New Books in Popular Culture

Jason Rosenhouse's Games for Your Mind: The History and Future of Logic Puzzles (Princeton UP, 2020) is about a panoply of logic puzzles. You’ll find Mastermind and sudoku discussed early on, and then you’ll be hit with an incredible array of some of the most intriguing logic puzzles that have ever been devised. Some will be familiar to you, but some will almost certainly be brain-teasers you have never heard of. It’s absolutely amazing what a truly deep field grew from recreational pastimes – and this book is an absolute treasure trove of stuff you can’t help thinking about. If you like logic, you’re certain to be sucked in – but you’ll enjoy the ride.Logic puzzles were first introduced to the public by Lewis Carroll in the late nineteenth century and have been popular ever since. Games like Sudoku and Mastermind are fun and engrossing recreational activities, but they also share deep foundations in mathematical logic and are worthy of serious intellectual inquiry. Games for Your Mind explores the history and future of logic puzzles while enabling you to test your skill against a variety of puzzles yourself.In this informative and entertaining book, Jason Rosenhouse begins by introducing readers to logic and logic puzzles and goes on to reveal the rich history of these puzzles. He shows how Carroll's puzzles presented Aristotelian logic as a game for children, yet also informed his scholarly work on logic. He reveals how another pioneer of logic puzzles, Raymond Smullyan, drew on classic puzzles about liars and truthtellers to illustrate Kurt Gödel's theorems and illuminate profound questions in mathematical logic. Rosenhouse then presents a new vision for the future of logic puzzles based on nonclassical logic, which is used today in computer science and automated reasoning to manipulate large and sometimes contradictory sets of data.Featuring a wealth of sample puzzles ranging from simple to extremely challenging, this lively and engaging book brings together many of the most ingenious puzzles ever devised, including the Hardest Logic Puzzle Ever, metapuzzles, paradoxes, and the logic puzzles in detective stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

In The Other End of the Needle (Rutgers University Press, 2020), David C. Lane, Ph.D. investigates the intricacies of the tattoo industry. Particularly, Lane found that tattooing is more complex than simply the tattoos that people wear. Using qualitative data and an accessible writing style, Lane explains the complexity of tattoo work as a type of social activity. His central argument is that tattooing is a social world, where people must be socialized, manage a system of stratification, create spaces conducive for labor, develop sets of beliefs and values, struggle to retain control over their tools, and contend with changes that in turn affect their labor. Earlier research has examined tattoos and their meanings.Yet, Lane notes, prior research has focused almost exclusively on the tattoos—the outcome of an intricate social process—and have ignored the significance of tattoo workers themselves. "Tattooists," as Lane dubs them, make decisions, but they work within a social world that constrains and shapes the outcome of their labor—the tattoo. The goal of this book is to help readers understand the world of tattoo work as an intricate and nuanced form of work. Lane ultimately asks new questions about the social processes occurring prior to the tattoo’s existence.David C. Lane is currently recruiting participants for his next study on identity management and past trauma experienced by people who have tattoos. The goal of this study is to understand how tattoos are used by people to develop their own identity. If you are interested in participating please go to http://tattoostudyisu.com.   Michael O. Johnston, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at William Penn University. His most recent study, “The Queen and Her Royal Court: A Content Analysis of Doing Gender at a Tulip Queen Pageant”, was published in Gender Issues Journal. His interests include the sociology of art and culture, sociology of death and dying, and sociology of sex and gender. He is currently working on a research project about obituary writing as an art world. More can be found about Michael O. Johnston, Ph.D. by going to his website, Google Scholar, following him on Twitter @ProfessorJohnst, or emailing him at johnstonmo at wmpenn dot edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

