The Triumph of the Thriller
How Cops, Crooks, and Cannibals Captured Popular Fiction
Written by Patrick Anderson

Format: Hardcover, 288 pages
Publisher: Random House
On Sale: February 6, 2007
Price: $24.95
ISBN: 978-0-345-48123-8 (0-345-48123-2)

There’s been a revolution in American popular fiction. The writers who dominated the bestseller lists a generation ago with blockbuster novels about movie stars and exotic foreign lands have been replaced by a new generation writing a new kind of bestseller, one that hooks readers with crime, suspense, and ever-increasing violence... Read more >

I Love Lucy Book

Written by Bart Andrews

Format: Trade Paperback, 448 pages
Publisher: Main Street Books
On Sale: August 13, 1985
Price: $23.00
ISBN: 978-0-385-19033-6 (0-385-19033-6)

Foreword by Jess Oppenheimer. This classic book traces the history of the popular comedy series, offers plot summaries, cast listings, ratings, and original air dates for all 179 episodes, and shares behind-the-scenes information about the show. Also includes researched notes on how the program was created, written, and filmed plus an... Read more >

Munson
The Life and Death of a Yankee Captain
Written by Marty Appel

Format: Hardcover, 384 pages
Publisher: Doubleday
On Sale: July 7, 2009
Price: $26.00
ISBN: 978-0-385-52231-1 (0-385-52231-2)

Our captain and leader has not left us, today, tomorrow, this year, next … Our endeavors will reflect our love and admiration for him.”
—Honorary plaque to Munson in Yankee Stadium

Thurman Munson is remembered by fans as the fiercely competitive, tough, and—most of all—inspiring Yankee captain and champion from the wild Bronx... Read more >

Main Lines, Blood Feasts, and Bad Taste
A Lester Bangs Reader
Written by Lester Bangs
Edited by John Morthland

Format: Trade Paperback, 432 pages
Publisher: Anchor
On Sale: August 12, 2003
Price: $15.95
ISBN: 978-0-375-71367-5 (0-375-71367-0)

Before his untimely death in 1982, Lester Bangs was inarguably the most influential critic of rock and roll. Writing in hyper-intelligent Benzedrine prose that calls to mind Jack Kerouac and Hunter S. Thompson, he eschewed all conventional thinking as he discussed everything from Black Sabbath being the first truly Catholic band... Read more >

Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung
The Work of a Legendary Critic: Rock'N'Roll as Literature and Literature as Rock 'N'Roll
Written by Lester Bangs

Format: Trade Paperback, 416 pages
Publisher: Anchor
On Sale: September 12, 1988
Price: $16.00
ISBN: 978-0-679-72045-4 (0-679-72045-6)

The paperback edition of the wild and brilliant writings of Lester Bangs—the most outrageous and popular rock critic of the 1970s—edited and with an introduction by the reigning dean of rock critics, Greil Marcus. Read more >

Joseph P. Kennedy Presents
His Hollywood Years
Written by Cari Beauchamp

Format: Hardcover, 528 pages
Publisher: Knopf
On Sale: February 3, 2009
Price: $35.00
ISBN: 978-1-4000-4000-1 (1-4000-4000-0)

This is the extraordinary story, told for the first time, of Joseph P. Kennedy’s remarkable reign in Hollywood, in which he ran three movie studios simultaneously, led the revolution in sound pictures—and made the fortune that became the foundation of his empire.

Kennedy saw filmmaking as “a gold mine” when movies were... Read more >

Amy and Jordan

Written by Mark Beyer

Format: Hardcover, 288 pages
Publisher: Pantheon
On Sale: May 11, 2004
Price: $21.00
ISBN: 978-0-375-42270-6 (0-375-42270-6)

For those of you who thought the comic strip was dead by the end of the twentieth century, here are 292 pieces of proof that you were wrong. Mark Beyer was breathing delirious, heartbreaking, otherworldly life into it by means of Amy and Jordan. Obviously, you weren’t reading New York Press.
... Read more >

Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams
The Story of Black Hollywood
Written by Donald Bogle

Format: Trade Paperback, 432 pages
Publisher: One World/Ballantine
On Sale: January 31, 2006
Price: $15.95
ISBN: 978-0-345-45419-5 (0-345-45419-7)

In Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams, Donald Bogle tells–for the first time–the story of a place both mythic and real: Black Hollywood. Spanning sixty years, this history uncovers the audacious manner in which many blacks made a place for themselves in an industry that originally had no place for them.

