Richard Dawson And Family Feud

Informed, controversial, ranging from a melancholy study of rock and roll's descent into show business to a hilarious look at the spectacle that is the Jerry Lewis Telethon, these twenty essays offer an unusual and (ironically) entertaining study of American media by one of its foremost critics.

The 1978 murder of actor Bob Crane remains unsolved. Hook retested the original blood evidence, and searched for the identity of the killer. He shows how police mistakes and missing evidence impacted the investigation, and raises new questions in the search for truth.

Written originally for a special issue of The New Yorker and reissued here with a new forward by the author, Within the Context of No Context is George W. S. Trow's brilliant exposition on the state of American culture and twentieth-century life. Published to widespread acclaim, Within the Context of No Context became an immediate classic and is, to this day, a favorite work of writers and critics alike. Both a chilling commentary on the times in which it was written and an eerie premonition of the future, Trow's work locates and traces, describes and analyzes the components of change in contemporary America -- a culture increasingly determined by the shallow worlds of consumer products, daytime television, and celebrity heroes. "This elegant little book is essential reading for anyone interested in the demise, the terminal silliness, of our culture." -- John Irving, The New York Times Book Review; "In this elegant, poignant essay, written with the grace of a master stylist, George Trow articulates the accelerated impermanence of American culture with a precision that is both flaunting and devastating." -- Rudy Wurlitrer; "Within the Context of No Context is a masterpiece of the century that belongs on a shelf next to Theodore Adorno's Minima Moralia and Guy Debord's The Society of the Spectacle." -- Michael Tolkin; "Within the Context of No Context may appear to be a book of the mind, for it is suffused with such a keen intelligence, but it is actually a book of the heart -- passionate, brave, and stirring." -- Sue Halpern.