In Little Lindy Is Kidnapped: How the Media Covered the Crime of the Century (Columbia University Press, 2020), Thomas Doherty offers a lively and comprehensive cultural history of the media coverage of the abduction and its aftermath. Beginning with Lindbergh’s ascent to fame and proceeding through the trial and execution of the accused kidnapper, Doherty traces how newspapers, radio, and newsreels reported on what was dubbed the “crime of the century.” He casts the affair as a transformative moment for American journalism, analyzing how the case presented new challenges and opportunities for each branch of the media in the days before the rise of television. Coverage of the Lindbergh story, Doherty reveals, set the template for the way the media would treat breaking news ever after. An engrossing account of an endlessly fascinating case, Little Lindy Is Kidnapped sheds new light on an enduring quality of journalism ever since: the media’s eye on a crucial part of the story—itself.Thomas Doherty is professor of American studies at Brandeis University. His previous Columbia University Press books include Hollywood and Hitler, 1933–1939 (2013) and Show Trial: Hollywood, HUAC, and the Birth of the Blacklist (2018). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

Although nearly every other television form or genre has undergone a massive critical and popular reassessment or resurgence in the past twenty years, the game show’s reputation has remained both remarkably stagnant and remarkably low. Scholarship on game shows concerns itself primarily with the history and aesthetics of the form, and few works assess the influence the format has had on American society or how the aesthetics and rhythms of contemporary life model themselves on the aesthetics and rhythms of game shows.In Truth and Consequences: Game Shows in Fiction and Film (University Press of Mississippi, 2020), author Mike Miley seeks to broaden the conversation about game shows by studying how they are represented in fiction and film. Writers and filmmakers find the game show to be the ideal metaphor for life in a media-saturated era, from selfhood to love to family to state power. The book is divided into “rounds,” each chapter looking at different themes that books and movies explore via the game show.By studying over two dozen works of fiction and film—bestsellers, blockbusters, disasters, modern legends, forgotten gems, award winners, self-published curios, and everything in between—Truth and Consequences argues that game shows offer a deeper understanding of modern-day America, a land of high-stakes spectacle where a game-show host can become president of the United States. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

The Great Recession threatened the well-being of tens of millions of Americans, dramatically weakened the working class, hollowed out the middle class, and strengthened the position of the very wealthy. Against this backdrop, the hit reality show Shark Tank premiered in 2009. Featuring ambitious entrepreneurs chasing support from celebrity investors, the show offered a version of the American Dream that still seemed possible to many, where a bright idea and a well-honed pitch could lift a bootstrap business to new heights of success. More than a decade later, Shark Tank still airs regularly on multiple networks, and its formula has sparked imitators everywhere, from elite universities to elementary school classrooms.In Entertaining Entrepreneurs: Reality TV's Shark Tank and the American Dream in Uncertain Times (UNC Press, 2020), Daniel Horowitz shows how Shark Tank's version of entrepreneurship disguises and distorts the opportunities and traps of capitalism. Digging into today's cult of the entrepreneur, Horowitz charts its rise from the rubble of economic crisis and its spread as a mainstay of American culture, and he explores its flawed view of what it really takes to succeed in business.Horowitz offers more than a look at one television phenomenon. He is the perfect guide to the portrayal of entrepreneurship in business school courses, pitch competitions, popular how-to books, and scholarly works, as well as the views of real-world venture capitalists.Nick Pozek is Assistant Director at the Parker School of Foreign & Comparative Law at Columbia University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

In this episode Miranda Corcoran speaks to Courtenay Stallings about her new book, Laura’s Ghost: Women Speak about Twin Peaks (Fayetteville Mafia Press, 2020). Laura’s Ghost is unique exploration of an iconic television series. The book focuses on the character of Laura Palmer, the beautiful homecoming queen whose murder sets in motion the mysteries at the heart of David Lynch’s eccentric small town. Through conversations with women involved in both the show itself and the Twin Peaks fan community, Laura’s Ghost explores Laura’s legacy from a host of different perspectives. Stallings speaks with the actor Sheryl Lee about her experience of playing Laura Palmer, with filmmaker Jennifer Lynch about writing Laura’s backstory in The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer, and with a range of artists, authors, performers and teachers about Laura’s impact on their lives. In this way, Laura’s Ghost excavates the layers of complexity embedded in Laura’s character, framing her as a friend, a daughter, a mischief-maker, a rebel and, most importantly, a survivor.Courtenay Stallings is a writer and professor based in Los Angeles.Content Warning: This episode discusses sexual abuse and incest.Resources for sexual abuse and domestic violence survivors can be found here and here.The author is donating 10% of all proceeds she personally receives to The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network.Miranda Corcoran is a lecturer in twenty-first-century literature in University College Cork. She is a regular contributor to Diabolique and blogs about popular culture here. You can follow her on Twitter @middleagedwitch Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

