From Barbie to the internet, the Simpsons to the Malls, this engaging book on pop culture helps readers develop critical and analytical skills and write clear prose while reading, thinking, and writing about subjects they find inherently interesting. Spanning a full range of topics, it provides key reading and writing strategies, and contains essays that address a topic generally and then explore related material in depth. Chapter and article introductions for each article encourage readers to consider the underlying meanings, purposes, and ideas in various pop-cultural artifacts and practices. Readings cover the full range of topics in the field of popular culture--from advertising, television, and popular music, to cyberculture, sports, movies and leisure. "Casebooks" on certain pop-cultural phenomena (e.g., the Barbie Doll, rap and hip-hop music, horror movies, and virtual communities) provide in-depth studies of certain artifacts and practices and encourage readers to consider the social impact of the phenomena and how it may have impacted their own lives. For anyone interested in pop culture or strategies for writing about pop culture.

Common Culture: Reading and Writing about American Popular Culture (3rd Edition)

Politics & Social Sciences

Petracca, Michael

Sorapure, Madeleine (editors)

Social Sciences

PRENTICE/HALL

Harmon Nails III, wry observer of the human condition, cynical divorcee, reluctant literary student and reckless sportsman, tracks a priceless stolen heirloom. In the course of his pursuits, Harmon presents bemused readers with a satirical glimpse of academia, the Southern California lifestyle, and the rigors of finding one's identity, sexual and otherwise.

Doctor Syntax

Borgo Pr

Captain Zzyzx

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Joshua Odell Editions, Capra Press, Santa Barbara

In Michael Petracca's dangerously antic Doctor Syntax, the wry narrator, Harmon Nails III, tracks a stolen heirloom while questing for sexual and academic fulfillment. Captain Zzyzx reprises Harmon Nails, this time as a rhythm &amp; blues guitarist in search of an even more priceless and elusive quarry -- intimacy. The only things standing in Harmon's way are his own poisonous ambivalence, a sweatsock full of prescription painkillers, a friend's fatal encounter with an out-of-control minivan, a lively but reticent redhead named Tanya Scott, and a lost tortoiseshell flatpick Harmon must find before he can achieve true inner peace.

Literature & Fiction

United States

Joshua Odell Editions

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Books by Petracca, Michael