Here are 100 books that Single Women in Popular Culture fans have personally recommended if you like
Single Women in Popular Culture.
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I am an academic who writes about gender and media culture. At the start of my career, I often wrote about silent and classical-era Hollywood, and I still teach these periods, but most of my research now focuses on the contemporary era and the complexities of gender, class, and consumer culture. My current project is a study of the broken customer service culture and the anti-social effects of technologization called I’m Sorry You Feel That Way:’ Affect, Authority and Antagonism in the Cultures of Customer Service.
While there are other books on the “matrimonial industrial complex,” this one provides a really in-depth analysis of the cultural fascination with weddings, and I found it an absolutely engrossing account of phenomena ranging from royal weddings to “purity porn.”
What comes across here is the scale of the idealized wedding as a consumerist ritual and form of deep aspirational investment. One of the most thought-provoking aspects of the book is the notion that the cultural norms around weddings and marriage have slipped out of alignment so that there is a growing gap between the celebration of getting married and the state of being in a marriage.
This book interrogates the hyper-visibility and stubborn endurance of the wedding spectacle across media and culture in the current climate.
The wide-ranging chapters consider why the symbolic power of weddings is intensifying at a time when marriage as an institution appears to be in decline - and they offer new insights into the shifting and complex gender politics of contemporary culture. The collection is a feminist project but does not straight-forwardly renounce the wedding spectacle. Rather, the diverse contributions offer close analyses of the myriad forms and practices of the wedding spectacle, from reality television and cinematic film to wedding…
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
I am an academic who writes about gender and media culture. At the start of my career, I often wrote about silent and classical-era Hollywood, and I still teach these periods, but most of my research now focuses on the contemporary era and the complexities of gender, class, and consumer culture. My current project is a study of the broken customer service culture and the anti-social effects of technologization called I’m Sorry You Feel That Way:’ Affect, Authority and Antagonism in the Cultures of Customer Service.
For the past 25 years, romantic comedy has largely been considered a failed genre, out of sync with a new climate of uncertainty about intimacy and couplehood.
This book challenges that oversimplified view and shows how romance narratives are shape-shifting in the 21st century. Even in an era of heteropessimism, romantic comedy continues to be an important form, and the contributors here track its increasing openness to racial and sexual minorities it traditionally overlooked.
In defiance of the alleged "death of romantic comedy," After "Happily Ever After": Romantic Comedy in the Post-Romantic Age edited by Maria San Filippo attests to rom-com's continuing vitality in new modes and forms that reimagine and rejuvenate the genre in ideologically, artistically, and commercially innovative ways. No longer the idyllic fairy tale, today's romantic comedies ponder the realities and complexities of intimacy, fortifying the genre's gift for imagining human connection through love and laughter. It has often been observed that the rom-com's "happily ever after" trope enables the genre to avoid addressing the challenges of coupled life. This volume's…
I am an academic who writes about gender and media culture. At the start of my career, I often wrote about silent and classical-era Hollywood, and I still teach these periods, but most of my research now focuses on the contemporary era and the complexities of gender, class, and consumer culture. My current project is a study of the broken customer service culture and the anti-social effects of technologization called I’m Sorry You Feel That Way:’ Affect, Authority and Antagonism in the Cultures of Customer Service.
Popular culture is littered with new archetypes of wifehood, both enacted (the “MILF,” the “trad wife,” the “Mormon Wife”) and aspirational (“I’m Looking for a Man in Finance”).
Leonard’s highly accessible book provides a way of thinking about this taken-for-granted category and places it in a range of critical and historical contexts. One of the most important contributions she makes is to track the emergence of the “professional wife” as a new status designation and revenue raising identity.
A fascinating look at the changing role of wives in modern America
After a half century of battling for gender equality, women have been freed from the necessity of securing a husband for economic stability, sexual fulfillment, or procreation. Marriage is a choice, and increasingly women (and men) are opting out. Yet despite these changes, the cultural power of marriage has burgeoned. What was once an obligation has become an exclusive club into which heterosexual women with the right amount of self-discipline may win entry. The newly exalted professionalized wife is no longer reliant on her husband's status or…
Katie's Gamble is an unexpected, unique story about a young woman who's trying to support her younger siblings by keeping her family's confectionery shop open.
In order to do that, she has to take on her older brother, who's a notorious gambler in Louisiana. Additionally, she has to outsmart Rowdy…
I am an academic who writes about gender and media culture. At the start of my career, I often wrote about silent and classical-era Hollywood, and I still teach these periods, but most of my research now focuses on the contemporary era and the complexities of gender, class, and consumer culture. My current project is a study of the broken customer service culture and the anti-social effects of technologization called I’m Sorry You Feel That Way:’ Affect, Authority and Antagonism in the Cultures of Customer Service.
This short book covers a lot of ground and has been really influential in my thinking about the “Chick Flick” as a form of popular storytelling. It’s extremely useful for coming to grips with the genre’s conventions, and it’s open to the thematic and ideological range of a set of films that are too often written off as boilerplate and conservative.
