I.
Collectibles.
The informer : John Leonard's When the kissing had to stop --
Advertisements for everybody else : Jonathan Lethem's The ecstasy of influence --
Democratic vistas : Dave Hickey's Air guitar.
II.
From blackface minstrelsy to track-and-hook.
In search of Jim Crow : why postmodern minstrelsy studies matter --
The old Ethiopians at home : Ken Emerson's Doo-dah! --
Before the blues : David Wondrich's Stomp and swerve --
Rhythms of the universe : Ned Sublette's Cuba and its music --
Black melting pot : David B. Coplan's In Township tonight! --
Bwana-acolyte in the favor bank : Banning Eyre's in griot time --
In the crucible of the party : Charles Keil et al. Bright Balkan morning --
Defining the folk : Benjamin Filene's Romancing the folk --
Folking around : David Hajdu's Positively 4th Street --
Punk lives : Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain's Please kill me --
Biography of a corporation : Nelson George's Where did our love go? --
Hip-hop faces the world : Steven Hager's Hip hop, David Toop's The rap attack, and Nelson George, Sally Banes, Susan Flinker, and Patty Romanowski's Fresh --
Making out like gangsters : Preston Lauterbach's The chitlin circuit, Dan Charnas's The big --
Payback, Ice-T's Ice, and Tommy James's Me, the mob, and music --
Money isn't everything : Fred Goodman's The mansion on the hill --
Mapping the earworm's genome : John Seabrook's The song machine.
III.
Critical practice.
Beyond the symphonic quest : Susan Mcclary's Feminine endings --
All in the tune family : Peter van Der Merwe's Origins of the popular style --
Bel cantos : Henry Pleasants's The great American popular singers --
The country and the city : Charlie Gillett's The sound of the city --
Reflections of an aging rock critic : Jon Landau's It's too late to stop now --
Pioneer days : Kevin Avery's Everything is an afterthought and Nona Willis Aronowitz's (ed.) Out of the vinyl deeps --
Impolite discourse : Jim Derogatis's Let it blurt : The life and times of Lester Bangs --
America's greatest rock critic, Richard Meltzer's A whore just like the rest, and Nick Tosches's The Nick Tosches reader --
Journalism and/or criticism and/or musicology and/or sociology (and/or writing) : Simon Frith --
Serious music : Robert Walser's running with the devil --
Minutes of... : William York's Who's who in rock music --
The fanzine worldview, alphabetized : Ira A. Robbins's Trouser press guide to New Wave Records --
Awesome : Simon Reynolds's Blissed out --
Ingenuousness lost : James Miller's Flowers in the dustbin --
Rock criticism lives : Jessica Hopper's The first collection of criticism by a living female rock critic --
Emo meets Trayvon Martin : Hanif Abdurraqib's They can't kill us until they kill us.
IV.
Lives in music inside and out.
Great book of fire : Nick Tosches's Hellfire and Robert Palme's Jerry Lee Lewis rocks! --
That bad man, tough old Huddie Ledbetter : Charles Wolfe and Kip Lornell's The life and legend of Leadbelly --
The impenetrable heroism of Sam Cooke : Peter Guralnick's Dream boogie --
Bobby and Dave : Bob Dylan's Chronicles : volume one and Dave van Ronk's The mayor of Macdougal street --
Tell all : Ed Sanders's Fug you and Samuel R. Delany's The motion of light in water --
King of the thrillseekers : Richard Hell's I dreamed I was a very clean tramp --
Lives saved, lives lost : Carrie Brownstein's Hunger makes me a modern girl and Patti Smith's M Train --
The cynic and the bloke : Rod Stewart's Rod : the autobiography and Donald Fagen's Eminent hipsters --
His own shaman : RJ Smith's The one --
Spotlight on the queen : David Ritz's Respect --
The realest thing you've ever seen : Bruce Springsteen's Born to run.
V.
Fictions.
Writing for the people : George Orwell's 1984 --
A classic illustrated : R. Crumb's The Book of Genesis --
The hippie grows older : Richard Brautigan's Sombrero fallout --
Comic Gurdjieffianism you can masturbate to : Marco Vassi's Mind blower --
Porn yesterday : Walter Kendrick's The secret museum --
What pretentious white men are good for : Robert Coover's Gerald's party --
Impoverished how, exactly? : Roddy Doyle's The woman who walked into doors --
Sustainable romance : Norman's Rush's Mortals --
Derring-do scraping by : Michael Chabon's Telegraph Avenue --
Futures by the dozen : Bruce Sterling's Holy fire --
Ya poet of the massa woods : Sandra Newman's The country of ice cream star --
A darker shade of noir : the indefatigable Walter Mosley.
VI.
Bohemia meets hegemony.
Épatant le bourgeoisie : Jerrold Seigel's Bohemian Paris and T. J. Clark's The painting of modern life --
The village people : Christine Stansell's American moderns --
A slender hope for salvation : Charles Reich's The greening of America --
The lumpenhippie guru : Ed Sanders's The family --
Strait are the gates : Morris Dickstein's Gates of Eden --
The little counterculture that could : Carol Brightman's Sweet chaos --
The pop-boho connection, narrativized : Bernard F. Gendron's Between Montmartre and the Mudd club --
Cursed and sainted seekers of the sexual century : John Heidenry's What wild ecstasy --
Bohemias lost and found : Ross Wetzsteon's Republic of dreams, Richard Kostelanetz's Soho and Richard Lloyd's Neo-Bohemias --
Autobiography of a pain in the neck : Meredith Maran's What it's like to live now.
VII.
Culture meets capital.
Twentieth century limited : Marshall Berman's All that is solid melts into air --
Dialectical cricket : C. L. R. James's Beyond a boundary --
Radical pluralist : Andrew Ross's No respect --
Inside the prosex wars : Nadine Strossen's Defending pornography, Joanma Frueh's Erotic --
Faculties, and Laura Kipnis's Bound and gagged --
Growing up kept down : William Finnegan's Cold new world --
The secret fundamentalists : Jeff Sharlet's The family --
Dark night of the quants : ten books about the financial crisis --
They bet your life : four books about hedge funds --
Living in a material world : Raymond Williams's Long revolution --
With a god on his side : Terry Eagleton's Culture and the death of god, culture, and materialism --
My friend Marshall : Marshall Berman's Modernism in the streets.