Popular Culture Books - Page 4

Friday Night Lights (gift): A Town, A Team And A Dream

H.g. Bissinger

Amazon Price: $16.32 List Price: $24.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Da Capo Press Amazon Marketplace: 39 new & used starting at $0.45

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Social Sciences -> Popular Culture
Subjects -> Sports -> Miscellaneous -> History of Sports
Subjects -> Sports -> Football (American) -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 284 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Friday Night Lights 4 out of 5 stars.
11 of 11 people found this review helpful.

Friday Night Lights
A Town, A Team, and A Dream
By H.G. Bissinger

By Cael Kiess

H.G. Bissinger spent over a year getting to know the people of Odessa, Texas. During that year he spoke with Permian football players, their families, and Odessa citizens in his attempt to write a book that told the story of how one team of teenage kids could inspire an entire town. Bissinger, an American journalist, has won the Pulitzer Prize, the Livingston Award, the National Headliner Award, and the American Bar Association's Silver gavel for his reporting. He is also the author of A Prayer for the City, and is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair. Bissinger did a great job accomplishing his goal of reliving the wild journey of the 1988 Permian football season and the struggles off the field. He vividly portrays the racism through schools in Odessa County, the oil booms, typical school days of Permian football players, the Mojo Fanatics, and Friday Nights in late August. One chapter, "The Watermelon Feed," really describes the passion and devotion of Permian football fans and Mojo Fanatics. Bissinger writes, "The faithful sat on little stools of orange and blue under the lights of the high school cafeteria, but the setting didn't bother them a bit. Had the Watermelon Feed been held inside a county jail, or on a sinking ship, or on the side of a craggy mountain, they would still have flocked to attend and support their team." This description allows me to feel like I'm actually there and helps me sense the amount of pride and dedication given to Permian football by the fans. He also gives a second look farther into the town of Odessa, off the football field, enhancing a better view of what was occurring in the town of Odessa and its neighboring towns. There were many highlights and struggles happening in the streets and classrooms that one would not be able to find out in just the movie. One weakness of the book is the possible effect of losing the reader through the ongoing descriptions and passages of events, people, and struggles in Odessa. There is not as much of the actual football games incorporated into the book as one would think from watching the movie. In the book, Bissinger does a marvelous job describing the life and events of the 1988 Permian football players and the Mojo fans.

Editorial Review:

Return once again to the enduring account of life in the Mojo lane, to the Permian Panthers of Odessa--the winningest high school football team in Texas history. Odessa is not known to be a town big on dreams, but the Panthers help keep the hopes and dreams of this small, dusty town going. Socially and racially divided, its fragile economy follows the treacherous boom-bust path of the oil business. In bad times, the unemployment rate barrels out of control; in good times, its murder rate skyrockets. But every Friday night from September to December, when the Permian High School Panthers play football, this West Texas town becomes a place where dreams can come true. With frankness and compassion, Bissinger chronicles one of the Panthers' dramatic seasons and shows how single-minded devotion to the team shapes the community and inspires--and sometimes shatters--the teenagers who wear the Panthers' uniforms.

The Wal-Mart Effect: How the World's Most Powerful Company Really Works--and How It's Transforming the American Economy

Charles Fishman

Amazon Price: $17.13 List Price: $25.95 In stock soon. Order now to get in line. First come, first served. By: Penguin Press HC, The Amazon Marketplace: 68 new & used starting at $1.57

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Management & Leadership -> Strategy & Competition
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> General
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Industries & Professions -> Retailing

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 102 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

An award-winning journalist breaks through the wall of secrecy to reveal the many astonishing ways Wal-Mart's power affects our lives and reaches all around the world.

The Wal-Mart Effect: The overwhelming impact of the world's largest company--due to its relentless pursuit of low prices--on retailers and manufacturers, wages and jobs, the culture of shopping, the shape of our communities, and the environment; a global force of unprecedented nature. Wal-Mart is not only the world's largest company; it is also the largest company in the history of the world. Americans spend $26 million every hour at Wal-Mart, twenty-four hours of every day, every day of the year. Is the company a good thing or a bad thing? On the one hand, market guru Warren Buffett estimates that the company's low prices save American consumers $10 billion a year. On the other, the behemoth is the #1 employer in thirty-seven of the fifty states yet has never let a union in the door.