It enables readers to see the interconnectedness of celebrated screwball comedies from the 1930s, Doris Day/Rock Hudson sex comedies, “radical” romantic comedies like Annie Hall, and contemporary “neo-traditional” romances like Sleepless in Seattle. A standout section for me is the author’s close reading of You’ve Got Mail.
Romantic Comedy offers an introduction to the analysis of a popular but overlooked film genre. The book provides an overview of Hollywood's romantic comedy conventions, examining iconography, narrative patterns, and ideology. Chapters discuss important subgroupings within the genre: screwball sex comedy and the radical romantic comedy of the 1970s. A final chapter traces the lasting influence of these earlier forms within current romantic comedies. Films include: Pillow Talk (1959), Annie Hall (1977), and You've Got Mail (1998).
We’ve had the privilege to be part of a profession that has developed beyond all recognition. Both of us worked in senior public relations roles and know how difficult leadership can be in this context. A desire to combine what we’d learned with the best research resulted in us becoming professors in a university business school. Our aim is to provide a bridge between practice and academia, an ambition that has led us to work with inspiring practitioners and researchers around the world. We’ve had a great time and as you’ll see from our ‘book picks’ we draw on many perspectives to inform our work as authors, educators, and researchers.
What is public relations actually all about: the good, the bad, and the ugly? I found this book by Lee Edwards to be one of the most thoughtful texts ever written about an increasingly important profession. Taking the stance that public relations is not only used by organisations, but is deeply embedded in our society and culture, this book provides a comprehensive overview of how it shapes our lives and societies in all kinds of ways. It’s a powerful and challenging read.
This book argues that public relations is not merely an organizational tool, but a powerful influence on social and political life. From carefully considered communication by multinational corporations, to government campaigns that manage public opinion, to the self-promotion of celebrities via social media, public relations is central to our individual and collective lives.
Understanding Public Relations introduces a socio-cultural approach to public relations as a way of analysing the growing importance of public relations in its social, cultural and political contexts. Encouraging a deeper and more critical understanding of its influence on society, Lee Edwards:
Whether writing under my pen name Kate Somerset, or showing up as Ann Louden in real life, I've always believed in the enriching value of making memorable connections. As a consultant to nonprofits, I emphasize it’s not the number of donors that guarantees philanthropic support. It’s the quality of relationships with the organization. The deeper the connections, the more likely that donors will significantly invest and re-invest. As a breast cancer survivor/spokesperson, I know the importance of having a support team. And as an author and relationship coach, I emphasize establishing trust in relationships. The books on this list describe how you can be a connector, each with uniquely valuable content. I hope you find them all meaningful!
When I read this book, the lightbulb went off. I have been in so many situations where I didn’t feel heard, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on why.
Sorenson explains that truly being connected happens only when we are validated. I never realized that almost every conversation we have is a bid for validation. We are asking others not just to hear us but also to “say something.”
The response can either be positive or engaged—a turning towards us—OR negative or passive—a turning away from us. I couldn’t have put it into these exact words, but I now know that being understood is one of the greatest of human needs and is often unmet. The book underscores that connections happen best through validation.
What if making one tweak to your day-to-day conversations could immediately improve every relationship in your life?
In this 3-hour, conversational read, you’ll discover the whats, whys, and hows of one of the most valuable (yet surprisingly little-known) communication skills available—validation.
Whether you’re looking to improve your relationship with your spouse, navigate difficult conversations at work, or connect on a deeper level with friends and family, this book delivers simple, practical, proven techniques for improving any relationship in your life.
Mastery of this simple skill will enable you to:
Calm (and sometimes even eliminate) the concerns, fears, and uncertainties of…
Papyrologist Lisa Emmer's world flips when the Sûreté detains her at her Metro station with news of the savage murder of the esteemed Paris historian Dr. Raimond Foix, her friend and mentor in the study of ancient documents.
Horrified, Lisa finds clues at the crime scene left behind for her…
I have been doing research in the Caribbean for twenty-five years. The region is diverse and magnificent. Caribbean people have sought creative solutions for racial inequality, climate and sustainability, media literacy and information, women’s and family issues. The transnational connections with the US are complex and wide-ranging, and knowing more about this region is an urgent matter. I work to understand how sound and media work because they structure our reality in important ways. Listening as a way of approaching relationships in work and play is key to our survival. So is understanding how media works, where we get our information from, and how to tell what’s relevant, significant, and true, and what is not.
This book understands ideas about citizenship as entangled with language, sound, and voice. It traces the ways that exclusion and a politics of second-class citizenship arose in Colombia, as a result of specific ideas about how people should speak and sound. It is at once an intellectual history and historical anthropology of the ways the aural has been foundational to ideas of citizenship and belonging.