Nerdfighteria started over a decade ago by brothers Hank and John Green who decided to provide literacy themed programming on their website and YouTube channel. With almost three million members, Nerdfighteria is more than just a space for fans to talk about the work of John Green and other young adult authors. In her new book, Narratives, Nerd Fighters, and New Media (University of Iowa Press, 2020), Jennifer Burek Pierce explores the ways the media platforms created by the Green brothers have become spaces for fans to not only learn about the writing of John Green, and more recently his brother Hank as well, but to also share their own fan art and make connections with one another. Burek Pierce examines the ways in which readers use videos and other activities to engage authors and other readers. Nerdfighters are readers and Burek Pierce's work examines not only the online community they have created, but how this community tells us about reading in the digital age. Rebekah Buchanan is an Associate Professor of English and Director of English Education at Western Illinois University. Her research focuses on feminism, activism, and literacy practices in youth culture, specifically through zines and music. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

Anthony Valerio's Before the Sidewalk Ended: A Walk with Shel Silverstein (Daisy H. Productions, 2020) is a startling portrait of the great writer of children's books, songs and plays Shel Silverstein. What he was like as a man and a friend. What interested and inspired him. Some of the women in his life. The loving, often hilarious relationship between Shel Silverstein and Anthony Valerio depicted in these pages entertains as much as informs. Take a ground-breaking walk beside them through Greenwich Village on a routine workday, their stops, their conversations. Lending beauty and life to this charming memoir of an historical time and place are never before seen photos by the great graphic artist and photographer Dave Barry. About Anthony Valerio, Shel Silverstein wrote: "He knows his people. He knows his craft. He gets in, tells his story and gets out. It's what good writing should be."  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

Ben-Hur (1959), Jaws (1975), Avatar (2009), Wonder Woman (2017): the blockbuster movie has held a dominant position in American popular culture for decades. In American Blockbuster: Movies, Technology, and Wonder (Duke University Press, 2020), Charles R. Acland charts the origins, impact, and dynamics of this most visible, entertaining, and disparaged cultural form. Acland narrates how blockbusters emerged from Hollywood's turn to a hit-driven focus during the industry's business crisis in the 1950s. Movies became bigger, louder, and more spectacular. They also became prototypes for ideas and commodities associated with the future of technology and culture, accelerating the prominence of technological innovation in modern American life. Acland shows that blockbusters continue to be more than just movies; they are industrial strategies and complex cultural machines designed to normalize the ideologies of our technological age.Charles R. Acland is Distinguished University Research Professor of Communication Studies at Concordia University, Montreal. He is the author of Swift Viewing: The Popular Life of Subliminal Influence and Screen Traffic: Movies, Multiplexes, and Global Culture, and coeditor of Useful Cinema, all also published by Duke University Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

One of the lures that drew Americans to the suburbs in the years after World War II was the promise of a secure life. By the mid-1970s, however, it seemed that this security was under threat from a variety of sources. In Neighborhood of Fear: The Suburban Crisis in American Culture, 1975–2001 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020), Kyle Riismandel examines the anxiety felt by American suburbanites during those decades, and what their responses reveal about the politics and society of that era. As Riismandel explains, many of these fears were mirrored and amplified by the popular culture of the era, with movies and television shows shaping perceptions of the problems suburbanites faced. Keyed by events such as the meltdown of the Three Mile Island reactor, the discoveries of pollution at Love Canal, and the kidnapping of Adam Walsh, suburbanites mobilized to prevent bar similar threats from endangering their neighborhoods. As Riismandel illustrates, their opposition was typically very localized, and often embodied both the distrust of government and the concern for cultural decay reflected in the New Right politics so prevalent during the era. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture