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Popular Culture March 2017
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In the Midnight Hour: The Life & Soul of Wilson Pickett
by Tony Fletcher
Dynamic soul singer "Wicked" Wilson Pickett was raised singing in the church, an experience that can likely be at least partially credited with his musical success, but didn't seem to influence his troubled life offstage. Providing plenty of details with regards to both Pickett's family and the labels he worked with, author Tony Fletcher provides not just a biography of a talented singer, but a history of the music Pickett helped create. "Pickett's energy, creativity, and genius shine" (Library Journal) in this well-researched, compassionate biography of a legendary man.
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J.J. Abrams vs. Joss Whedon: Duel for Media Master of the Universe
by Wendy Sterba
In J.J. Abrams vs. Joss Whedon, Wendy Sterba compares the parallel careers in film and television of two creative masterminds—pitting one against the other in a light-hearted competition. The author looks back upon the beginnings of both men’s careers—Whedon’s stint as a writer on Roseanne, and Abrams’ early scripts for films like Regarding Henry—and forward to their most recent blockbusters, Avengers: Age of Ultron andStar Wars: The Force Awakens. This books also looks at non-fantasy successes (Abrams series Felicity; Whedon’s adaptation of Much Ado about Nothing), as well as commercial failures. At the heart of this study, however, is a tour of their genre defining hits: Alias and Buffy, Lost and Angel,Super 8 and Serenity, along with Whedon’s Avengers films, and Abrams’ rebooted Star Trek adventures.
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Play All: A Bingewatcher's Notebook
by Clive James
Television and TV viewing are not what they once were—and that’s a good thing, according to award-winning author and critic Clive James. Since serving as television columnist for the London Observer from 1972 to 1982, James has witnessed a radical change in content, format, and programming, and in the very manner in which TV is watched. Here he examines this unique cultural revolution, providing a brilliant, eminently entertaining analysis of many of the medium’s most notable twenty-first-century accomplishments and their not always subtle impact on modern society—including such acclaimed serial dramas as Breaking Bad, The West Wing, Mad Men, and The Sopranos, as well as the comedy 30 Rock. With intelligence and wit, James explores a television landscape expanded by cable and broadband and profoundly altered by the advent of Netflix, Amazon, and other “cord-cutting” platforms that have helped to usher in a golden age of unabashed binge-watching.
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Nasty Galaxy
by Sophia Amoruso
The New York Times best-selling author of #GIRLBOSS presents a lushly illustrated compilation of the style influences that she relies on most for her company, NastyGal, and for her own personal style.
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Culture as Weapon: The Art of Influence in Everyday Life
by Nato Thompson
One of the country's leading activist curators explores how corporations and governments have used art and culture to mystify and manipulate us. The production of culture was once the domain of artists, but beginning in the early 1900s, the emerging fields of public relations, advertising and marketing transformed the way the powerful communicate with the rest of us. A century later, the tools are more sophisticated than ever, the onslaught more relentless. In Culture as Weapon, acclaimed curator and critic Nato Thompson reveals how institutions use art and culture to ensure profits and constrain dissent--and shows us that there are alternatives. An eye-opening account of the way advertising, media, and politics work today, Culture as Weapon offers a radically new way of looking at our world.
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Movie Comics: Page to Screen/Screen to Page
by Blair Davis
Movie Comics is the first book to study the long history of comics-to-film and film-to-comics adaptations, covering everything from silent films starring Happy Hooligan to sound films and serials featuring Dick Tracy and Superman to comic books starring John Wayne and Bob Hope. Blair Davis tracks the artistic coevolution of films and comics, investigates how the film and comics industries joined forces to expand the reach of their various brands, and contemplates our abiding desire to experience the same characters and stories in multiple forms.
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The Unsettlers: In Search of the Good Life in Today's America
by Mark Sundeen
In a world of immersive journalism steeped in a distinctively American social history and sparked by a personal quest, the author chronicles the quest for the simple life through both the stories of three very different couples and the visionaries, ascetics and artists that inspired each of them to create a sustainable, ethical and authentic existence.
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I Hate Everyone, Except You
by Clinton Kelly
A snarky collection of essays by the Emmy Award-winning moderator of The Chew charts his journey from a misfit youth to an awkward adult, exploring his haphazard experiences with 1980s porn, Jersey's premiere water parks, his sister's cheerleading endeavors, a life-threatening mud bath and more.
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Sidemen: The Book
by Sidemen Clothing Limited
So here we go; it's time to back up because YouTube superstars, The Sidemen, are finally here in book form and they're dishing the dirt on each other as well as the YouTube universe. There's nowhere to hide as the guys go in hard on their living habits, their football ability, and their dodgy clobber, while also talking Fifa, Vegas and superheroes. They'll also give you their grand house tour, letting you in on a few secrets, before showing you their hall of fame, as well as revealing some of their greatest shames. It's going to get personal. It's going to get intense, and JJ is going to have lots of tantrums, so take a moment to prepare yourself, because this is The Sidemen book you've been waiting for!
