Tabloid Prodigy: Dishing the Dirt, Getting the Gossip, and Selling my Soul in the Cutthroat World of Hollywood Reporting, Marlise Elizabeth Kast, Running Press, 2007. Popmatters
If they gave a prize for the most confused book of the year, Tabloid Prodigy would have to be a top contender. Here’s the hook. By the age of 23, Marlise Kast, a minister’s daughter from a family of god-bothering missionaries, found herself transformed into one of the top reporters at the Globe, a tabloid most commonly found alongside the Starand the National Enquirer at grocery store checkouts. Before responding to the Globe‘s ad for new reporters, Kast was a hard working college student majoring in communications and English who didn’t watch TV or follow Hollywood gossip; in fact, before working at the Globe, she’d actually never heard of many of the celebrities whose ups and downs she was assigned to cover. But since she’s ambitious, and quick to learn, Kast is soon making the most of her youth and beauty by crashing William Shatner’s wedding, bribing Leonardo di Caprio’s bell boy, sneaking into Roseanne’s hotel bedroom, stalking Demi Moore, buying groceries for Rick Rockwell, and cultivating friendships with hookers, bouncers, barmen, maids, and other wage slaves who keep her supplied with celebrity dirt. ... read more...

Goth's Wan Stamina
Michael Bibby and Lauren Goodlad, eds., Goth: Undead Subculture, Duke University Press, 2007
Catherine Spooner, Goth, Reaktion Books: London, 2007    Chronicle of Higher Education  June 15
   As an undergraduate, I liked to annoy the dons at St. Hilda's College by turning up at my tutorials in a leather biker jacket, a miniskirt, ripped fishnet stockings, and Doc Marten boots. My hair (which has never recovered) was crimped and sprayed into black and pink spikes. "Épater le bourgeois" was the idea, I suppose. I never identified myself as a goth, nor do my own students today who dress in a similar way, but they'd probably accept the term as a fair description of their style and sensibility, as, in retrospect, would I.  ....read more....

New Cultural Studies: Adventures in Theory
Gary Hall & Claire Birchall, eds., University of Georigia Press, 2007  PopMatters
Just when even the stodgiest of academics was getting used to the idea of cultural studies as a traditional academic discipline, here comes a book to shake everything up again. Of course, part of the point of a field like cultural studies is that it constantly needs shaking up; its contemporary appeal relies on the energy of new discussions, new theories and new interpretations of emerging trends in popular culture. As a discipline, it’s a bit like a sandwich left out for an hour; you come back to it, and it’s already stale. ... read more...

The End of the World as We Know It: Scenes from a Life
Robert Goolrick, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2007  PopMatters
Like most books about unhappy children in dysfunctional families, The End of the World as we Know It is difficult to put down. In this case, it’s not so much that you can’t wait to find out what happened next—it’s clear from pretty early on there’s not going to be any great payoff—but because you get so deeply absorbed in the details of everyday family life. Each chapter is set at a different time period, so the notion of cause and effect can be confusing, but perhaps that’s part of the point.. ...read more…

Found Polaroids ed. Jason Bitner, QuackMedia, November 2006  PopMatters
Born in July 2001 as a small zine held together with scotch tape and copied on the sly at Kinko’s, Jason Bitner’s Found has spawned an empire. Go to the Found website and not only can you order books, buttons, bumper stickers, tapes, and greeting cards, but you can also check out upcoming tours, art shows, concerts, readings, and other live events involving members of the Found crew and their friends.  ...read more…

Freud's Wizard: Ernest Jones and the Transformation of Psychoanalysis  Brenda Maddox, Da Capo, March 2007    PopMatters
The previous subjects of Brenda Maddox’s award-winning biographies have mostly been well-known and well-loved; they include Elizabeth Taylor, D. H. Lawrence, Nora Joyce, and W. B. Yeats. In the case of Ernest Jones, however, Maddox faces a greater challenge. Not only is Jones little known in the world outside psychoanalysis (which itself fell from grace long ago), but also, the man himself turns out to have been something of a tricky figure, as Maddox carefully reveals. ...read more…   

Knitting Under the Influence Claire Lazebnik, 5 Spot, September 2006   PopMatters
At first I hated this book; then I made peace with it; then I started to enjoy it. Not normally a reader of chick lit—which this book’s bright, colorful cover proclaims it to be—I now realize I got off on the wrong foot by allowing myself be irritated by its many implausibilities. The cover illustration is of a cocktail in a martini glass, which perhaps made me expect something strong and intoxicating, but once I realized it was less of a martini than something lighter—a gin fizz, perhaps—I started to relax, and the book began to feel like a treat.  ....read more…

Housekeeping vs. The Dirt   Nick Horby, Believer Books, September 2006   PopMatters
Housekeeping vs. The Dirt is the sequel to The Polysyllabic Spree (2004), which was the first collection of Nick Hornby’s “Stuff I’ve Been Reading” column from the McSweeney’s-affiliated literary magazine, The Believer. The Polysyllabic Spree collated the first 14 monthly columns; Housekeeping vs. The Dirt contains the next 14, from February 2005 to June 2006. The author, best known for his novels High Fidelity (1995) and About a Boy (1998), has been a busy lad. His novel How to be Good came out in 2002, and a new novel, A Long Way Down was published last year. Some authors experience mid-career writers’ block; Hornby, on the other hand, doesn’t seem able to stop.  ...read more…