Entertainment Culture

The protagonist of Just Do It is Phil Knight, a reclusive billionaire who started a two-man operation importing Japanese running shoes and built it into a $4 billion company. Irreverent, unpredictable, and leery of the sports establishment, Knight created the most muscular jock culture in business, a place where employees routinely took two hours at lunch to work out and then strategized late into the night in their holy war against competitors Reebok and Adidas.

Bella and Edward, and their family and friends, have faced countless dangers and philosophical dilemmas in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight novels. This book is the first to explore them, drawing on the wisdom of philosophical heavyweights to answer essential questions such as: What do the struggles of "vegetarian" vampires who control their biological urge for human blood say about free will? Are vampires morally absolved if they kill only animals and not people? From a feminist perspective, is Edward a romantic hero or is he just a stalker? Is Jacob "better" for Bella than Edward?

It was a magical time enhanced by radio as well as the great live performances. Radio and music of the Big Band Era were made for each other, and the so-called Swing Years were a golden age of rhythm. It was not just music that made you want to dance. It was music that made you glow, music that made you want to sing, music that made you come alive, music for falling in love. And, despite the passage of time, it still is.

The first book dedicated solely to exploring his creative work, Man in the Music guides us through an unparalleled analysis of Jackson’s recordings, album by album, from his trailblazing work with Quincy Jones to his later collaborations with Teddy Riley, Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis, and Rodney Jerkins. Drawing on rare archival material and on dozens of original interviews with many who helped bring the artist’s music into the world, Jackson expert and acclaimed cultural critic Joseph Vogel reveals what gave rise to an immortal body of work.

In this new audiobook, broadcaster and music writer Alan Cross narrates the definitive history of Nine Inch Nails. Cross succeeds once again in revealing the fascinating history behind the music in the same compelling way we've come to expect from his long broadcasting career.

Comedians Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld never thought anyone would watch their silly little sitcom about a New York comedian sitting around talking to his friends. NBC executives didn't think anyone would watch either, but they bought it anyway, hiding it away in the TV dead zone of summer. But against all odds, viewers began to watch, first a few and then many, until nine years later nearly 40 million Americans were tuning in weekly.

The Star Wars films continue to revolutionize science fiction, creating new standards for cinematographic excellence and permeating popular culture around the world. The films feature many complex themes ranging from good versus evil and moral development and corruption to religious faith and pragmatism, forgiveness and redemption, and many others.

From the Emmy Award-winning Squid Game to streaming sensations like The Glory and Crash Landing on You, Korean television has emerged onto the global pop culture scene as compelling television—but what exactly makes these shows so irresistibly bingeable? And what can we learn about our societies and ourselves from watching them? From stand-up comedian and media studies PhD Grace Jung comes a rollicking deep dive into the cultural significance of Korean television.

Millions of people go to enormous lengths to achieve fame. Fame is woven into our lives in ways that may have been unimaginable in years past. Mining decades of experience, writer, director, producer, and actress Justine Bateman writes a visceral, intimate look at the experience of Fame. Combining the internal reality-shift of the famous, theories on the public’s behavior at each stage of a famous person’s career, and the experiences of other famous performers, Bateman takes the listener inside and outside the emotions of Fame.

An original journalist for The Source, Dan Charnas built a celebrated career in the rap industry. In The Big Payback, he chronicles the rise of the hip-hop culture and shows how it became so powerful in a matter of decades. Charnas also profiles many of the movers and shakers in this burgeoning cultural movement, offering unprecedented access to an industry that continues to shake the globe.

The Ultimate History of the '80s Teen Movie goes behind the scenes of a genre where cult hits mingled with studio blockbusters, where giants like Spielberg and Coppola rubbed shoulders with baby-faced first-timers, and where future superstars Sean, Demi, and Tom all got their big break. Music, comedy, and politics all play a part in the surprisingly complex history of the '80s teen movie. And while the films might have been aimed primarily at adolescents, the best tackle universal issues and remain relevant to all ages.

Alex Ross, renowned New Yorker music critic and author of the international best seller and Pulitzer Prize finalist The Rest Is Noise, reveals how Richard Wagner became the proving ground for modern art and politics - an aesthetic war zone where the Western world wrestled with its capacity for beauty and violence.

Learn about Stencil Art with iMinds insightful audio knowledge series. In any urban setting throughout the world today, you can expect to see examples of stencil art. On street corners, train stations and public toilets the world over stencil art is a favoured tool of the graffiti artist. Many consider such imagery urban pollution, the work of mindless vandals. Such attitudes ignore what has fast become one of the most significant artistic and cultural movements of the early 21st century.

Map of the Soul: 7 is a capstone of a three-album project intended to reveal the inner landscape of the human soul that is packed with rich symbolism and woven together with BTS’s signature sound and moves. Starting with the lyrics, this book launches into a deep, engaging examination of the album in the light of the psychology of Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung. The many layers of meaning embedded in the number 7 are brought to light, along with several fundamental concepts of Jungian psychology.

Jay-Z: Made in America is the fruit of Michael Eric Dyson’s decade of teaching the work of one of the greatest poets this nation has produced, as gifted a wordsmith as Walt Whitman, Robert Frost and Rita Dove. But as a rapper, he’s sometimes not given the credit he deserves for just how great an artist he’s been for so long.

Twenty years ago, Ken Auletta wrote an iconic New Yorker profile of the Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, who was then at the height of his powers. The profile made waves for exposing how volatile, even violent, Weinstein was to his employees and collaborators. But there was a much darker story that was just out of reach: rumors had long swirled that Weinstein was a sexual predator. Auletta confronted Weinstein, who denied the claims. Since no one was willing to go on the record, Auletta and the magazine concluded they couldn’t close the case.

The age of the rock star, like the age of the cowboy, has passed. Like the cowboy, the idea of the rock star lives on in our imaginations. What did we see in them? Swagger. Recklessness. Sexual charisma. Damn-the-torpedoes self-belief. A certain way of carrying themselves. Good hair. Interesting shoes. Talent we wished we had. What did we want of them? To be larger than life but also like us. To live out their songs. To stay young forever. No wonder many didn't stay the course.

Here is the epic human drama behind the making of the five movies nominated for Best Picture in 1967 - Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, The Graduate, In the Heat of the Night, Doctor Dolittle, and Bonnie and Clyde - and through them, the larger story of the cultural revolution that transformed Hollywood and America forever.

Growing up, Jena Friedman didn’t care about being likable. And she never wanted to be a comedian, either. She wouldn’t discover her knack for the funny business until research for her college thesis led her to take an improv class in Chicago. That anthropology paper, written on race, class, and gender in the city’s comedy scene, was, in Jena’s own words, “just as funny as it sounds.” But it did lay the groundwork for a career that has seen her write and produce for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, the Late Show with David Letterman, and the Oscar-nominated Borat Subsequent Moviefilm.

The inimitably witty David Rakoff, New York Times best-selling author of Don’t Get Too Comfortable, defends the commonsensical notion that you should always assume the worst, because you’ll never be disappointed. In this deeply funny (and, no kidding, wise and poignant) audiobook, Rakoff examines the realities of our sunny, gosh­ everyone-can-be-a-star contemporary culture and finds that, pretty much as a universal rule, the best is not yet to come, adversity will triumph, justice will not be served, and your dreams won’t come true.