In The 80s

In The Soho Press Book of '80s Short Fiction, editor Dale Peck offers readers a fresh take on a seminal period in American history, when Ronald Reagan was president, the Cold War was rushing to its conclusion, and literature was searching for ways to move beyond the postmodern unease of the 1970s. Morally charged by newly politicized notions of identity but fraught with anxiety about a body whose fragility had been freshly emphasized by the AIDS epidemic, the 34 works gathered here are individually vivid, but taken as a body of work, they challenge the prevailing notion of the ’80s as a time of aesthetic as well as financial maximalism. Formally inventive yet tightly controlled, they offer a more expansive, inclusive view of the era’s literary accomplishments. The anthology blends early stories from writers like Denis Johnson, Jamaica Kincaid, Mary Gaitskill, and Raymond Carver, which have gone on to become part of the American canon, with remarkable and often transgressive work from some of the most celebrated writers of the underground, including Dennis Cooper, Eileen Myles, Lynne Tillman, and Gary Indiana. Peck has also included powerful work by writers such as Gil Cuadros, Essex Hemphill, and Sam D’Allesandro, whose untimely deaths from AIDS ended their careers almost before they had begun. Almost a third of the stories are out of print and unavailable elsewhere. The Soho Press Book of ’80s Short Fiction is a daring reappraisal of a decade that is increasingly central to our culture.

Fans of Patti Smith's Just Kids and Rob Lowe's Stories I Only Tell My Friends will love this beautifully written, entertaining, and emotionally honest memoir by an actor, director, and author who found his start as an 80s Brat pack member -- the inspiration for the Hulu documentary Brats, written and directed by Andrew McCarthy. Most people know Andrew McCarthy from his movie roles in Pretty in Pink, St. Elmo's Fire, Weekend at Bernie's, and Less than Zero, and as a charter member of Hollywood's Brat Pack. That iconic group of ingenues and heartthrobs included Rob Lowe, Molly Ringwald, Emilio Estevez, and Demi Moore, and has come to represent both a genre of film and an era of pop culture. In his memoir Brat: An '80s Story, McCarthy focuses his gaze on that singular moment in time. The result is a revealing look at coming of age in a maelstrom, reckoning with conflicted ambition, innocence, addiction, and masculinity. New York City of the 1980s is brought to vivid life in these pages, from scoring loose joints in Washington Square Park to skipping school in favor of the dark revival houses of the Village where he fell in love with the movies that would change his life. Filled with personal revelations of innocence lost to heady days in Hollywood with John Hughes and an iconic cast of characters, Brat is a surprising and intimate story of an outsider caught up in a most unwitting success.

The music of the 1980s left an indelible mark on pop culture. Thanks to the dawn of MTV and the increasing affordability of synthesizers, a generation of innovative artists took the world by storm to create one of the last great glory eras of pop music. To get to the heart of what made this decade so special, music journalist Jim Beviglia weaves a narrative of the stories behind the pop music phenomenon. Playing Back the 80s: A Decade of Unstoppable Hits features original interviews with more than sixty artists, producers, session players, writers, and others who were directly involved with the most memorable songs of the decade. Among those who appear in Playing Back the 80s are iconic artists like Huey Lewis, Rick Springfield, Kim Carnes, Vernon Reid, Dennis DeYoung, Colin Hay, and Eddie Money telling the stories of how they created, often against imposing odds and in the midst of bizarre circumstances, the unstoppable hits and unheralded gems that still enchant so many fans today. Playing Back the 80s will have music fans pulling their old cassettes out of storage and remembering when and where they heard the songs first. For those who didn’t grow up in the 80s, this endlessly fun book will show them what the fuss was all about and maybe reveal a few surprises along the way.

Nostalgia for the music, fashion, fads and style of Generation X is booming. Richard Evans presents the best of the decade that brought us Madonna, My Little Pony, Sinclair ZX computers, Margaret Thatcher, Flock of Seagulls, Duran Duran, Legwarmers, the Walkman, breakdancing, Knight Rider, Brat Pack movies, the Rubik's cube and countless other cultural icons that changed pop culture for ever. Beautifully illustrated, this ultimate time capsule of a book features new interviews with countless 80s bands and pop acts, it also reviews each year of the 80s; what was going on in music, fashion & fads, current affairs, sport, Film & TV, etc. Real-life memories will also be dotted throughout the book - contributions will come from among the thousands of fans of the author's massively popular 80s website RememberTheEighties.com, as well as many 80s stars.

Expert advice from the editor of Collectibles Illustrated magazine on what to save, when and where to sell, and how to prosper from collectible items.

TRAVEL BACK IN TIME TO THE ERA NO-ONE HAS EVER FORGOTTEN - THE 80s - BECAUSE THOSE OUTFITS WERE SO RAD YOU HAD TO WEAR SHADES. Welcome to the 1980s. Mum and dad have described it to me, and it was totally whack. It was a time when crimped hair and perms were cool, kids listened to cassette tapes, thought dancing on your head was the ultimate, and synth pop ruled the school. It makes no sense to me of course, but it looked kinda fun, don't you think? My Folks Grew Up in the '80s is a stroll down memory lane for the kidz who grew up then, and a hilarious chance to share the decade's downright weirdness with a whole new generation.

Two essays and two commentaries on leadership in higher education in the 1980s are presented. In "Education Administrators and Professionals," Chris Argyris considers the decline of public confidence in institutions and professionals by elaborating the concepts of single-loop (detecting and correcting error without altering underlying values or policies) and double-loop (detection/correction accompanied by changed values or policies) learning. He proposes ways by which academic leaders may unfreeze the predisposition for the status quo that exists in single-loop learning in order to make way for double-loop detection and correction of error that involves the changing of underlying values and policies. In "Managing Universities in the 1980s," Richard M. Cyert focuses on the major problem facing academic administrators. He suggests that it is difficult for faculty to concentrate on maintaining excellence because of the struggle for institutional survival. Uncertainty will prevail with regard to how institutions will reduce their scales of operation, and university presidents will be involved to a greater degree than in the past with conflict resolution at a level of individual problems. Cyert offers strategies indicating how administrators may best manage the complex deescalation problems facing them. In "Leadership: An Attempt to Look at the Future," Gene I. Maeroff summarizes the essays and analyzes discussion by participants in the 1979 Symposium on Leadership, which was sponsored by the Institute for Educational Management. A preface by Stephen K. Bailey assesses the challenges to educational leadership in the past several decades and poses an optimistic argument for the 1980s. (SW)