Through interviews... Read more >

Gig
Americans Talk About Their Jobs
Edited by John Bowe, Marisa Bowe and Sabin Streeter

Format: Trade Paperback, 688 pages
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
On Sale: August 21, 2001
Price: $16.95
ISBN: 978-0-609-80707-1 (0-609-80707-2)

Taking their cue from Studs Terkel's book Working, the editors of word.com have produced a book that provides real insight into how people work and how they describe their jobs. Composed of more than 120 monologues Gig allows disparate people—from a wide variety of occupations and locations—to describe their day to... Read more >

The World in Vogue
People, Parties, Places
Edited by Hamish Bowles and Alexandra Kotur

Format: Hardcover, 400 pages
Publisher: Knopf
On Sale: November 17, 2009
Price: $75.00
ISBN: 978-0-307-27187-7 (0-307-27187-0)

This one-of-a-kind book of 300 photographs of some of the most celebrated actors, artists, models, First Ladies, and social figures draws on stories that have appeared in the pages of Vogue over the past four decades, as well as photographs from those stories that have never been published. These trendsetters and... Read more >

Whatever You Say I Am
The Life and Times of Eminem
Written by Anthony Bozza

Format: Trade Paperback, 288 pages
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
On Sale: September 28, 2004
Price: $13.95
ISBN: 978-1-4000-5380-3 (1-4000-5380-3)

"...the first bona fide biography of the bad-boy rapper....Bozza links the melding of black and white cultures so evident throughout rock history to the intricate confluence of race in Eminem...." —Library Journal

On assignment for his first cover story for Rolling Stone magazine, the very first national cover story on Eminem, Anthony... Read more >

Queens Reigns Supreme
Fat Cat, 50 Cent, and the Rise of the Hip Hop Hustler
Written by Ethan Brown

Format: Trade Paperback, 288 pages
Publisher: Anchor
On Sale: November 22, 2005
Price: $12.95
ISBN: 978-1-4000-9523-0 (1-4000-9523-9)

Based on police wiretaps and exclusive interviews with drug kingpins and hip-hop insiders, this is the untold story of how the streets and housing projects of southeast Queens took over the rap industry.

For years, rappers from Nas to Ja Rule have hero-worshipped the legendary drug dealers who dominated Queens in the... Read more >

Cringe
Teenage Diaries, Journals, Notes, Letters, Poems, and Abandoned Rock Operas
Written by Sarah Brown

Format: Hardcover, 240 pages
Publisher: Crown
On Sale: August 26, 2008
Price: $22.95
ISBN: 978-0-307-39358-6 (0-307-39358-5)

Did you keep a diary during your teen years? Do you have a box of loopy-cursive, never-sent notes to your crush? Or some overwrought poetry about your bleak existence? An unfinished rockopera? Well, you’re not alone, and in Cringe, you’ll find a reason to unearth your adolescent angst and have a... Read more >

Too Brief a Treat
The Letters of Truman Capote
Written by Truman Capote
Edited by Gerald Clarke

Format: Hardcover, 512 pages
Publisher: Random House
On Sale: September 21, 2004
Price: $27.95
ISBN: 978-0-375-50133-3 (0-375-50133-9)

Truman Capote was hailed as one the most meticulous writers in American letters–a part of the Capote mystique is that his precise writing seemed to exist apart from his chaotic life. While the measure of Capote as a writer is best taken through his work, Capote the person is best understood... Read more >

Such Sweet Thunder
A Novel
Written by Vincent O. Carter

Format: Trade Paperback, 440 pages
Publisher: Zoland Books
On Sale: June 13, 2006
Price: $16.95
ISBN: 978-1-58195-217-9 (1-58195-217-1)

This unique and compelling novel deserves a place of prominence in American literature. Completed in 1963, read and widely admired in manuscript by a network of expatriate American artists strung across Europe, it was never published during Vincent Carter’s lifetime. In 2003, Steerforth Press published the text in its entirety, knowing... Read more >

The Reel Civil War
Mythmaking in American Film
Written by Bruce Chadwick

Format: Trade Paperback, 384 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: December 3, 2002
Price: $15.00
ISBN: 978-0-375-70832-9 (0-375-70832-4)

During the late nineteenth century, magazines, newspapers, novelists, and even historians presented a revised version of the Civil War that, intending to reconcile the former foes, downplayed the issues of slavery and racial injustice, and often promoted and reinforced the worst racial stereotypes. The Reel Civil War tells the history of... Read more >

The Shakespeare Riots
Revenge, Drama, and Death in Nineteenth-Century America
Written by Nigel Cliff

Format: Hardcover, 336 pages
Publisher: Random House
On Sale: April 17, 2007
Price: $26.95
ISBN: 978-0-345-48694-3 (0-345-48694-3)

