Cosmic Thing – a definitive look at The B52s iconic 1989 album that was recorded after the tragic death of their guitarist

posted Thursday, July 24, 2025

by: Bryen Dunn in Books

The B-52s were always queer, though not overtly, and this book dissects the coded queer messaging in their music, using their 1989 album Cosmic Thing as a focal point. Alongside the author’s own queer awakening, Crighton investigates the band’s history and recorded work to date, providing cultural context along the way, and proves what was obvious […]

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Pioneer Summer – banned queer Russian romance novel set in the 1980s

posted Tuesday, July 22, 2025

by: Bryen Dunn in Books

Pioneer Summer takes place in the year is 1986, and Yurka Konev, 16, has been sent off for another summer at Pioneer Camp. Impulsive, forthright, and unfairly branded as a troublemaker, he anticipates the weeks ahead of him with boredom and dread. But when he’s pushed into working on the camp’s theatre production, he meets […]

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I Feel Famous – a girl’s coming of age story set to the pulse of 1970’s NYC punk rock scene

posted Tuesday, July 15, 2025

by: Bryen Dunn in Books

I Feel Famous: Punk Diaries 1977-1981 is a girl’s coming of age story set to the pulse of punk rock. The book tracks 17-year-old Angela Jaeger’s exciting discovery of punk music and its accompanying lifestyle in 1977. A music enthusiast living in New York’s East Village, Angela’s story unfolds chronologically, charting her late adolescence in tandem […]

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The Emperor of Gladness – heartwarming tale of friendship between an elderly woman with dementia and a youth in despair

posted Saturday, July 12, 2025

by: Bryen Dunn in Books

The Emperor of Gladness begins late one summer evening in the post-industrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, as nineteen-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge in pelting rain, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow succumbing to dementia, who convinces him […]

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Sound N’ Fury: Rock N’ Roll Stories – told from a band manager’s perspective

posted Tuesday, July 8, 2025

by: Bryen Dunn in Books

Sound N’ Fury does not have a story arc. It is a collection of anecdotes, like a record comprised of various tracks — each one has its point and purpose. Alan Niven, who guided Guns N’ Roses from the gutter of Los Angeles to Wembley Stadium, shares stories from his remarkable life as a manager with […]

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Pretend We’re Dead: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of Women in Rock in the ’90s

posted Thursday, July 3, 2025

by: Bryen Dunn in Books

Pretend We’re Dead commemorates and celebrates the overlooked contributions of true trailblazers. From the founder of the Women of Rock Oral History Project, an exploration of women in the ’90s rock scene, featuring original interviews with Liz Phair, Shirley Manson, Kristin Hersh, Donita Sparks, Tanya Donelly, members of Hole, Luscious Jackson, Veruca Salt, Babes in Toyland, and […]

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Clay – WW1 story about the men who went to war, and those who stayed behind

posted Monday, June 30, 2025

by: Bryen Dunn in Books

Clay is a captivating tale of love, masculinity, and vengeance, where tensions boil over in a rural mountain community whose able-bodied men have left to fight in World War I. In the heart of Cantal, in the heat of the summer of 1914, the men resigned themselves to going off to fight, far away. Joseph, […]

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Try Again: An Ex-Con’s Path from Prison to Prosperity 

posted Sunday, June 29, 2025

by: Bryen Dunn in Books

Try Again is the personal life story of Nick Marshall, who was’nt exactly your average twenty-one-year-old from New Jersey. After serving three years in prison for armed robbery, he was still fairly young upon his release, but wondered what kind of life he could lead as an ex-con. As he soon came to find, life […]

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Do Something – Coming of Age Amid the Glitter and Doom of ’70s New York

posted Wednesday, June 25, 2025

by: Bryen Dunn in Books

Do Something is an evocative coming-of-age memoir, about the education of a wayward wild child and acidhead who, searching for meaning and purpose, found refuge in the demimonde of the ruined but magical metropolis that was New York City in the 1970s. Born in the Bronx, Guy Trebay was raised in an atmosphere of privilege […]

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The Midnight Shift – biting, fast-paced vampire murder mystery exploring queer love and the consequences of loneliness

posted Sunday, June 22, 2025

by: Bryen Dunn in Books

The Midnight Shift tells the story of  four isolated elderly people who die back-to-back at the same hospital by jumping out of the sixth-floor window. Su-Yeon doesn’t understand why she’s the only one at her precinct that seems to care. But her colleagues at the police force dismiss the case as a series of unfortunate […]

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