Vita Nostra is a mysterious Ukrainian sci-fi / fantasy / fairy tale whose unsettling questions will linger.

Travel journalist Stuart Turton borrows and remixes the best of the genre in his fiction debut, The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle.

Henri Cole's Orphic Paris mines the city of light to illuminate the ends of his art.

Nathan Gelgud's image-within-an-image work in his latest, A House in the Jungle, echoes a larger world-within-a-world meta-context.

Wayétu Moore's She Would Be King is an important exploration of power, identity, and belonging at a major historical junction in African diasporic and Liberian history.

Kevin M. Kruse and Julian E. Zelizer show that the deep divisions currently roiling America have been long in the making in their work, Fault Lines.

Is there still any credence to the idea of non-required reading?

The authors' whose works we share with you in PopMatters' 80 Best Books of 2018 -- from a couple of notable reissues to a number of excellent debuts -- poignantly capture how the political is deeply personal, and the personal is undeniably, and beautifully, universal.

This year's collection includes many independent and self-published artists; no mainstream or superhero comic in sight.