New Books in Popular Culture

Fiction has “lost its ambition,” and not only that, “its centrality to the culture,” Sam Kahn says in a recent piece on “Castalia,” his popular Substack newsletter. We explore that proposition in our wide-ranging conversation about contemporary fiction and its ailments. What’s especially sad about the diminished role that fiction plays in the culture is that, in our Age of Upheaval, circumstances...

When maps come up short and the path ahead is uncertain, how do we find our way? Visionary climate leader Katharine K. Wilkinson offers a compassionate and empowering guide to navigating from ache to action, doubt to possibility. Through transformational programs and books, including the national bestseller All We Can Save, Wilkinson has inspired hundreds of thousands of climate journeys. In Clima...

Rolling Stone's first decade was truly rock and roll: chaotic, wild, and unpredictable. Brand New Beat: The Wild Rise of Rolling Stone Magazine (U California Press, 2026) by Peter Richardson charts the origins and evolution of the magazine during its formative early years in San Francisco. Founded in 1967 by a 21-year-old college dropout, Rolling Stone and its editors were steeped in the Bay Area'...

Who makes a living from the music industry? In Music Technology Panic Narratives Beyond Piracy: From Taping to Napster to TikTok (Anthem Press, 2026) David Arditi, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Arlington, looks at the history of technology in the music industry. This history illustrates the way the industry continues to profit even as artists struggle to make m...

Over the last seven decades, some of rock 'n' roll's most celebrated figureheads have flirted with the imagery and theater of the Third Reich. From Keith Moon and Vivian Stanshall kitting themselves out in Nazi uniforms to Siouxsie Sioux and Sid Vicious brandishing swastikas in the pomp of punk, generations of performers have associated themselves in troubling ways with the aesthetics, mass hyster...

Eleanor Houghton, in conversation with Duncan McCargo and Alexis Wolf Meet the real, thinking, feeling woman that was Charlotte Brontë, as told in this biography by the surviving witnesses to her life – the clothes that she once wore. These garments were present as she penned Jane Eyre, as she walked the cobbled streets of Haworth, and as she stood with her fiancé at the altar in the summer of 18...

Museums often served nationalist and imperialist interests in the past, but the primary force in the 21st century is the market. Museum franchising—exemplified by the Louvre Abu Dhabi—is one of the most visible cases of the increasing entanglement of art and museums with capital interests. Such projects are often touted as global enterprises diversifying the art world. Frequently, critics of these...

The first in-depth exploration of the work of artist Cory Arcangel, a pioneer of DIY-new media art whose influential “hacks” subvert the confines of Big Tech. Cory Arcangel (b. 1978)—perhaps best known for Super Mario Clouds, the most referenced artistic game hack in art history—became one of the first artists from a new generation of punk DIY–new media geeks to capture the attention of the art wo...

Marty Friedman is a multi-platinum recording artist and government-appointed Ambassador to Japan Heritage. He has written three books in Japanese and had long running columns in the Asahi Weekly, Nikkei Entertainment, Cyzo, Big Comic, Young Guitar, Guitar World and Burrn. The show opens with a moving tribute to Ozzy Osbourne, formerly of Black Sabbath, who passed away on July 25, 2025. Friedman th...

A memoir of basketball, dedication, and longevity from Boston Celtics legend Robert Parish Growing up in the heart of Louisiana, Robert Parish and his three younger siblings played baseball, football, and tennis―but never basketball. Still, by seventh grade, Parish stood 6'6" and couldn't escape the attention of Coleman Kidd, the junior high basketball coach who saw potential before Parish could s...

The Gastronomica podcast returns to the air, bringing listeners new interviews with authors from the latest issues of Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies. In this episode, Alyssa James of Gastronomica’s Editorial Collective hosts award-winning writer and historian Camille Bégin for a discussion of “Chiang Mai 2015,” a creative nonfiction account of a family trip and a search for sustenance...

Melissa Auf der Maur's new memoir, Even the Good Girls Will Cry: A '90s Rock Memoir(DaCapo, 2026) is a remarkably open-hearted, clear-eyed memoir of the '90s Alternative era by the bassist of Hole and The Smashing Pumpkins Even the Good Girls Will Cry begins with Auf der Maur's bohemian upbringing in Montreal, where her early, deep connection to art and music gave her entry to the colorful and thr...

Explore resilience from personal, organizational, and national perspectives with expert Robert Hall in this discussion of his book Building Resilient Futures (Austin Macauley, 2023). Discover case studies from COVID-19, the Winter War, and more, highlighting how resilience can be cultivated and applied. Types of resilience: personal, social, urban, national Case studies: COVID-19, Winter War, Lad...

It’s the Pop Culture Professors, and in this show we conclude our series on the films of Michael Mann. Structured as a knock-out tournament, we have set his eight most highly regarded movies in single-elimination competition. Today, we consider Heat (1995) and Collateral (2004). We ask what makes a Michael Mann movie distinctive, and what themes and ideas seem to capture his attention and bring ou...

What does Xi Jinping share with Mao Zedong? Why is Confucius still central to a communist state? What really happened in Tiananmen Square—and why is it still a taboo? In this accessible and politically astute primer Everything You Wanted to Know about China*: * But Were Afraid to Ask (Bui Jones Books, 2026) acclaimed historian Jeffrey Wasserstrom tackles the questions many are afraid to ask abo...

Cinema Before the World: The Global Routes of the Lumière Brothers (Fordham UP, 2026) investigates the transnational origins of filmmaking by focusing on a case study in world cinema—the 1896-1897 voyage of one of the Lumière Brothers camera operators, Alexandre Promio, across North Africa and the Middle East. The book shows how the sites in these early films are not simply backdrops, but integral...

Caryn Rose's Three Chords and Blessed Noise (2026) is an ode to the lost art of the tour diary. In November of 2025, Patti Smith and her band embarked on a short tour in the United States and Europe to commemorate this auspicious occasion and to allow us, the children of this particular revolution, to celebrate this achievement, these songs and these people. Rose headed off for a week of shows: Ch...

It’s the Pop Culture Professors, and in this show we start a series on the films of Michael Mann. Structured as a knock-out tournament, we set his eight most highly regarded movies single-elimination competition. Today, we consider Ali (2001) and The Last of the Mohicans (1992). We ask what makes a Michael Mann movie distinctive, and what themes and ideas seem to capture his attention and bring ou...

In Work Won’t Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone (Bold Type Books, 2021), Sarah Jaffe argues that modern culture encourages workers to see their jobs as a “labor of love.” This idea tells people that passion and dedication should motivate them more than pay or working conditions. Jaffe shows that this belief often allows employers to justify low wages...

Today we are joined by Alan McDougall, Professor of History at the University of Guelph, and the author of Dreams and Songs To Sing: A People’s History of Liverpool F.C. From Shankly to Klopp (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2025). In our conversation, we discussed the rise of Liverpool as a global football club, the crises that beset the club during the Heysel and Hillsborough disasters, a...

It’s the Pop Culture Professors, and in this show we start a series on the films of Michael Mann. Structured as a knock-out tournament, we set his eight most highly regarded movies single-elimination competition. Today, we consider Ferrari (2023) and Manhunter (1986). We ask what makes a Michael Mann movie distinctive, and what themes and ideas seem to capture his attention and bring out his best...

Sourced from over a hundred hours of interviews with musicians, producers, booking agents, label owners, writers, fans, employees, volunteers, friends and family, Elvis is Dead, I’m Still Alive: The Story of Asian Man Records tells the singular story of Asian Man Records. In its first thirty years, Asian Man Records released over 400 albums, all from the garage at Mike Park’s parents’ house. Found...

Every letter you’re reading right now has a fascinating story to tell, having been on a long linguistic, historical, political and social journey. The English alphabet is a tool we’ve inherited down the centuries from ancient creators around the world. The alphabet hasn’t always had its present form, but rather has undergone all sorts of changes and evolutions to suit the needs of the time. Did yo...

Today, macaroni and cheese is the ultimate comfort food, a staple of weeknight dinners, family gatherings, and Soul Food restaurants. Humble though the dish may seem, its history is filled with surprising twists and turns. Renaissance cardinals and popes dined on elaborate pasta-and-cheese concoctions laced with costly spices. In the eighteenth century, wealthy young Englishmen made macaroni a sym...

In Radio Universe: How to Explore Space Without Leaving Earth (Hachette UK, 2026) award-winning astrophysicist Emma Chapman takes us on an electrifying voyage through the cosmos using one of the most powerful, yet overlooked, tools in science: the radio wave. With dazzling clarity and humour, Chapman reveals how these invisible messengers glide through space, bounce off planets, tunnel through clo...