Popular Culture Books - Page 2

Wall and Piece

Banksy

Amazon Price: $15.61 List Price: $22.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Random House UK Amazon Marketplace: 59 new & used starting at $14.75

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Subjects -> Arts & Photography -> Artists, A-Z -> General
Subjects -> Arts & Photography -> Artists, A-Z -> General AAS
Subjects -> Arts & Photography -> History & Criticism -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 54 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The collected works of Britain’s most wanted artist.

Artistic genius, political activist, painter and decorator, mythic legend or notorious graffiti artist? The work of Banksy is unmistakable (except maybe when it’s squatting in the New York’s Metropolitan Museum or Museum of Modern Art.) Banksy is responsible for decorating the streets, walls, bridges and zoos of towns and cites throughout the world.

Witty and subversive, his stencils show monkeys with weapons of mass destruction, policeman with smiley faces, rats with drills and umbrellas. If you look hard enough you’ll find your own. His statements, incitements, ironies and epigrams are by turns intelligent and witty comments on everything from the monarchy and capitalism to the war in Iraq and farm animals.

His identity remains unknown, but his work is prolific. And now for the first time, he’s putting together the best of his work—old and new—in a fully illustrated color volume.

Banksy, real name unknown, was born in Bristol, England.

Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World HC

Don Tapscott

Amazon Price: $18.45 List Price: $27.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: McGraw-Hill Amazon Marketplace: 52 new & used starting at $14.00

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The Net Generation Has Arrived. .
Are you ready for it?

. .

Chances are you know a person between the ages of 11 and 30. You've seen them doing five things at once: texting friends, downloading music, uploading videos, watching a movie on a two-inch screen, and doing who-knows-what on Facebook or MySpace. They're the first generation to have literally grown up digital--and they're part of a global cultural phenomenon that's here to stay.

. .

The bottom line is this: If you understand the Net Generation, you will understand the future.

. .

If you're a Baby Boomer or Gen-Xer: This is your field guide.

. .

A fascinating inside look at the Net Generation, Grown Up Digital is inspired by a $4 million private research study. New York Times bestselling author Don Tapscott has surveyed more than 11,000 young people. Instead of a bunch of spoiled �screenagers� with short attention spans and zero social skills, he discovered a remarkably bright community which has developed revolutionary new ways of thinking, interacting, working, and socializing.

. .

Grown Up Digital reveals:

.

.
• How the brain of the Net Generation processes information .
• Seven ways to attract and engage young talent in the workforce.
• Seven guidelines for educators to tap the Net Gen potential.
• Parenting 2.0: There's no place like the new home .
• Citizen Net: How young people and the Internet are transforming democracy.

.

Today's young people are using technology in ways you could never imagine. Instead of passively watching television, the �Net Geners� are actively participating in the distribution of entertainment and information. For the first time in history, youth are the authorities on something really important. And they're changing every aspect of our society-from the workplace to the marketplace, from the classroom to the living room, from the voting booth to the Oval Office.

. .

The Digital Age is here. The Net Generation has arrived. Meet the future.

.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream

Hunter S. Thompson

Amazon Price: $11.16 List Price: $13.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Vintage Amazon Marketplace: 117 new & used starting at $6.48

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 418 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Great Book 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

My father had always liked hunter thompson but i had yet to read him. When my friend told me of this book I knew I had to check it out. What a trip. If you're looking for a straight forward book that explains everything with a nice plot and central characters who learn valuable life lessons...then this isn't the book for you. In many ways I say this book rings more true than most others. The character is really just an everyday druggie with a job and a hotel room in Vegas. The writing is superb and the illustrations were out of this world (literally). Even if you saw the movie and didn't like it, i would still read this book. It explains a lot more.

Editorial Review:

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is the best chronicle of drug-soaked, addle-brained, rollicking good times ever committed to the printed page. It is also the tale of a long weekend road trip that has gone down in the annals of American pop culture as one of the strangest journeys ever undertaken.

Now this cult classic of gonzo journalism is a major motion picture from Universal, directed by Terry Gilliam and starring Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro. Opens everywhere on May 22, 1998.

Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal

Eric Schlosser

List Price: $14.95 By: Harper Perennial Amazon Marketplace: 494 new & used starting at $0.01

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1408 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Disappointing 2 out of 5 stars.
2 of 5 people found this review helpful.

