New Books in Popular Culture

This is the story of a song. Yet, it is a song that binds nearly every strand of 20th-century American popular music. “Hey Joe” was written sometime in the early 1960s by a man named Billy Roberts, an obscure singer and guitarist from South Carolina who moved to New York City, drawn by the burgeoning folk music scene in Greenwich Village. It was a time when new, original material was scarce, leading other singers to quickly adapt songs of quality in the spirit of folk music’s oral traditions. Thus began the long journey of “Hey Joe” from New York coffeehouses to the bars on L.A.’s Sunset Strip to the ears of a young guitarist named Jimi Hendrix who launched his career with his radical, electrified interpretation. Extensively researched, That Gun in Your Hand: The Strange Saga of ‘Hey Joe’ and Popular Music’s History of Violence (Anvil Press, 2025) also presents previously unpublished information about the life of Billy Roberts, a shadowy figure whose 2017 death went unreported by all news outlets. With a Foreword by Lenny Kaye. Jason Schneider has written for Exclaim!, The Globe & Mail, The Toronto Star, Paste, American Songwriter, Relix, Shindig and many other media outlets. He is the co-author of Have Not Been The Same: the CanRock Renaissance 1985-1995, and his other books include Whispering Pines: the Northern Roots of American Music, and the novel 3,000 Miles. He currently lives in Kitchener, Ontario. Jason Schneider on Bluesky. Bradley Morgan is a media arts professional in Chicago and author of U2's The Joshua Tree: Planting Roots in Mythic America (Backbeat Books, 2021), Frank Zappa's America (LSU Press, 2025), and U2: Until the End of the World (Gemini Books, 2025). He manages partnerships on behalf of CHIRP Radio 107.1 FM and is the director of its music film festival. Bradley Morgan on Facebook and Bluesky. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

Popular music history collides with data analytics, charts, and numbers in this insightful and surprising look at the greatest hits and musicians, fads, forgotten artists, and much more. Data analyst and musician Chris Dalla Riva reframes everything you thought you knew about music. Did you know that hit songs in the late 1950s were regularly about gruesome death? That a US vice president wrote a number one hit? That while TikTok has spawned countless hits, it's made artists more anonymous than ever before? That pop songs have shaped race relations in the United States? That the key change died around 2003? And that's just the beginning. Coupling hard data with engaging anecdotes, Uncharted Territory: What Numbers Tell Us about the Biggest Hit Songs and Ourselves (Bloomsbury, 2025) is both a takedown and celebration of popular music and provides new ways to think about your favorite songs, genres, and artists from the last 6 decades using unexpected statistics and playful visualizations. This entertaining history is filled with the most popular musicians of all time from The Beatles and The Bee Gees to Michael Jackson, Mariah Carey, and beyond. Whether you danced the twist or the dougie at your senior prom, you're sure to never listen to music again in the same way. Chris Dalla Riva lives at the intersection of music and data. Playing in bands and recording music since his teenage years, Dalla Riva is currently a Senior Product Manager at Audiomack where he focuses on data analytics and personalization. Gregory McNiff is a Managing Director in the New York office of the Blueshirt Group, an IR firm focused on technology. Greg holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, an M. Litt. in Shakespeare Studies from the University of St. Andrews and a B.A. in Classical Languages from 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

Originating in Norse and Celtic mythologies, elves and fairies are a firmly established part of Western popular culture. Since the days of the Vikings and Arthurian legend, these sprites have undergone huge transformations. From J. R. R. Tolkien’s warlike elves, based on medieval legend, to little flower fairies whose charms even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle succumbed to, they permeate European art and culture. In Elves and Fairies: A Short History of the Otherworld (Yale University Press, 2025), Dr. Matthias Egeler explores these mythical creatures of Iceland, Ireland, Scotland, and England, and their continental European cousins. Dr. Egeler goes on a journey through enchanted landscapes and literary worlds. He describes both their friendly and their dangerous, even deadly, sides. We encounter them in the legends of King Arthur’s round table and in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, in the terrible era of the witch trials, in magic’s peaceful conquest of Victorian bourgeois salons, in the child-friendly form of Peter Pan, and even as helpers in the contemporary fight against environmental destruction. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

What is a good life? Traditionally, philosophers have seen it as an equation: The Good Life = Happiness + Meaning. But, if it's really that simple, why don't more of us achieve that truly "good" life?  In The Art of the Interesting: What We Miss in Our Pursuit of the Good Life and How to Cultivate It (Balance, 2024), Lorraine Besser, Professor of Philosophy at Middlebury College, offers insights drawn from both psychological research and philosophical analysis that provides new insights into a third aspect of happiness, psychological richness. According to Besser it is exposure to "the interesting" that leads to psychologically rich experiences. Put simply, "The Interesting" is an experience that captivates you, engages you, helps you let go of whatever is holding you back from fully engaging in the world around you. It's different for everyone, and everyone can obtain and strengthen the skills necessary to access it. In this interview, Besser relates key insights from her book, while discussing linkages to other areas of research including the notion of human capabilities developed by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum, approaches to measuring societal well being such as Bhutan's Gross National Happiness Index, the influence of technology on our ability to achieve psychologically rich lives, and potential normative implications of her research for policy. Professor Besser is interviewed by Thomas McInerney (Loyola University Chicago School of Law; Stockholm Environment Institute). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

For centuries, the ocean was seen as a place of danger and work, but by the late nineteenth century, northeastern shores of the United States became therapeutic destinations for the sick and weary. Doctors in Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and other cities began prescribing time at the beach as a remedy for ailments such as tuberculosis, rickets, and exhaustion. In the decades that followed, seaside towns became health havens complete with hospitals that served urban families and children.Dr. Meghan Crnic’s The Beach Cure: A History of Healing on Northeastern Shores (U Washington Press, 2025) explores how physicians, tourists, and families transformed the coastline into a medical and cultural landscape. Dr. Crnic traces how beliefs in “marine medication”—the healing power of the sun, sea air, and saltwater—shaped the development of northeastern coastal tourist destinations and health institutions in Atlantic City, Coney Island, and beyond. Despite advances in germ theory and the rise of laboratory science, the conviction that nature can restore health and well-being persisted and continues to resonate with beachgoers today.This book uncovers the profound ways in which Americans tied health to place, showing how the underlying belief in nature’s therapeutic powers brought people to the seashore as a precursor to the beach becoming a destination for leisure and recreation. The Beach Cure offers fresh insight into the history of environmental health, urging readers to reflect on how landscapes shape well-being. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

John R. Davis's Keep Your Ear to the Ground (Georgetown University Press, 2025) is the first history of the fanzines that emerged from Washington, DC's highly influential punk community DIY culture has always been at the heart of DC's thriving punk community. As Washington, DC's punk scene emerged in the mid-1970s, so did the periodicals--"fanzines"--that celebrated it. Before the rise of the internet, fanzines were a potent way for fans to communicate and to revel in the joy of fandom. These zines were more than just publications; they were a distillation of punk's allure, connecting the city to the broader punk community. Fanzines remain a meaningful, tactile, creative medium for punk fans to connect with like-minded people outside the corporate-controlled world. In Keep Your Ear to the Ground, the archivist and musician John R. Davis unveils the development of punk fanzines and their role in supporting DC's hardcore and punk scene from the 1970s into the twenty-first century. He sheds new light on DC's scene and highlights some of its key personalities, including many who are often left out of punk history, with high-quality images of rare zines and insights from numerous interviews with zine creators and musicians. This book vividly weaves together the origin of zines and their importance in underground communities. For punk enthusiasts, zine creators, American studies scholars, and anyone who has ever felt like an outsider, Keep Your Ear to the Ground traces how the unique environment of Washington, DC, helped zines thrive. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

Dive into the world of Taylor Swift's latest album, exploring themes of love, fame, and the challenges of celebrity life. The hosts dissect the album's catchy melodies while discussing its blend of nostalgia and contemporary issues, like internet culture's darker side. They highlight Swift's clever lyrics showcasing her duality as both victim and instigator within fame. The conversation also touches on mentorship roles, showgirl imagery, and the physical demands performers face, all wrapped in an engaging analysis of pop's emotional landscape.

In Shouting Out Loud: Lives of The Raincoats (Da Capo Press, 2025) Audrey Golden traces the history of the iconic band The Raincoats staring of the founding by Art students Gina Birch and Ana da Silva in 1977. Since the release of their seminal early records, the band has been revered by punk, queer, feminist, and indie pop artists alike.The Raincoats reimagined the nature of experimental music and DIY design, and went on to inspire Sonic Youth, Nirvana, and an entire generation of Riot Grrrl and queercore musicians. Shouting Out Loud: Lives of the Raincoats tells this story, which resonates at the heart of late twentieth century radical art, in three distinct lives of the band. In The Raincoats' first life, they recorded three full-length albums now regarded as classics and were the first punk band to play behind the Iron Curtain in Warsaw. Nearly a decade later in 1992, the band's second life took off when Kurt Cobain's love of the band catalyzed their renaissance, and The Raincoats became renowned as 'godmothers of grunge and Riot Grrrl' only to go on hiatus again in 1996. In 2001, The Raincoats reemerged in a third and ongoing iteration marked by performances in art museums such as New York's MoMA, the Pompidou Centre in Paris, and London's National Portrait Gallery. The Raincoats have and continue to be a singular phenomenon and influence for so many. Featuring exclusive interviews and never-before-seen images from The Raincoats' archive, Shouting Out Loud is the first biography of this pioneering group of women who paved the way for hundreds of artists who have followed in their footsteps and the must-have account of a legendary band that holds a vital place in twentieth and twenty-first century sonic history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

Kathleen Casey joins Jana Byars to talk about The Things She Carried: A Cultural History of the Purse in America (Oxford UP, 2025). Purses and bags have always been much more than a fashion accessory. For generations of Americans, the purse has been an essential and highly adaptable object, used to achieve a host of social, cultural, and political objectives. In the early 1800s, when the slim fit of neoclassical dresses made interior pockets impractical, upper-class women began to carry small purses called reticules, which provided them with a private place in a world where they did not have equal access to public space. Although many items of apparel have long expressed their wearer's aspirations, only the purse has offered carriers privacy, pride, and pleasure. This privacy has been particularly important for those who have faced discrimination because of their gender, class, race, citizenship, or sexuality. The Things She Carried reveals how bags, sacks, and purses provided the methods and materials for Americans' activism, allowing carriers to transgress critical boundaries at key moments. It explores how enslaved people used purses and bags when attempting to escape and immigrant factory workers fought to protect their purses in the workplace. It also probes the purse's nuanced functions for Black women in the civil rights movement and explores how LGBTQ people used purses to defend their bodies and make declarations about their sexuality. Kathleen Casey closely examines a variety of sources--from vintage purses found in abandoned buildings and museum collections to advertisements, photograph albums, trade journals, newspaper columns, and trial transcripts. She finds purses in use at fraught historical moments, where they served strategic and symbolic functions for their users. The result is a thorough and surprising examination of an object that both ordinary and extraordinary Americans used to influence social, cultural, economic, and political change. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

Vanilla is one of the most expensive of flavorings—so valuable that it was smuggled or stolen by pirates in the early days—and yet it is everywhere. It is a key ingredient in dishes ranging from crème brûlée to Japanese purin. It is the quintessential ice cream flavor in the United States. In Vanilla: The History of an Extraordinary Bean (Yale UP, 2025) Dr. Eric T. Jennings explains how the world’s only edible orchid, originally endemic to Central America, became embedded in the international culinary and cultural landscape. In tracing vanilla’s rise, Dr. Jennings describes how in the 1840s an enslaved boy named Edmond Albius discovered a way to pollinate vanilla orchids with a toothpick or needle—an ingenious process that is still in use. This method transformed the vanilla sector by enabling the plant to be grown outside of its natural range. Dr. Jennings also looks at how the vanilla craze led to the search for now‑pervasive substitutes, and how a vanilla lobby has fought back. He further unravels how vanilla—the world’s most expensive crop and once considered its most refined fragrance—came to mean “bland.” This tale of botany, production techniques, consumption habits, and colonial rivalry connects the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans, revealing how vanilla has become a potent symbol of the modern global village. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture