Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2024 -

Lindvall (Virginia Wesleyan Univ.) took a topic usually of little interest to most popular culture researchers--i.e., religion/theology--"relevantized" it with much supporting theory drawn from many fields, polished it with interesting anecdotal snippets and entertaining synopses of animation shorts, and wove all of this into a book offering diverse cultural, historical, and international contexts. Lindvall's aim was to show how the seven deadly sins--pride, envy, anger, sloth, avarice, gluttony, and lust--have been interpreted by theologians, literary authors, philosophers, artists, animators, painters, filmmakers, religious figures (e.g., the apostles, Buddha, Christ, etc.). Each deadly sin is given a chapter, impeccably researched and amusingly presented, with bits of theory, poetry, song lyrics, illustrations, story plots, informational notes, and plentiful references. Cleverly organized, rich in information, and written with an infectious sense of humor, Animated Parables is a wonderful resource. Never were the seven deadly sins presented with such precision, wit, and verve. Bravo, Lindvall!Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.

Simon (visiting professor, Univ. College, London, UK) has written a masterful guide to the relationship of play, painting, and performance in 18th-century England. The trio of playwright William Shakespeare, painter William Hogarth, and actor David Garrick helped foster the change in Europe from Francophile neoclassicism to international Romanticism. The background, achievement, and influence of Hogarth's painting Garrick as Richard III (1745) in particular is explored for its wide impact on both English and Continental cultures, commencing a new genre that fused portraiture and history painting. The legacy of Garrick's performances is also charted for its influence on subsequent actors such as John Philip Kemble, Edmund Kean, and Laurence Olivier. The book's nine chapters offer a wealth of information about the theater in England from the Restoration onward. A brief appendix by actor Roger Braban reports his experience on stage with Olivier. Scholars of the theater, Shakespeare, portraiture, history painting, and the 18th century will find much in this book to advance their study. Deeply researched and astutely written, it is lavishly illustrated with 207 plates, making the work a delight for both eye and mind. An ample bibliography and index are included.Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. Professionals.

Williams (emer., Univ. of Manitoba) immediately catches the reader's attention in this book's prolegomenon, in which he offers an alarming diagnosis of the present moment in history. Williams sees a new cultural wave of reading and brain circuitry--resulting from social media, hypertexts, and other technical advances--a wave shifting from deep reading (linear, immersive, reflective practices) to tabular reading (nonlinear and punctuated skimming, lacking meditative thought or thoughtful reflection). As a widespread cultural phenomenon, tabular reading spells doom for the monumental collections undergirding Western and Oriental traditions. Williams offers this as a shot across the bow. In the rest of this rich, complex, and remarkable book he examines an earlier cultural wave in reading--a shift from the static, indeed corrupt and crumbling, intellectual edifice of early medieval culture. Humanists such as Petrarch, Bruni, and Erasmus achieved a coalition of the Bible and ancient culture, ushering in a sacramental presence of the word in the pages of vernacular translations. This new way of reading is reflected in Foxe's Book of Martyrs (1563) and in the work of English revolutionaries Milton and John Lilburn. Williams's book should be read, and read carefully, not only by classicists and medieval and Renaissance scholars but also by all who care about modern culture and the present post-reading, postmodern predicament.Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers.