Here are 100 books that Fire in the Rain...Singer in the Storm fans have personally recommended if you like
Fire in the Rain...Singer in the Storm.
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My expertise as a scholar of the women’s music movement spans 40 years--ever since I attended my first concert and music festival in 1981. A lecturer at UC-Berkeley, I’m the author of 19 books on women’s history, and published the first book on women’s music festivals, Eden Built By Eves, in 1999 (now out of print.) More recently I’ve organized exhibits on the women’s music movement for the Library of Congress, co-authored The Feminist Revolution(which made Oprah’s list), and I’m now the archivist and historian for Olivia Records.
A wonderful overview of the early years of Olivia Records, this memoir from the social justice warrior of the original Olivia collective details how the first lesbian recording company was founded—and succeeded, despite all odds. Berson includes romantic insights on the artists’ passion for one another, as well as accounts of building a national audience. For two generations of women who came out with this music, the songs and albums remain critical anthems of female empowerment—and the only music that existed to affirm lesbians’ lives.
Literary Nonfiction. Women's Studies. LGBTQIA Studies. Music. The burgeoning lesbian and feminist movements of the '70s and '80s created an impetus to form more independent and equitable social and cultural institutions--bookstores, publishers, health clinics, and more--to support the unprecedented surge in women's arts of all kinds. Olivia Records was at the forefront of these models, not only recording and distributing women's music but also creating important new social spaces for previously isolated women and lesbians through concerts and festivals. Ginny Z Berson, one of Olivia's founding members and visionaries, kept copious records during those heady days--days also fraught with contradictions,…
My expertise as a scholar of the women’s music movement spans 40 years--ever since I attended my first concert and music festival in 1981. A lecturer at UC-Berkeley, I’m the author of 19 books on women’s history, and published the first book on women’s music festivals, Eden Built By Eves, in 1999 (now out of print.) More recently I’ve organized exhibits on the women’s music movement for the Library of Congress, co-authored The Feminist Revolution(which made Oprah’s list), and I’m now the archivist and historian for Olivia Records.
This comprehensive exploration of the women’s music movement in the 1970s and 80s looks at every angle of business and culture, from artists, companies, labels, distributors, publicity, session musicians, and more; the book includes over 100 interviews, and draws upon the author’s personal experience as a popular touring performer and recording artist.
In California, a month before the Stonewall Riots in 1969, Maxine Feldman penned a song, “Angry Atthis,” about the shame surrounding lesbians. She didn’t know where she was going to sing her new song until comedy duo Harrison and Tyler asked her to open their shows. On the other side of the country and three years later, Alix Dobkin released Lavender Jane Loves Women, the first record produced, engineered and played by women.
Maxine and Alix had no business plan. They didn’t fit the mold set by mainstream music but they saw great potential to create a powerful soundtrack for…
My expertise as a scholar of the women’s music movement spans 40 years--ever since I attended my first concert and music festival in 1981. A lecturer at UC-Berkeley, I’m the author of 19 books on women’s history, and published the first book on women’s music festivals, Eden Built By Eves, in 1999 (now out of print.) More recently I’ve organized exhibits on the women’s music movement for the Library of Congress, co-authored The Feminist Revolution(which made Oprah’s list), and I’m now the archivist and historian for Olivia Records.
Featuring an Introduction by artist Linda Tillery, the book offers a timely critique of white-centered women’s music events and the possibility of Black women’s music festivals. The author looks at the different experiences of Black audiences in primarily white feminist festival spaces and the role of Black lesbian artists across several generations.
Drawing on fieldwork conducted at eight women's music festivals, Eileen M. Hayes shows how studying these festivals--attended by predominately white lesbians--provides critical insight into the role of music and lesbian community formation. She argues that the women's music festival is a significant institutional site for the emergence of black feminist consciousness in the contemporary period. Hayes also offers sage perspectives on black women's involvement in the women's music festival scene, the ramifications of their performances as drag kings in those environments, and the challenges and joys of a black lesbian retreat based on the feminist festival model. With acuity and…
My expertise as a scholar of the women’s music movement spans 40 years--ever since I attended my first concert and music festival in 1981. A lecturer at UC-Berkeley, I’m the author of 19 books on women’s history, and published the first book on women’s music festivals, Eden Built By Eves, in 1999 (now out of print.) More recently I’ve organized exhibits on the women’s music movement for the Library of Congress, co-authored The Feminist Revolution(which made Oprah’s list), and I’m now the archivist and historian for Olivia Records.