One of the bloodiest incidents in New York’s history, the so-called Astor Place Riot of May 10, 1849, was ignited by a long-simmering grudge match between the two leading Shakespearean actors of the age. Despite its unlikely origins, though, there was nothing remotely quaint about this pivotal moment in history–the unprecedented... Read more >

Check the Technique
Liner Notes for Hip-Hop Junkies
Written by Brian Coleman

Format: Trade Paperback, 528 pages
Publisher: Villard
On Sale: June 12, 2007
Price: $18.00
ISBN: 978-0-8129-7775-2 (0-8129-7775-0)

A Tribe Called Quest • Beastie Boys • De La Soul • Eric B. & Rakim • The Fugees • KRS-One • Pete Rock & CL Smooth • Public Enemy • The Roots • Run-DMC • Wu-Tang Clan • and twenty-five more hip-hop immortals

It’s a sad fact: hip-hop album liners have... Read more >

Elsewhere, U.S.A.
How We Got from the Company Man, Family Dinners, and the Affluent Society to the Home Office, BlackBerry Moms, and Economic Anxiety
Written by Dalton Conley

Format: Hardcover, 240 pages
Publisher: Pantheon
On Sale: January 13, 2009
Price: $24.00
ISBN: 978-0-375-42290-4 (0-375-42290-0)

Over the past three decades, our daily lives have changed slowly but dramatically. Boundaries between leisure and work, public space and private space, and home and office have blurred and become permeable. How many of us now work from home, our wireless economy allowing and encouraging us to work 24/7? How... Read more >

Fight the Power
Rap, Race, and Reality
Written by Chuck D, Yusuf Jah and Spike Lee

Format: Trade Paperback, 288 pages
Publisher: Delta
On Sale: September 8, 1998
Price: $19.00
ISBN: 978-0-385-31873-0 (0-385-31873-1)

Fight the Power examines a multitude of complex social, racial and artistic issues.

Frontman for the politically-minded, and commercially successful, rap group Public Enemy, rapper Chuck D discusses the role of heroes and role models in the black community, Hollywood's negative images of blacks, the effect of gangsta rap, its images... Read more >

Blues Legacies and Black Feminism
Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday
Written by Angela Y. Davis

Format: Trade Paperback, 464 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: January 26, 1999
Price: $16.95
ISBN: 978-0-679-77126-5 (0-679-77126-3)

Angela Davis gives us a new, radically transforming interpretation of the lives and music of three of the greatest singers of the 20th century. She uses the biographies, careers, and performances of recorded songs by Bessie Smith, "Ma" Rainey, and Billie Holiday--the African-American women who dominated American popular music between 1910... Read more >

In the Country of Country
A Journey to the Roots of American Music
Written by Nicholas Dawidoff

Format: Trade Paperback, 384 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: April 28, 1998
Price: $15.95
ISBN: 978-0-375-70082-8 (0-375-70082-X)

From the author of the bestselling The Catcher Was a Spy comes an exhilarating exploration of the performers, places, and experiences which form country music—a genre which is uniquely and authentically American.

In this evocative book, Dawidoff pays tribute to the music that sprang from places like Maces Springs, Viriginia, home of... Read more >

After Henry

Written by Joan Didion

Format: Trade Paperback, 320 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: April 27, 1993
Price: $14.95
ISBN: 978-0-679-74539-6 (0-679-74539-4)

In her latest forays into the American scene, Didion covers ground from Washington and New York to California, uncovering the mythic narratives that elude other observers. She examines the fantasies the media constructs around crime victims and presidential candidates; she offers new interpretations of the stories of Nancy Reagan and Patty... Read more >

Where the Girls Are
Growing Up Female with the Mass Media
Written by Susan J. Douglas

Format: Trade Paperback, 368 pages
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
On Sale: March 28, 1995
Price: $16.00
ISBN: 978-0-8129-2530-2 (0-8129-2530-0)

Where the Girls Are is a tour through the confusing and contradictory images of women in American pop culture. Douglas looks back at the television programs, popular music, advertising, and nightly news reports of the past four decades to reveal the decidedly mixed messages conveyed to girls and women coming of... Read more >

The National Parks
America's Best Idea
Written by Dayton Duncan and Ken Burns

Format: Hardcover, 432 pages
Publisher: Knopf
On Sale: September 8, 2009
Price: $50.00
ISBN: 978-0-307-26896-9 (0-307-26896-9)

The companion volume to the twelve-hour PBS series from the acclaimed filmmaker behind The Civil War, Baseball, and The War

America’s national parks spring from an idea as radical as the Declaration of Independence: that the nation’s most magnificent and sacred places should be preserved, not for royalty or the rich, but... Read more >