Book Reviews

In Pursuit of Knowledge

A voyage into learning and insight this month, with four engaging and intriguing books to look out for.

The Jaws Book: New Perspectives on the Classic

Summer Blockbuster by I.Q. Hunter After almost 50 years, Steven Spielberg’s Jaws remains the definitive summer blockbuster, a cultural phenomenon with a fierce and dedicated fan base. The Jaws Book: New Perspectives on the Classic Summer Blockbuster is an exciting, illustrated collection of new critical essays that offers the first detailed and comprehensive overview of the film’s significant place in cinema history. Bringing together established and young scholars, the book includes contributions from leading international writers on popular cinema, and covers such diverse topics as the film’s release, reception and canonicity, its representation of masculinity and children, the use of landscape and the ocean, its galvanising impact on the horror genre, and contemporary Hollywood itself. Published by Bloomsbury on March 24th

The Palace Papers by Tina Brown Tina Brown takes you inside Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle in this riveting story about the members of the royal family. Encapsulating everything following the death of Princess Diana to today, Brown covers Prince Charles’s marriage to Camilla, the allegations around Prince Andrew, the rise in popularity of Kate Middleton, the tension between William and Harry, and the eventual defection of Harry and Meghan. Whether a self-appointed royalist or otherwise, our intense desire to lift the lid on the lives of those at the top of the social tree will always make tomes such as this one of the most anticipated books of the year. Published by Penguin Random House on March 22nd

Kraftwerk’s Computer World

by Steve Tupai Francis Kraftwerk’s most concise and focused conceptual statement, Computer World was also their most influential album, paving the way for a range of new musical styles and genres. This book explores the band’s revolutionary sonic template, and their lyrical obsessions in detail, exploring transition, via theories of post-humanism, cybernetics and the anthropology of transnationalism. It is a deep read that sandwiches electronic music in between philosophy and culture, to produce cherished coffee table reading. Published by Bloomsbury on April 7th

The Changing Face of Burberry: Britishness, Heritage, Labour and

Consumption by Sian Weston As a brand that’s circumnavigated catwalk and terrace culture, Burberry presents itself as ultimately unique, with its output in the 21st century a quintessential notion of British tradition. The Changing Face of Burberry examines how the company successfully built this sense of tradition and how it has retained and capitalised on it within contemporary consumer culture, providing an authoritative account of shifting forms of British identity, consumer culture and fashion production over two centuries. Published by Bloomsbury Visual Arts in April 2022