In this audacious book, Ana Maria Ochoa Gautier explores how listening has been central to the production of notions of language, music, voice, and sound that determine the politics of life. Drawing primarily from nineteenth-century Colombian sources, Ochoa Gautier locates sounds produced by different living entities at the juncture of the human and nonhuman. Her "acoustically tuned" analysis of a wide array of texts reveals multiple debates on the nature of the aural. These discussions were central to a politics of the voice harnessed in the service of the production of different notions of personhood and belonging. In Ochoa Gautier's…
I'm a writer, lecturer, biologist, ecologist, and two-time Fulbright Scholar (to India and Malaysia). I'm now a fiction writer, but I’ve always been a storyteller who writes in a historical framework. While I feel an almost compulsive obligation to keep faith with the facts, my main objective is to tell a story—as dramatically, suspensefully, and entertainingly as I can. My first non-fiction book, Papyrus: the Plant that Changed the World was featured as a clue on Jeopardy. It tells the story of a plant that still evokes the mysteries of the ancient world.My most recent book, The Pharaoh's Treasure is about the origin of paper and the rise of Western civilization.
This book by Standage is less about papermaking and more about gossip, sharing social media, and how papyrus paper allowed for the emergence of the first social media ecosystem in the world. It also serves as a justification for the Kingdom of Paper.
Almost three thousand years after the beginning of which came ‘Cicero’s Web’ which served as a social medium. Cicero, the Roman orator and insatiable letter writer, in the 1st Cent BC created a papyrus paper web that provided an example later used by the early Christians, and with the advent of pulp paper would serve the world until the time of Gutenberg in 1450, after which paper reigned for over a half-century until 1969 when Internet traffic began.
It follows the use of letters. pamphlets, books, and newspapers as paper fueled the growth of social media during the evolution of Western civilization.
From the bestselling author of A History of the World in 6 Glasses, the story of social media from ancient Rome to the Arab Spring and beyond.
Social media is anything but a new phenomenon. From the papyrus letters that Cicero and other Roman statesmen used to exchange news, to the hand-printed tracts of the Reformation and the pamphlets that spread propaganda during the American and French revolutions, the ways people shared information with their peers in the past are echoed in the present.
Standage reminds us how historical social networks have much in common with modern social media. The…
I’ve finally realized that you can’t outwork yourself out of systemic problems and that so many of the messages we receive have got the problem wrong. Growing up, I was taught to respect my elders. To defer to those who know what they are talking about. But just because someone says something with conviction doesn’t mean they are right. What we’ve been told is imposter syndrome could actually be imposter treatment, and it messes deeply with our sense of self. So even if I’ve taught at brand name institutions, at corporate heavyweights, and on six continents, I’m always seeking to learn.
So many books on negotiation and communication basically say, “Imitate me!” And then, if the author’s advice doesn’t work for you, you must be the problem. Damali’s book and approach are the ones I wish I had existed when I was at Harvard Law School and in the years after when I was teaching well-regarded negotiation frameworks but feeling like something was missing.
Reading Damali’s observation that what makes you different might just become your superpower was the “finally!” moment I’d been waiting for. Instead of telling you to be more like someone else, Damali models and lays out a way for you to be most effective—by being yourself.
A real-world, one-of-a-kind resource for anyone who has ever been underestimated, overlooked, or misunderstood at the negotiating table.
There’s no shortage of negotiation books that advise you to “get to yes,” urge you to “never split the difference,” and push you to “ask for more.” But these one-size-fits-all negotiation techniques disregard the reality of our complex, multifaceted, multicultural world, where snap judgements are made based on perceived differences. When bias lies behind every negotiation, the only constant is you. Learn to leverage who you are—and gain the upperhand.
Negotiating While Black is the indispensable guide that lawyer and mediator Damali…
A poisonous maiden, a Daoist sex cult, and a violent insurgency.
The polyandrous Yan family in China's rural Shaanxi Province takes in two carpenter brothers. When one brother is convicted of murder after killing their neighbor in a dispute, a constable threatens to expose the family's rumored polyandry and extorts…
I’m passionate about customer experience because it’s the number-one reason businesses succeed or fail. Regardless of the size (or budget!) of your company, you can set yourself apart—and create superfan customers!—by focusing on being exceptional in the areas that really matter. I grew up watching my dad prioritize customer service, first as a fast-food restaurant manager and then at a car dealership, and I know firsthand that how you treat your employees and your customers makes all the difference!
Human-Centered Communicationhas had a huge impact on my speaking career and business strategies.Among many lessons in this book, authors Ethan Beute and Stephen Pacinelli drive home the power of video to connect in a more personal and intentional way. Since becoming friends with Ethan, I’ve started incorporating videos at strategic moments along my client journey: I respond to leads with personalized videos, I embed video messages in proposals, and I record custom videos for companies to promote the event on their social platforms. The tactics outlined in Human-Centered Communicationhave helped me break through the digital noise and convert more leads, while improving my presentation skills on stage.
We're spending more time than ever in virtual environments. That will only increase, as will the amount of noise we encounter there. The seemingly endless series of unwelcome digital distractions range from frustrating to dangerous. As individuals and businesses, we not only spend time and energy managing this digital pollution, we often create it. At risk are relationships and revenue.
The only viable way forward is to be more thoughtful, intentional, and personal. Human-Centered Communication provides a philosophy and practice to help you connect in more meaningful and effective ways with prospects, customers, team members, and every stakeholder in your…