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Lonely Boy: Tales from a Sex Pistol
by Steve Jones
The former guitarist of the Sex Pistols describes his life, from an abused and neglected little boy involved in petty crimes on the streets of London, to the meteoric rise of his influential punk band and working as an in-demand session guitarist.
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American Hookup: The New Culture of Sex on Campus
by Lisa Wade
A revelatory account of the new culture of sex at today's colleges profiles how students are navigating a harrowing emotional landscape marked by one-sidedness, status competition and sexual violence that is particularly challenging to minorities and women.
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The New Better Off: Reinventing the American Dream
by Courtney E Martin
Are we living the good life-and what defines 'good', anyway? Americans today are constructing a completely different framework for success than their parents' generation, using new metrics that TEDWomen speaker and columnist Courtney Martin has termed collectively the "New Better Off". The New Better Off puts a name to the American phenomenon of rejecting the traditional dream of a 9-to-5 job, home ownership, and a nuclear family structure-illuminating the alternate ways Americans are seeking happiness and success. The New Better Off is about the creative choices individuals are making in their vocational and personal lives, but it's also about the movements, formal and informal, that are coalescing around the New Better Off idea-people who are reinventing the social safety net and figuring out how to truly better their own communities.
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| Dust Bowl Girls: The Inspiring Story of the Team that Barnstormed Its Way to... by Lydia ReederIn the middle of the Great Depression, Oklahoma Presbyterian College coach Sam Babb decided to attempt the impossible: create and maintain a championship women's basketball team. Despite major obstacles (including lack of financial support and the prevailing attitude that the sport wasn't "ladylike"), he succeeded. In this inspiring sports history, author Lydia Reeder (Babb's grandniece) traces his incredible efforts to recruit and train a team that -- by dint of a lot of hard work --actually did win the 1932 national championship. |
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| Jennifer, Gwyneth & Me: The Pursuit of Happiness, One Celebrity at a Time by Rachel BertschePart memoir, part research and reflection, Jennifer, Gwyneth & Me recounts the author's attempts to reach perfection (and therefore be happier) by doing what celebrities do. That meant: exercising like Jennifer Aniston, cooking like Gwyneth Paltrow, dressing like Sarah Jessica Parker, and being in general more like Beyoncé. (All on a journalist's paycheck.) Her efforts (by turns humorous and embarrassing) also give her a chance to reflect on celebrity culture. For more stories of people emulating celebrities in search of happiness, try Robyn Okrant's Living Oprah or Rebecca Harrington's I'll Have What She's Having. |
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| My Year of Running Dangerously: A Dad, a Daughter, and a Ridiculous Plan by Tom ForemanThe last thing that Emmy Award-winning CNN correspondent Tom Foreman figured he'd be doing with his teenage daughter was run a marathon in his fifties, but that's exactly what he did. Once a regular runner, he recounts his journey from an inflexible, aging couch potato to being spellbound by the roads and trails. Told with a great deal of self-deprecating humor ("I had the flexibility of a stepladder"), his stories of running five half-marathons, three marathons, and one ultra-marathon may inspire you to do something equally challenging. |
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| The Gratitude Diaries: How a Year Looking on the Bright Side Can Transform Your Life by Janice KaplanDuring her participation in a study on gratitude, journalist Janice Kaplan learned that fewer than 50% of those surveyed regularly expressed gratitude. Motivated by that sad number, she vowed one New Year's Eve to practice being grateful for one full year, and found that this focus on thankfulness improved not only her own outlook but those of people around her. For The Gratitude Diaries, Kaplan drew on her own journal entries (in addition to interviews with experts, scientific research, and anecdotal data) to offer an account of her practice of thankfulness that very well may inspire others to follow her lead. |
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| Year of the Dunk: A Modest Defiance of Gravity by Asher PriceAs author Asher Price approached his mid-thirties, he gave himself one year to learn how to dunk a basketball. At 6'2" with self-described "orangutan arms," you'd think it would be, well, a slam dunk (sorry), but Price felt that a strict diet, plentiful exercise, and specific training were called for. He narrates his efforts to lose his love handles and dunk that ball with humor -- and in conjunction with investigations into the history of fitness and physical education in the U.S. The resulting memoir is "by turns informative, entertaining, and endearing" (Publishers Weekly). |
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| Year of No Sugar: A Memoir by Eve O. SchaubAfter learning the role that sugar can play in one's health (and the near-ubiquity of sugar in processed foods), author Eve Schaub challenged her family (herself, her husband, and two young daughters) to go a year without sugar (with small exceptions). It...did not go smoothly at first, especially as they began to tire of sweetening everything with bananas or dates. But by the end of the year, Schaub had noticed distinct changes in their health and well-being. Their experimental year is outlined with levity; for more life-improvement experiments from Schaub, keep an eye out for her new book, Year of No Clutter. |
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Never be without a book you love! |
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Hillsborough County Public Library Cooperative (813) 273-3652 www.hcplc.org
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