I'm a vegetarian who doesn't eat at fast-food restaurants. I thought this book was going to be an interesting expose of the fast-food industry. Instead, it was a series of meandering stories that weren't all that compelling. I got about halfway through the book and realized there was really no point in finishing it.

I noticed that whenever someone was portayed negatively, the word "Republican" invariably cropped up. When one meatpacking company owner became less sympathetic to workers, Schlosser goes out of his way to let the reader know that he went from being a liberal Democrat to a conservative Republican.

It's this kind of political posturing (Schlosser is obviously a liberal Democrat who can't keep his disdain for Republicans out of his writing), along with the fact that Schlosser just isn't that good of a writer, that helps to sink this book.

I kept wondering when I was going to learn something interesting that wasn't obvious. All I learned was what I already knew. Fast-food is a giant industry that pays teenagers low wages and uses a lot of potatoes from giant agribusiness companies and beef from giant cattle companies. Oh yeah, and they use flavorings from companies in New Jersey.

Stop the presses.

Editorial Review:

Fast food has hastened the malling of our landscape, widened the chasm between rich and poor, fueled an epidemic of obesity, and propelled American cultural imperialism abroad. That's a lengthy list of charges, but here Eric Schlosser makes them stick with an artful mix of first-rate reportage, wry wit, and careful reasoning.

Schlosser's myth-shattering survey stretches from California's subdivisions where the business was born to the industrial corridor along the New Jersey Turnpike where many fast food's flavors are concocted. Along the way, he unearths a trove of fascinating, unsettling truths -- from the unholy alliance between fast food and Hollywood to the seismic changes the industry has wrought in food production, popular culture, and even real estate. He also uncovers the fast food chains' disturbing efforts to reel in the youngest, most susceptible consumers even while they hone their institutionalized exploitation of teenagers and minorities.

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

Tom Wolfe

Amazon Price: $10.88 List Price: $16.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Picador Amazon Marketplace: 40 new & used starting at $9.17

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Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> 20th Century -> 1960s

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 135 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Interesting and well-written 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Tom Wolfe takes us through part of the acid-movement of the 60's with Ken Kesey (author of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest") and company as they embark on their journey across America to popularize acid. Wolfe writes in a way that sort of makes you feel that you are on acid too. His writing style in this book is very unique and he has an incredible way of describing things which is one thing I really enjoyed. Now I can finally understand what many of those baby-boomers went through!

Fascinating to contemplate 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

"The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" is the second totally drug inspired documentary I have read. The first was Hunter Thompson's autobiographical "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." That book, to me, was the scariest ever. Wolfe's, however, fascinated me. The difference I think is clear. Thompson was totally under the influence and control of drugs while covering a law-enforcement convention in Sin City. Wolfe is just an observer, not a user, as he follows Ken Kesey (respected author of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," "Sometimes a Great Notion," and other books) and his band of Merry Pranksters on their cross-country drug-soaked bus journey, to their settlement in the hills of California, their deep association with the Hell's Angel's and Jerry Garcia's Grateful Dead, and concluding with their Electric Kool Aid Acid tests before Kesey's escape to Mexico and eventual return to the states and imprisonment. Where as Albert and Leary were interested in the scientific aspects of LSD, Kesey and his bunch were more involved with the fun of it. It's a long book covering over three years of the mid-1960s and is filled with repeated drug episodes. Yet, Wolfe's almost poetic style keeps the book from being repetitious and moving along with the speed of speed. Almost as fascinating as the story he tells is the style in which he tells it. It is filled with hundreds of various adjectives, most of which I had never seen or heard before, but the sounds of the words alone make their meanings clear. On top of language, Wolfe piles unusual punctuation and capitalization to add to the color and sense of his descriptions. And he thankfully adds an Epilogue at the end of his book to tell how he was able to get into the heads of the Pranksters to give a true accounting of what happened. The epilogue turns what could be construed as fiction into non-fiction. I'm glad I read the book. I'm glad I wasn't along on the trips.

Editorial Review:

"An American classic" (Newsweek) that defined a generation. “An astonishing book” (The New York Times Book Review) and an unflinching portrait of Ken Kesey, his Merry Pranksters, and the 1960s.

