Books like The Mechanical Bride — picked by fans

Mention has often been made of the extent to which Marshall McLuhan was a devout adherent of the Catholic faith. But little has been known about how he viewed the place of religion in the world particularly with reference to the fate of the Catholic Church. This carefully selected collection of McLuhan’s writings on religion provides one with clarifying insights into his views on a broad range of Church-related issues including the nature of conversion, the spiritualism of youth, the impact of technology on liturgy, and Vatican II. Overall, by revealing that McLuhan viewed faith as a sense, the volume illuminates the connections he made between religion and media.  

This book explores McLuhan’s relationship with avant-garde art. While McLuhan’s engagement with artistic endeavours, has received some attention, Kitnick examines in detail not only how McLuhan’s work on art developed over an extended period, but how his views on artistic practice came to inform the work of others. He builds on McLuhan’s contention that art was not primarily a means of self-expression, but rather the basis for cultural exploration and environmental change. Drawing inspiration from figures such as James Joyce, T.S. Eliot, and Wyndham Lewis. McLuhan, according to Kitnick, saw members of the avant-garde as artists who work within conventional structures in order to disrupt them, thereby throwing them into relief. 

Using McLuhan’s classic Understanding Media as a point of reference, the editors have assembled an impressive collection of essays that succeed in critically extending his ideas into a range of new directions. These include the biases of contemporary urban planning, transport (from a race perspective), gendered domestic and office space, and Black feminist activism. While remaining true to the exploratory spirit of McLuhan’s “probes,” the essays demonstrate both the shortcomings and potentialities of his body of work.

This book dovetails with those of Kitnick as well as Sharma and Singh. While framed by a broader concern with the emergence of the Toronto School of Communication, it gives particular attention to how McLuhan’s notions about “information art,” came to influence artistic practice through initiatives such as “N.E. Thing and Company” (NETCO), Robert Smithson’s West Coast work and “General Idea.” Echoing some of the issues raised by the Sharma/Singh collection, he examines these ventures through the lens of power and gender. It is impeccably edited and handsomely illustrated, in line with the high production standards of McGill-Queen’s University Press.

Before Life there was the Saturday Evening Post, a roaring success capturing the spirit of Middle America at a time when Middle America defined the cultural ethos of the nation. But by the late 1950s the potent reach of television advertising undermined the general-interest magazine business model, and the Post slipped into an inexorable spiral of decline that its top executives could never quite handle or even understand. There’s plenty of pathos and human drama as they struggle with forces beyond their control. 

This fascinating book combines in-depth present-day interviews with historical accounts to illuminate the similarities and differences in how current and previous generations view technology. The juxtaposition generates significant insights. The meaning of vanity, boredom, loneliness, and anger have all changed under the influence of smartphones and social media. Fernandez and Matt reveal how these innovations are not just changing our habits, but the very content of our emotional lives.

Williamson was one of the first people (after me) to critique advertising from a feminist point of view. I could have chosen her earlier book, Decoding Advertisements: Ideology and Meaning in Advertising, which also had a big influence on me, but this one is less academic and more readable.

Her discussion of how advertising channels people’s desire for progressive change into a need for products was one of the themes of my doctoral dissertation (written before this book). There are many gems, such as the fact that the ideal body type for women in ads has sometimes been that of a teenage boy!  

Here’s a classic by the man who started it all. Claude Hopkins is regarded as one of the greatest copywriters of all time. He pioneered the “Reason-Why” style of copywriting (telling people why to buy your product). It’s filled with priceless stories, humor, and practical lessons you can apply to your ads immediately. Get this classic if you're truly serious about learning to create effective ads! While your competitors are floundering around scratching their heads because their ads aren’t working, you’ll know exactly what to do to influence people to buy NOW!

I had always been interested in the contradictions of the American counter-culture, so I loved how Frank underscored how rebellion and dissent had such a surprisingly positive impact on the corporate world.

Far from seeing counter-cultural messages as threats to American capitalism, marketing, and advertising executives welcomed these non-conformist ideals as a fantastic way of commercializing their mundane products by connecting them with hipness and authenticity. Frank’s contrarian position jibes well with my own thoughts on the topic, and I really enjoyed how he takes the reader through the genesis of hip advertising.

Howard Luck Gossage was an advertising innovator—a genius, really—whose ideas leapt far ahead of traditional advertising. Working in San Francisco during the Mad Men era, he created unusual campaigns that got people involved, inviting them to reply, assist, and even create the ads themselves; in short, he devised interactive advertising before there was such a thing. His iconoclastic, liberating ideas influenced everyone. As Jeff Goodby put it, “When Goodby, Berlin & Silverstein was opened in 1983, we ran an ad with Howard’s picture and the headline: 'An advertising agency founded by a man who’s been dead for 14 years.' Gossage was the plastic guy on our dashboard and we were out there hitting the gas in his honor.” When you read about how he worked, how he thought, and what he created, you’ll press the pedal to the metal yourself.