Though 70 percent of Americans now live within a fifteen-minute drive of a Wal-Mart store, we have not even begun to understand the true power of the company and the many ways it is shaping American life. We know about the lawsuits and the labor protests, but what we don't know is how profoundly the "Wal-Mart effect" is shaping our lives.

Fast Company senior editor Fishman, whose revelatory cover story on Wal-Mart generated the strongest reader response in the history of the magazine, takes us on an unprecedented behind-the-scenes investigative expedition deep inside the many worlds of Wal-Mart. He reveals the radical ways in which the company is transforming America's economy, our workforce, our communities, and our environment. Fishman penetrated the secrecy of Wal-Mart headquarters, interviewing twenty-five high-level ex-executives; he journeyed into the world of a host of Wal-Mart's suppliers to uncover how the company strong-arms even the most established brands; and journeyed to the ports and factories, the fields and forests where Wal-Mart's power is warping the very structure of the world's market for goods. Wal-Mart is not just a retailer anymore, Fishman argues. It has become a kind of economic ecosystem, and anyone who wants to understand the forces shaping our world today must understand the company's hidden reach.

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

Max Weber

Amazon Price: $24.95 List Price: $24.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Wiley-Blackwell Amazon Marketplace: 24 new & used starting at $18.89

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Popular Economics -> General
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Social Sciences -> Popular Culture
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Social Sciences -> Sociology -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 34 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

The definitive introductory text in Modernization theory 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Weber is the definitive introductory text in Modernization theory. Although somewhat western-centric, this book is essential reading for any college student, as it gave rise to many theories in every branch of social science, and still has more influence on theoretical thought than most social scientists would like to admit.

What Made Capitalism Tick? 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

In my youth I used to believe that Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism was the very last word in understanding, sociologically, the driving force behind capitalism in its prime. His premise, at least his expressed narrowly- defined one, that out of the mishmash of feudalism a `new' man and a `new' woman were being created who could subordinate their temporal desires enough to begin the tedious process of primitive capitalist accumulation that got the whole mode started, hit home hard to my young mind. Of course, that was not my conscious take on it at the time, although parts of it certainly were. What interested me the most wa that Weber was using some examples that were close to home, the Massachusetts Bay Colony experiment, and, being from Boston and steeped in Purtian history, that is why I was glad to get a copy of the work.

Strangely, in recently re-reading the work I found that I was drawn by those same examples. Additionally, I was drawn by the huge set of footnotes at the end that I did not remember going through in my youth but offer some very interesting insights into how Weber put his argument together and the sources that he had available at the time and that he used. The re-reading poses this question, though. How does the work itself hold up?

Of course today my class struggle perspective derived from a Marxist world view notes that Weber is clearly a political opponent. Not so much for his argument, which actually has a certain merit, but for his tenacious desire to use a quasi-Marxism materialist approach to sociology without drawing those requisite class struggle conclusions. I might add that the class struggle was fully raging in Germany at the time of the publication of this work as the Social Democratic Party was becoming the voice of the German working class. Weber, thus, really needed to keep his blinders on. Moreover, as a work of scholarship, which I will grant it certainly is, it is an early effort in the very long struggle to divorce sociological observations from any practical use. A militant today in order to benefit from reading this work has to do the equivalent of suspending disbelieve in the plot of a novel to realize that it is important to know what made capitalism tick in the old days and why we have to move on. Here, nevertheless is my very condensed take on the work today.

In some place in 16th and 17th century Europe, the scope of Weber's study, individuals and small communities were breaking from the established churches, Roman Catholic and mainstream Protestant and creating, in some cases 'hit or miss', a culture that we today describe as secular but in the nature of those times had a religious connotation. That breakout, not without opposition and oppression by the constituted authorities, formed the nucleus of an ethic that made accumulation of wealth through hard work and thrift the norm-in short that private accumulation mentioned above. This, dear reader, was a historically progressive series of actions. In the year 2007 those traits have long since failed to be progressive. What is necessary, as Marx, Lenin, Trotsky and even someone like Che Guevara recognized is in the interest of social solidarity we need to create `the new socialist man and woman' out of the muck and mire of capitalism. Hell, we need our own version of the Protestant ethic-and if current worldwide economic conditions are any judge- we need it pronto. Read this one at your leisure.

Editorial Review:

First published in 1905 The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism is one of the most renowned and controversial works of modern social science. It is a brilliant book which studies the psychological conditions which made possible the development of capitalist civilization.

1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Steven Jay Schneider

By: Cassell Illustrated Amazon Marketplace: 2 new & used starting at $101.17

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Entertainment -> Movies -> History & Criticism
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Social Sciences -> Popular Culture

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 45 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Don't buy this book 1 out of 5 stars.
14 of 14 people found this review helpful.

The issue with this book isn't that there are factual errors or that its list of movies isn't what you would pick. The big problem with this book is that the writers frequently spoil the movie for the reader. The most blatant example I've found is the review of "Don't Look Now", where the third paragraph recounts what is probably the entire last five minutes of the film. The writer then has the audacity to add, "It is no exaggeration to say that few scenes in the history of cinema have proven as effective at sending chills up the spines of viewers as this one." Also, I recently watched "Oldboy" and followed it up by reading the review in this book. The second sentence of the first paragraph, if fresh in a person's mind, would definitely have given away an important plot development. I'm glad I didn't read it before watching the movie.

Please, do yourself a favor and don't buy this book. Or if you feel you still want to, watch the movie before reading the review.

great book except......................... 3 out of 5 stars.
1 of 7 people found this review helpful.

I have read this book so many times it is falling apart! It has opened my eyes to many classics, before 1980 that is! My big problem with this book is like another reviewer has commented is the later films in the 80s and 90s and even in the current millenium. I think the writers thought they needed to even out the movies a little bit so you have many great films ommitted while you have complete junk like Independence day, Beverly Hills Cop, Ghostbusters, Top Gun, Good Morning Vietnam, Die Hard, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Rain Man, Pretty Woman, Terminator 2, Many movies by Spielberg, Forrest Gump, Strange Days, Clueless, and the list goes on!
As well as overrated crap like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Titanic, American Beauty, The Matrix, The Sixth Sense, Memento, O Brother Where Art thou, Any Lord Of the rings, Chicago. I could go on forever! However there are many great films in here and i have seen probably 3/4 of them. Oh did i also mention other stupid movies like Tootsie, Gandhi, Back to the Future, Moonstruck, Big, When Harry met Sally, Dances with Wolves, Edward Scissorhands, Thelma and Louise, Philadelphia, Scream, and The Blair Witch Project are just a few.
So if you are going to buy this book please beware of films after 1980!
Except for masterpieces like Raging Bull, Eyes Wide Shut, The Decalogue, The Double Life Of Veronique, Full Metal Jacket, Brazil, Ran, This Is Spinal Tap, and a few others.

How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization

Franklin Foer

Amazon Price: $11.16 List Price: $13.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Harper Perennial Amazon Marketplace: 143 new & used starting at $2.37

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Social Sciences -> Popular Culture
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Politics -> Globalization
Subjects -> Sports -> Soccer -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 81 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Foer makes a huge stretch; still and interesting read 3 out of 5 stars.
6 of 6 people found this review helpful.

_How Soccer Explains the World_ is an unfortunately misleading title; rather than explain the world, Foer uses soccer as a metaphor for globalization and the various reactions of parts of the world to it. He is only partially successful in this.

Evidentially the opposite of globalism isn't nationalism, but what Foer referrs to as "tribalism", as demonstrated by English (and Serbian) "soccer hooligans." How this has developed and been used by the likes of Slobodan Milosevic was an interesting premise, if a bit of a stretch. The global recruitment of soccer players - Nigerians playing for Ukraine, Brazilians playing for anybody, Dutch coaches working in the Near East - are cited as evidence of how soccer has become a "global marketplace" - with mixed results. The metaphor fits on one level (yes, it IS global - how 'bout that?) but fails horribly on another. (How can one make generalizations about the way a "nation" plays soccer?)

Foer also goes into great detail about the politics of the sport - I think he was on to something here, but the idea was only one of several that he persued, to its detriment. (In addition to the "national styles" of coaching and playing, Foer also discussed the sociology of the sport and its appeal - or lack of - in the United States, and its role as a social safety valve in Spain and Iran.) His would have been a stronger case had he pursued only one idea, rather than several.

As a soccer fan, I enjoyed his detailing the stadiums, the chants between rival teams, and (especially) his thoughts on soccer in America. Given his thesis, though, it only warrants 3 stars. An interesting book and there is much to like here - but the central idea, sadly, is very thin.

Editorial Review:

Soccer is much more than a game, or even a way of life. It is a perfect window into the cross–currents of today's world, with all its joys and its sorrows. In this remarkably insightful, wide–ranging work of reportage, Franklin Foer takes us on a surprising tour through the world of soccer, shining a spotlight on the clash of civilizations, the international economy, and just about everything in between. How Soccer Explains the World is an utterly original book that makes sense of our troubled times.

True Stories of Law & Order: SVU

Kevin Dwyer, Jure Fiorillo

Amazon Price: $11.20 List Price: $14.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Berkley Trade Amazon Marketplace: 50 new & used starting at $1.04

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Social Sciences -> Popular Culture
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> True Accounts -> True Crime
Subjects -> Entertainment -> Television -> History & Criticism

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The real-life cases behind TV's hit crime drama-including photos!

The crimes, the suspects, the trials-as they really went down.

True Stories of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit focuses on twenty-five of the scandalous true crimes that real detectives have grappled with- the facts behind the fictionalized stories on the phenomenally popular TV show. Beyond the actual crimes, the entire criminal process is covered-from investigation and arrest to trial and verdict. This book reveals in-depth accounts of some of the most monstrous offenses recreated on the hit series, including the gripping story of a teenage love triangle that led to the murder of a young girl and the deadly confrontation between the FBI and David Koresh's cult that made national headlines.

Stopping these criminals is only the beginning. Confronting the deep psychological scars left on their victims is the real challenge. This collection offers fans of the show and those interested in crime-solving techniques a glimpse of the real stories and real people behind some of the most notable, notorious, and gut wrenching cases of sexually-based crimes in recent history.

Everything Bad Is Good for You

Steven Johnson

List Price: $20.70 By: Allen Lane Amazon Marketplace: 8 new & used starting at $17.26

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Social Sciences -> Popular Culture
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Social Sciences -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 88 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

From the author of the New York Times bestseller Mind Wide Open comes a groundbreaking assessment of popular culture as it's never been considered before: through the lens of intelligence.

The $10 billion video gaming industry is now the second-largest segment of the entertainment industry in the United States, outstripping film and far surpassing books. Reality television shows featuring silicone-stuffed CEO wannabes and bug-eating adrenaline junkies dominate the ratings. But prominent social and cultural critic Steven Johnson argues that our popular culture has never been smarter.

Drawing from fields as diverse as neuroscience, economics, and literary theory, Johnson argues that the junk culture we're so eager to dismiss is in fact making us more intelligent. A video game will never be a book, Johnson acknowledges, nor should it aspire to be-and, in fact, video games, from Tetris to The Sims to Grand Theft Auto, have been shown to raise IQ scores and develop cognitive abilities that can't be learned from books. Likewise, successful television, when examined closely and taken seriously, reveals surprising narrative sophistication and intellectual demands.

Startling, provocative, and endlessly engaging, Everything Bad Is Good for You is a hopeful and spirited account of contemporary culture. Elegantly and convincingly, Johnson demonstrates that our culture is not declining but changing-in exciting and stimulating ways we'd do well to understand. You will never regard the glow of the video game or television screen the same way again.

Porn for Women

Cambridge Women's Pornography Cooperative

Amazon Price: $10.36 List Price: $12.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Chronicle Books Amazon Marketplace: 68 new & used starting at $2.49

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Entertainment -> Humor -> General
Subjects -> Entertainment -> Humor -> Love, Sex & Marriage
Subjects -> Entertainment -> Humor -> Parodies

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 50 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Yes, I am a woman and this is a real review. 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

How is this book offensive to women and why are most of the people claiming it is guys? I'm a woman and I'm not offended in the least. My best friend showed me this book (and yes, she's a woman, too... we're both in our 30s) and we both find it hysterical and yes, true. While guys out there enjoy watching videos of other guys having sex with 2 18 year old girls at once, women want a man who isn't afraid of doing the dirty work of the day - i.e. cleaning the house, doing the laundry, taking care of us for a change. To say otherwise is an outright lie. This book doesn't insinuate that women don't like sex, it merely reveals that we aren't obsessed with it like men are, especially not to the point of "needing" to watch porn. One reviewer claims this is outright pornography. How? Because some guys without shirts are doing the laundry or cleaning the house? How is that pornography? I've noticed that most of the negative comments come from men - what does that tell you? That men are the ones who are offended by this, not women. I guess men are offended by the idea of *gasp* having to do the same menial chores that women have been expected to do for centuries, nay, millennia.

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!

10 Conversations You Need to Have with Your Children

Shmuley Boteach

Amazon Price: $14.93 List Price: $21.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: William Morrow Amazon Marketplace: 46 new & used starting at $5.51

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Social Sciences -> Popular Culture
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Philosophy -> Philosophy of Religion -> Judaism
Subjects -> Parenting & Families -> Parenting -> Babies & Toddlers -> Child Development

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 20 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Why do I have to repeat everything? Why does every conversation end in an argument?

Communicating with our children. Conversing. Connecting. When did it become so difficult? And how do we begin to change it for the better?

This book was designed to help parents answer these important questions, and it is based on two fundamental ideas: The first is that there are no bad children, and no deliberately bad parents -- but that sometimes, despite the best of intentions on both sides, there can be bad relationships between parents and children. The second is that, as parents, we must do everything we can to save those relationships, to reach out and really communicate with our children, because it is only through talking to them that we can create an environment for inspiration and change.

In this compelling book, Shmuley Boteach, passionate social commentator and outspoken relationship guru, walks you through the critical conversations, including: cherishing childhood; developing intellectual curiosity; knowing who you are and what you want to become; learning to forgive; realizing the importance of family and tradition; being fearless and courageous. As a father of eight, Rabbi Shmuley speaks from a wealth of experience. He has written a book for parents of children of all ages, from toddlers, who are just beginning to become aware of the world around them, to adolescents, who must learn to navigate all sorts of tricky social and academic pressures.

10 Conversations will help you stay connected to your children so that they develop the kind of strong moral character that leads to rich, meaningful lives.

Stranger Than Fiction: True Stories

Chuck Palahniuk

Amazon Price: $11.16 List Price: $13.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Anchor Amazon Marketplace: 77 new & used starting at $7.20

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Arts & Literature -> Authors
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> General
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Memoirs

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 25 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Some stories are slow, but overall worth it. 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Many other reviewers have noted that some of the stories in this book are slow and dry. The drawn out descriptions of the castle builders immediately comes to mind, as does the personal story of Juliette Lewis. But overall this is a worthwhile look into the mind and life of one of the best authors of our time. I feel like I know Chuck Palahniuk on a more personal level now, and that's what I was hoping for. I find him a fascinating man, someone I would love to sit down for coffee with. With that desire in mind, I am very happy I waded through this book.

Editorial Review:

Chuck Palahniuk’s world has always been, well, different from yours and mine. In his first collection of nonfiction, Chuck Palahniuk brings us into this world, and gives us a glimpse of what inspires his fiction.

At the Rock Creek Lodge Testicle Festival in Missoula, Montana, average people perform public sex acts on an outdoor stage. In a mansion once occupied by The Rolling Stones, Marilyn Manson reads his own Tarot cards and talks sweetly to his beautiful actress girlfriend. Across the country, men build their own full-size castles and rocketships that will send them into space. Palahniuk himself experiments with steroids, works on an assembly line by day and as a hospice volunteer by night, and experiences the brutal murder of his father by a white supremacist. With this new direction, Chuck Palahniuk has proven he can do anything.