The Partly Cloudy Patriot

They Might Be Giants

Amazon Price: $19.80 List Price: $30.00 In stock soon. Order now to get in line. First come, first served. By: Simon & Schuster Audio Amazon Marketplace: 2 new & used starting at $19.80

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Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> General
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 64 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

In The Partly Cloudy Patriot, Sarah Vowell travels through the American past and, in doing so, investigates the dusty, bumpy roads of her own life. In this insightful and funny collection of personal stories Vowell -- widely hailed for her inimitable narratives on public radio's This American Life -- ponders a number of curious questions: Why is she happiest when visiting the sites of bloody struggles like Salem or Gettysburg? Why do people always inappropriately compare themselves to Rosa Parks? Why is a bad life in sunny California so much worse than a bad life anywhere else? What is it about the Zen of foul shots? And, in the title piece, why must doubt and internal arguments haunt the sleepless nights of the true patriot?

Her essays confront a wide range of subjects, themes, icons, and historical moments: Ike, Teddy Roosevelt, and Bill Clinton; Canadian Mounties and German Filmmakers; Tom Cruise and Buffy the Vampire Slayer; twins and nerds; the Gettysburg Address, the State of the Union, and George W. Bush's inauguration.

The result is a teeming and engrossing audiobook, capturing Vowell's memorable wit and her keen social commentary.

Porn for Women

Cambridge Women's Pornography Cooperative

Amazon Price: $11.65 List Price: $12.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Chronicle Books Amazon Marketplace: 56 new & used starting at $4.00

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 49 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Best book Ever! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This book is incredibly dead-on! It really sums up the things that make women happy! I took this book around the office and every person thought this was hilarious, even the men! It is a must own!

Cute, funny and inoffensive book 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Is it cerebral humor? No, it's just a cute book, nothing more - it's NOT pornography and it's NOT insulting to women (or men), despite the few bad reviews here on Amazon. Most of the captions are so dumb, poking fun at stereotypes, but it's really funny - my husband even got a few chuckles. Share this book with your friends and have a laugh together.

Editorial Review:

Prepare to enter a fantasy world. A world where clothes get folded just so, delicious dinners await, and flatulence is just not that funny. Give the fairer sex what they really want beautiful PG photos of hunky men cooking, listening, asking for directions, accompanied by steamy captions: "I love a clean house!" or "As long as I have two legs to walk on, you'll never take out the trash." Now this is porn that will leave women begging for more!

Above Top Secret: Uncover the Mysteries of the Digital Age

Jim Marrs

Amazon Price: $13.57 List Price: $19.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: The Disinformation Company Amazon Marketplace: 27 new & used starting at $10.26

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Jim Marrs can justifiably be considered the world's leading conspiracy author, with multimillion bestsellers like Alien Agenda, Rule by Secrecy, and the book that Oliver Stone used as a basis for his JFK movie, Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy. Now Marrs has allied with the web's most popular conspiracy forum to investigate everything from chemtrails to the Nazis' Antarctic base, moon landing hoaxes to UFOs, God as an alien to the end of the world in 2012.

AboveTopSecret.com is the Internet's largest and most popular discussion board community, with more than twelve million page views per month. It is dedicated to the intelligent exchange of ideas and debate on a wide range of "alternative topics" such as conspiracies, UFOs, paranormal, secret societies, political scandals, new world order, terrorism, and dozens of related topics. AboveTopSecret's popular podcast is downloaded tens of millions of times per month and will become a nationally syndicated radio show prior to the publication date of the book.

Marrs brings his rigorous journalist's credentials to bear on these topics and more, asking (and often answering) the essential who, what, where, why, and how questions in compelling, page-turning fashion.

A native of Fort Worth, Texas, Jim Marrs has worked for several Texas newspapers, including the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. After a leave of absence to serve with Fourth Army intelligence during the Vietnam War, he became a military and aerospace writer for the newspaper and an investigative reporter. Since 1980, Marrs has been a freelance writer, author, and frequent invited public speaker.

Extraordinary Popular Delusions & the Madness of Crowds

Charles Mackay

Amazon Price: $10.85 List Price: $15.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Three Rivers Press Amazon Marketplace: 79 new & used starting at $3.95

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 59 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

A fun and easy read on the stupidity of people 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I really enjoyed this book. Often, people seem to think the problems of the modern world are new and insurmountable issues. This book shows the cycle of life is just that, a cycle. Working on the stock market, I'm constantly assailed with the negative news of the day. This book cites examples of the same issues we now face... only these examples come from roughly 300 years ago.

I am amazed that, as a species, we still cannot seem to learn from our past. This book shows that unregulated markets are rife with corruption, and the ignorant often suffer. Looking at our current housing market crisis, I see many similarities with the corruption and suffering of generations past. Within these pages, unscrupulous people will learn to profit. Of course, those same unscrupulous people will also be the ones crying for deregulation. There is a lesson to be learned here. Pick up the book and enjoy.

Editorial Review:

A complete repackaging of the classic work about grand-scale madness, major schemes, and bamboozlement--and the universal human susceptibility to all three. This informative, funny collection encompasses a broad range of manias and deceptions, from witch burnings to the Great Crusades to the prophecies of Nostradamus.

The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America

David Hajdu

Amazon Price: $10.88 List Price: $16.00 Not yet published By: Picador

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 29 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

OH! DO BEWARE OF MRS. GRUNDY! 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 5 people found this review helpful.

First, I have to admit that I am not a comic book expert or collector. I do have a modest collection of Black Hawk (Blackhawk) comics, but only because they were my favorites when I was a kid. I really did not read this work due to any overwhelming interest in comics. I did read them growing up and well remember the hysteria surrounding them in the 1950s. I will admit though that I did read quite a number of them during that time period. My parents liked peace and quiet and found that giving me a comic would shut my never ending talk up for a bit. I did read this book though because I do have a great interest in censorship in any form, and I am interested in the particular era covered by this work.

The author has certainly done some wonderful research with this offering. He gives us a very nice discussion of the history of the comic book in America, which I found quite interesting. I am sure that most comic enthusiasts will be aware of this information, but I was not, so I enjoyed it and learned. After his history he goes into the, as I said, "hysteria" which showed its ugly head every so often as to the effect this particular art form had upon the youth of our nation. Particular attention is made to the period of the late 1940s and the 1950s when the real trouble began.

Post war America was in many ways, a rather scary place. For those of you not there at the time, you need to remember stories of The Red Scare, The Bomb, Eugene McCarthy, women asserting themselves in the work place, The Yellow Peril, population upheavals, transformation after a world wide depression...and the list goes on. Among the "evils," or so it was thought, was an increase in juvenile crime. The term "Juvenile Delinquent" became a part of our everyday vocabulary. Naturally, people needed something to blame these problems on. If a communist was not handy, or jazz music was not being played on the radio, then something else had to do. It this case, the comic book was chosen. I suppose since the beginning of time, young folk have rebelled a bit against the system or their elders, and since the beginning to time the elders have sworn up and down that the young are going to hell in a hand basket. When you think about it, this process is still going on. This is the natural way of thing; always has been, always will be.

The author has given us a wonderful study of how a thought, a word, a picture, a story can be twisted and used by the powerful to meet their own needs and justify their own ends. In this case the PTA, politicians, preachers, the church, the Boy and Girl Scouts, schools, educators and the local village idiot all got in on the act. Priest, preachers, congressmen, psychiatrists, the news media, parents, George who worked at the local barber shop, all had an opinion. The author weaves a wonderful readable tale chronicling all of this. Now make no mistake; this is not what I would classify as an "easy read." This is probably more of a scholarly work that a piece of popular history. It is easy to consume and teaches though, and holds the reader's interest.

All in all, I found this to be a remarkable read. I learned new things and it certainly gave me much more food for thought. For history buffs, pop culture enthusiasts, comic collectors, and the generally curious, it would be hard to beat this one. Highly recommend this one.

Don Blankenship
The Ozarks

Editorial Review:

In the years between the end of World War II and the mid-1950s, the popular culture of today was invented in the pulpy, boldly illustrated pages of comic books. But no sooner had comics emerged than they were beaten down by mass bonfires, congressional hearings, and a McCarthyish panic over their unmonitored and uncensored content. Esteemed critic David Hajdu vividly evokes the rise, fall, and rise again of comics in this engrossing history.