Possibly the best and rarest of all publications about the start of the women’s music movement, this volume was prepared by the students at the University of California at Santa Cruz to serve as a textbook (and record of their experiences) for the first-ever course on feminism and music. Still available to good sleuths who find used copies floating around, the title page is Women in American Music. Women’s Studies, Kresge College, University of California, Santa Cruz, Spring 1975.
The idea for the class was initiated by Karlene Faith, who went on to be an influential producer and distributor; the book she helped edit includes interviews with early Olivia artists who were guest speakers and performers in the class. Before her untimely death, she too was working on a history of Olivia Records.
Over the years, as a Professor of English at St. John's University, NY, I have shifted my research from American literature to popular culture, specifically rock music, a passion first ignited when I watched the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show, and re-ignited time and time again over the years. I have written articles, reviews, interviews, and a few books and I edit Popular Music and Society and Rock Music Studies.
With Gender, Branding, and the Modern Music Industry, Kristin Lieb provides an enlightening but often troubling account of the contemporary pop music industry. By focusing on women artists in the post-MTV era, Lieb demonstrates that female pop singers are judged more than ever on their sex appeal—despite the advances of the women’s movement over the past several decades. Lieb draws from both theorists and music industry insiders, giving her conclusions weight and credibility. Yet despite its frequently disturbing findings, the book is not overly cynical. Lieb, an energetic writer, has managed to maintain her enthusiasm for pop music.
Gender, Branding, and The Modern Music Industry combines interview data with music industry professionals with theoretical frameworks from sociology, mass communication, and marketing to explain and explore the gender differences female artists experience.
This book provides a rare lens on the rigid packaging process that transforms female artists of various genres into female pop stars. Stars -- and the industry power brokers who make their fortunes -- have learned to prioritize sexual attractiveness over talent as they fight a crowded field for movie deals, magazine covers, and fashion lines, let alone record deals. This focus on the female pop star's…
I’ve had a love-hate relationship with pop music since I was a kid singing Britney Spear’s “Lucky” with my friends. Eventually, I evolved into a punk-ass cynical teenager who disavowed my love of pop, but the fascination remained. In college, I started a pop star romance that would–many, many years later–become my debut book Love in the Liner Notes. In the process, I read an obsessively large number of books touching on music, celebrities, musicians, and the entertainment industry. I hope you enjoy a selection of my favorites, mostly romances (what can I say, I have a type) that brought me the kind of joy only a pop star can.
Getting back to the fluffy–and the steamy–I’m not a huge holiday romance reader but this was delicious!
A plus-sized adult film star accidentally getting cast in a squeaky clean Christmas movie and her co-star is an ex-boy band bad boy trying to rehab his image? *chef’s kiss* Add in the fact that they're fans of each other’s work? Perfection.
I felt that the characters being huge fans of each other helped offset the sometimes parasocial power dynamic of a fan dating/banging a star they’ve idolized for years. That plus them both needing to keep Bee’s porn career a secret put them on even ground, which allowed me to really enjoy their delightful banter, chemistry, and hot sex scenes.
Cowritten by #1 New York Times bestselling author Julie Murphy and USA Today bestselling author Sierra Simone-a steamy plus-size holiday rom-com about an adult film star who is semi-accidentally cast as a lead in a family-friendly Christmas movie, and the former bad-boy pop star she falls in love with.
Bee Hobbes (aka Bianca Von Honey) has a successful career as a plus-size adult film star. With a huge following and two supportive moms, Bee couldn't ask for more. But when Bee's favorite producer casts her to star in a Christmas movie he's making for the squeaky-clean Hope Channel, Bee's career…
Like most writers, I’ve been a voracious reader since I was a child; but my preferences were witches and haunted houses, rather than princesses and talking frogs. As I developed my own writing, I wanted to tell stories that were reflective of my world but with a dark twist. My first completed story was "Patchwork", about a woman emptying the marital home after the breakdown of her marriage. I went on to participate in several popular horror anthologies. I really enjoy the challenge of writing a great short story because you have to get the reader in a chokehold early and then deliver that gut punch sooner than later.
Originally published in 1978, I was still a bit young to be devouring such dark and twisted tales but this one became my own blueprint for writing short stories.
This wasn't my first SK book, I had previously read his other novels like Salem's Lot and The Stand. But once I discovered Night Shift, it was like getting a different story each and every time I opened the book.
There are no 'favorites' here because each one is sublime, but if I were forced to select 2-3 out of the 20, I'd go with "Gray Matter", "The Mangler", and "Sometimes They Come Back", mostly because these have quotes that I still see and use here and there, some 40 years later.
Stephen King’s first collection of short stories, originally published in 1978, showcases the darkest depths of his brilliant imagination and will "chill the cockles of many a heart" (Chicago Tribune). Night Shift is the inspiration for over a dozen acclaimed horror movies and television series, including Children of the Corn , Chapelwaite, and Lawnmower Man.
Here we see mutated rats gone bad (“Graveyard Shift”); a cataclysmic virus that threatens humanity (“Night Surf,” the basis for The Stand); a possessed, evil lawnmower (“The Lawnmower Man”); unsettling children from the heartland (“Children of the Corn”); a smoker who will try anything to…
I’m a romance novelist who writes about otherwise smart people who deal badly with their feelings. Love, sorrow, jealousy, anger, hopelessness, and grief make appearances in my books because I write in a genre that centers the emotional lives of its characters. When I’m not wreaking havoc on fictional people, I take long walks and eavesdrop on conversations. I’m a recent transplant to Toronto, Canada, after having lived in New York City for more than 20 years.
Jackson’s novel shuttles between present-day Oakland and the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival as music journalist Alonzo Reid remembers and recounts to his grown children how he met his now-deceased photographer wife, Ada. What I love about this book is the fact that although the family is grieving, so much joy infuses Ada’s memory. And while Back in the Day mourns a death and the end of one love story, it ends on a hopeful note and marks the beginning of a new chapter.
Helping pack up his childhood home was going much easier than Amir expected. The only sticking point is the record collection his father Alonzo refuses to put in storage. When Amir asked his father why he needs to keep all those records with him, Alonzo offers to tell him a story instead. -- Monterey Pop Festival
In 1967, Alonzo was a baby music reporter at the Village Voice on his first big assignment. By his side is photographer Ada Carr who is all brown skin, big afro and sharp tongue. He should be worried about his story, but all…
I'm the writer and artist of the Johnny Hiro graphic novels. In those books, I use pop culture reference humor, but never simply as a joke. A reference can act as a hint to a world beyond the story the writer tells. I often dig slightly into an emotional resonance behind that reference—perhaps the (fictional) story of why it exists, or perhaps it even becomes an integral plot point. Popular media and culture often have a direct influence on our creative arts projects. And just sometimes, that art becomes an integral part of the popular culture itself.
I’ve read a handful of Warhol biographies and this is easily my favorite. It does a good job of breaking down his life experiences, his art and the philosophies behind The Factory, his purposeful creation of himself as an icon, and his adaptations to the American fine art and underground art landscapes that changed throughout his career. The book also has plenty of great party stories involving countless celeb friends. And to offset that all, peaks into his spending. The one bummer for me was that there weren’t enough pictures. But, well, I guess that’s what all my other Warhol books are for.
Pop: The Genius of Andy Warhol is a groundbreaking reassessment of the most influential and controversial American artist of the second half of the 20th century. Writers Tony Scherman and David Dalton disentangle the myths of the great pop artist from the man he truly was, and offer a vivid, entertaining, and provocative look at Warhol’s personal and artistic evolution. Drawing on brand new sources—including extensive new interviews and insight from those who knew him best—Pop offers the most dynamic, comprehensive portrait ever written of the man who changed the way we see the world.
I’m an emeritus professor of psychology (University of Washington) who has long been intrigued by the mistakes that people have made throughout history. I’ve long been struck by Oppenheimer’s observation, immediately after the Trinity explosion, that “I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” This led me to look into the wide array of mistakes, from the mythic, literary, athletic, business, political, medical, and military. In writing OOPS!, I let myself go in a way that I’ve never before, writing with a critical and wise-ass style that isn’t strictly academic, but is factually accurate and, frankly, was a lot of fun!
This is an accessible account of history through the lens of how “mistakes were made,” and how most of us aren’t told about them.
It is plain old-fashioned great fun to read about blunders in the worlds of business, sports, pop culture, even some of America’s epic military failures (so long as they happened long ago!). A great corrective to claims that the US is uniquely blessed with perfection.
Have you ever wondered what the biggest failures in American history are?
Which sports teams just can’t seem to catch a break and keep failing, over and over and over in the most disastrous manner?
What are some of the biggest failures in American pop culture?
In The United States of Epic Fails: 52 Crazy Stories and Blunders Through History That You Didn't Get Taught in School you’ll learn all about these embarrassing moments and many other American failures on an epic level.
Here you will find out:
What film almost destroyed a major studio and killed a movie genre?…
