Miles White University of Illinois Press ($22) by Scott F. Parker While the creative source for most American music has undoubtedly been black culture, what that means in the context of a media landscape primarily driven by white consumption is more difficult to discern. Beginning in the early 20th century with the advent of sound recording, […]
Juan Luis Cebrián Translated by Eduardo Schmid Overlook ($24.95) by John Toren Juan Luis Cebrián, one of the founders of Spain’s leading newspaper, El Pais, was once on the cutting edge of journalism—so much so that in 1981, his publication played an important role in squelching an attempted coup that would have returned Spain to the reactionary […]
June Skinner Sawyers Roaring Forties Press ($14.95) by Scott F. Parker Bob Dylan: New York, June Skinner Sawyers’s contribution to the MusicPlace Series that also includes titles on Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix, and grunge, serves two primary purposes, each for a distinct readership. For the uninitiated, the book works as a rudimentary biography, covering many […]
Margaret A. Harrell Saeculum University Press ($17.95) by W. C. Bamberger Keep This Quiet! opens with the question, “How does the Zeitgeist, the spirit of the times, manifest itself in the world, if not through people?” Margaret Harrell looks back at such manifestations in the forms of three writers she was involved with, aesthetically and romantically […]
THE POETRY OF THOUGHT From Hellenism to Celan George Steiner New Directions ($24.95) DISENCHANTMENT George Steiner and the Meaning of Western Civilization after Auschwitz Catherine D. Chatterley Syracuse University Press ($24.95) by W. C. Bamberger George Steiner’s books come in various densities. Two recent titles, My Unwritten Books (2008) and George Steiner at the New Yorker (2009), were both […]
HANGING QUOTES Talking Book Arts, Typography, & Poetry Alastair M. Johnston Cuneiform Press ($22) WHERE YOU’RE AT Poetics & Visual Arts Kevin Power Poltroon Press ($19.95) by Patrick James Dunagan What a happy coincidence: Kevin Power’s collection of interviews with poets about visual arts, brought out by Alastair Johnston’s Poltroon Press, has appeared in the […]
Sarah E. Truman White Pine Press ($16) by Emily Walz I realize that my whole journey to the East looking for Guan Yin the Bodhisattva of Compassion has actually been a lesson in letting go. Letting go and seeing what comes to fill the space created . . . Searching for Guan Yin follows Canadian-born Sarah […]
Wayne Koestenbaum Picador ($14) by Jens Tamang To expose one’s self to an audience does not come easily, but for those concerned with the honest portrayal of emotion—namely writers, poets, or any kind of artist—the ability to lay bare even the ugliest parts of human interiority is a necessary and vital skill. Yet, the very […]
Contemporary Film Directors Sean O’Sullivan University of Illinois Press ($22) by Scott Bryan Wilson Sean O’Sullivan’s slim monograph on Mike Leigh, the latest volume in the University of Illinois Press’s series Contemporary Film Directors, is one of the better examinations of his output. Rather than rehashing Leigh’s notorious working method—the focus of seemingly all writing […]
Robert Grudin Yale University Press ($16) by Mason Riddle Design and Truth is a compelling book, until it isn’t. With that said, it still deserves a place on the library shelf of anyone who is interested in design and, more specifically, concerned with its philosophical and moral underpinnings. As Robert Grudin ably points out, design—product, architectural, […]