New Pop Culture Books: Batman! Disney! Tolkien! Marvel! Mumy! More!

Our picks. Click the links to order from Amazon.

In a universe that encompasses infinite realities there is one constant: each known reality has its own Batman and each of these Dark Knights possesses a unique Batmobile. For the first time, this groundbreaking book presents an in-depth exploration of Batman’s vehicles from across multiple realities to deliver the most comprehensive source of Batmobile information ever assembled.
    Discover the inner workings of the unstoppable Tumbler that Batman used to take on the forces of Ra’s al Ghul and The Joker; learn the secrets of the souped-up muscle car that a young Bruce Wayne built in his quest to take vengeance on the criminals of Gotham City; and explore the mechanics of the transforming, battle-ready Batmobile that Batman used in his deadly clash with the Arkham Knight. 
    Drawing on decades of Batman lore from film, comics, animation, and video games, Batmobile Manual is the ultimate guide to the Dark Knight’s rides and an essential companion for Batman fans of all ages.

In an extraordinary story that only he could tell―and in the heartfelt, hilarious, and warmly familiar way only he could tell it―Matthew Perry lays bare the fractured family that raised him (and also left him to his own devices), the desire for recognition that drove him to fame, and the void inside him that could not be filled even by his greatest dreams coming true. But he also details the peace he’s found in sobriety and how he feels about the ubiquity of Friends, sharing stories about his castmates and other stars he met along the way. Frank, self-aware, and with his trademark humor, Perry vividly depicts his lifelong battle with addiction and what fueled it despite seemingly having it all.
    Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing is an unforgettable memoir that is both intimate and eye-opening―as well as a hand extended to anyone struggling with sobriety. Unflinchingly honest, moving, and uproariously funny, this is the book fans have been waiting for. 

    As one of the music world’s most iconic artists and the cofounder of the organizations ONE and (RED), Bono’s career has been written about extensively. But in Surrender, it’s Bono who picks up the pen, writing for the first time about his remarkable life and those he has shared it with. In his unique voice, Bono takes us from his early days growing up in Dublin, including the sudden loss of his mother when he was fourteen, to U2’s unlikely journey to become one of the world’s most influential rock bands, to his more than twenty years of activism dedicated to the fight against AIDS and extreme poverty. Writing with candor, self-reflection, and humor, Bono opens the aperture on his life—and the family, friends, and faith that have sustained, challenged, and shaped him.
    Surrender’s subtitle, 40 Songs, One Story, is a nod to the book’s forty chapters, which are each named after a U2 song. Bono has also created forty original drawings for Surrender, which appear throughout the book.

    Dylan, who began working on the book in 2010, offers his extraordinary insight into the nature of popular music. He writes over sixty essays focusing on songs by other artists, spanning from Stephen Foster to Elvis Costello, and in between ranging from Hank Williams to Nina Simone. He analyzes what he calls the trap of easy rhymes, breaks down how the addition of a single syllable can diminish a song, and even explains how bluegrass relates to heavy metal. These essays are written in Dylan’s unique prose. They are mysterious and mercurial, poignant and profound, and often laugh-out-loud funny. And while they are ostensibly about music, they are really meditations and reflections on the human condition. Running throughout the book are nearly 150 carefully curated photos as well as a series of dream-like riffs that, taken together, resemble an epic poem and add to the work’s transcendence.
    In 2020, with the release of his outstanding album Rough and Rowdy Ways, Dylan became the first artist to have an album hit the Billboard Top 40 in each decade since the 1960s. The Philosophy of Modern Song contains much of what he has learned about his craft in all those years, and like everything that Dylan does, it is a momentous artistic achievement.

For hundreds of years, the Targaryens sat the Iron Throne of Westeros while their dragons ruled the skies. The story of the only family of dragonlords to survive Valyria’s Doom is a tale of twisty politics, alliances and betrayals, and acts both noble and craven. The Rise of the Dragon chronicles the creation and rise of Targaryen power in Westeros, covering the history first told in George R. R. Martin’s epic Fire & Blood, from Aegon Targaryen’s conquest of Westeros through to the infamous Dance of the Dragons—the bloody civil war that nearly undid Targaryen rule for good.
     Packed with all-new artwork, the Targaryens—and their dragons—come vividly to life in this deluxe reference book. Perfect for fans steeped in the lore of Westeros, as well as those who first meet the Targaryens in the HBO series House of the Dragon, The Rise of the Dragon provides a must-have overview for anyone looking to learn more about the most powerful family in Westeros.

The Silmarilli were three perfect jewels, fashioned by Fëanor, most gifted of the Elves, and within them was imprisoned the last Light of the Two Trees of Valinor. But the first Dark Lord, Morgoth, stole the jewels and set them within his iron crown, guarded in the impenetrable fortress of Angband in the north of Middle-earth.
    The Silmarillion is the history of the rebellion of Fëanor and his kindred against the gods, their exile from Valinor and return to Middle-earth, and their war, hopeless despite all the heroism, against the great Enemy. It is the ancient drama to which the characters in The Lord of the Rings look back, and in whose events some of them such as Elrond and Galadriel took part.
    The book also includes several shorter works: the Ainulindalë, a myth of the Creation, and the Valaquenta, in which the nature and powers of each of the gods is described. The Akallabêth recounts the downfall of the great island kingdom of Númenor at the end of the Second Age, and Of the Rings of Power tells of the great events at the end of the Third Age, as narrated in The Lord of the Rings.
    Tolkien could not publish The Silmarillion in his lifetime, as it grew with him, so he would leave it to his son, Christopher Tolkien, to edit the work from many manuscripts and bring his father’s great vision to publishable form, so completing the literary achievement of a lifetime. This special edition presents anew this seminal first step towards mapping out the posthumous publishing of Middle-earth, and the beginning of an illustrious forty years and more than twenty books celebrating his father’s legacy.
    This definitive new edition includes, by way of an introduction, a letter written by Tolkien in 1951 which provides a brilliant exposition of the earlier Ages, and for the first time in its history is presented with Tolkien’s own paintings and drawings, which reveal the breathtaking grandeur and beauty of his vision of the First Age of Middle-earth.

J.R.R. Tolkien famously described the Second Age of Middle-earth as a "dark age, and not very much of its history is (or need be) told." And for many years readers would need to be content with the tantalizing glimpses of it found within the pages of The Lord of the Rings and its appendices, including the forging of the Rings of Power, the building of the Barad-dûr and the rise of Sauron.
    It was not until Christopher Tolkien published The Silmarillion after his father’s death that a fuller story could be told. Although much of the book’s content concerned the First Age of Middle-earth, there were at its close two key works that revealed the tumultuous events concerning the rise and fall of the island of Númenor. Raised out of the Great Sea and gifted to the Men of Middle-earth as a reward for aiding the angelic Valar and the Elves in the defeat and capture of the Dark Lord Morgoth, the kingdom became a seat of influence and wealth; but as the Númenóreans’ power increased, the seed of their downfall would inevitably be sown, culminating in the Last Alliance of Elves and Men.
    Even greater insight into the Second Age would be revealed in subsequent publications, first in Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth, then expanded upon in Christopher Tolkien’s magisterial twelve-volume The History of Middle-earth, in which he presented and discussed a wealth of further tales written by his father, many in draft form.
    Now, adhering to the timeline of "The Tale of Years" in the appendices to The Lord of the Rings, editor Brian Sibley has assembled into one comprehensive volume a new chronicle of the Second Age of Middle-earth, told substantially in the words of Tolkien from the various published texts, with new illustrations in watercolor and pencil by the doyen of Tolkien art, Alan Lee.

In addition to being among the most celebrated of contemporary filmmakers, Quentin Tarantino is possibly the most joyously infectious movie lover alive. For years he has touted in interviews his eventual turn to writing books about films. Now, with Cinema Speculation, the time has come, and the results are everything his passionate fans—and all movie lovers—could have hoped for. Organized around key American films from the 1970s, all of which he first saw as a young moviegoer at the time, this book is as intellectually rigorous and insightful as it is rollicking and entertaining. At once film criticism, film theory, a feat of reporting, and wonderful personal history, it is all written in the singular voice recognizable immediately as QT’s and with the rare perspective about cinema possible only from one of the greatest practitioners of the artform ever. 

From legendary animator Hayao Miyazaki comes Shuna's Journey, a new manga classic about a prince on a quest for a golden grain that would save his land, never before published in English!
    Shuna, the prince of a poor land, watches in despair as his people work themselves to death harvesting the little grain that grows there. And so, when a traveler presents him with a sample of seeds from a mysterious western land, he sets out to find the source of the golden grain, dreaming of a better life for his subjects.
    It is not long before he meets a proud girl named Thea. After freeing her from captivity, he is pursued by her enemies, and while Thea escapes north, Shuna continues toward the west, finally reaching the Land of the God-Folk.
    Will Shuna ever see Thea again? And will he make it back home from his quest for the golden grain?

The entire legacy of WDI is covered from day one through future projects with never-before-seen access and insights from people both on the inside and on the outside. So many stories and details were left on the cutting room floor―this book allows an expanded exploration of the magic of Imagineering.
    So many insider stories are featured.
    Sculptor Blaine Gibson’s wife used to kick him under the table at restaurants for staring at interesting-looking people seated nearby, and he’d even find himself studying faces during Sunday morning worship. “You mean some of these characters might have features that are based on people you went to church with?” Marty Sklar once asked Gibson of the Imagineer's sculpts for Pirates of the Caribbean. “He finally admitted to me that that was true.”
    In the early days, Walt Disney Imagineering "was in one little building and everybody parked in the back and you came in through the model shop, and you could see everything that was going on,” recalled Marty Sklar. “When we started on the World’s Fair in 1960 and 1961, we had 100 people here. And so everybody knew everything about what was happening and the status of [each] project, so you really felt like you were part of the whole team whether you were working on that project or not. And, you know, there was so much talent here.”

When Skrull forces use their shape-shifting powers to infiltrate Earth’s defenses, King T’Challa must delve into Wakanda’s scientific archives to determine which Super Heroes and Super Villains might be most at risk. With assistance from his brilliant sister, Shuri, the Black Panther explores the unique anatomical makeup of a vast range of super-powered individuals, unlocking the secrets behind their abilities
    Featuring exclusive anatomical cutaway illustrations created by concept artist Jonah Lobe (Skyrim, Fallout) and writing by Marc Sumerak (MARVEL Future Revolution) and Daniel Wallace (The Jedi Path), this deluxe book is a visually stunning journey into the powers of the Marvel Universe’s greatest characters.

Spanning more than fifty years of modern music history, Peter Asher: A Life in Music highlights every turn in Peter Asher's amazing career. Over a dozen years of research has gone into telling his story, with numerous interviews conducted with Asher, along with first-hand observations of him at work in various recording studios around Los Angeles. The author also had access to Asher's archives, which offered rare photographs and other career memorabilia to help illustrate this biography.

In his candid and entertaining memoir Danger, Will Robinson: The Full Mumy, Bill Mumy shares the personal stories and memories of his journey as an actor, musician, author, artist, and family man. Stepping into the limelight at the wise old age of four and never turning back, Bill has worked and connected with a veritable Who's Who, of both Hollywood and the Laurel Canyon music scene, and has the tales to tell - and tell he does. Like reminiscing with an old friend, the stories flow freely and dance back and forth between the decades, vividly painting a picture of some of our favorite pop culture icons: from Walt Disney, Jimmy Stewart, Lucille Ball, Brigitte Bardot, Alfred Hitchcock, Steve McQueen, Cloris Leachman, Dustin Hoffman, Bob Hope, Elizabeth Montgomery, Rosemary Clooney, Debbie Reynolds, Shirley Jones, George Clooney, Carrie Fisher, and Mark Hamill to the casts of Lost in Space and Babylon 5, to James Taylor, Brian Wilson, America, John Stewart, Harry Nilsson, Carole King, The Monkees, David Cassidy, Steve Lukather, Shaun Cassidy, "Weird Al" Yankovic, and Ringo Starr, the list (and the stories) go on and on. Loaded with photos from his personal archive Danger, Will Robinson: The Full Mumy is a fascinating peek behind the curtain into the reality of a child star who has led a "Real Good Life."

Steve Martin has never written about his career in the movies before. In Number One Is Walking, he shares anecdotes from the sets of his beloved films―Father of the Bride, Roxanne, The Jerk, Three Amigos, and many more―bringing readers directly into his world. He shares charming tales of antics, moments of inspiration, and exploits with the likes of Paul McCartney, Diane Keaton, Robin Williams, and Chevy Chase. Martin details his forty years in the movie biz, as well as his stand-up comedy, banjo playing, writing, and cartooning, all with his unparalleled wit.
    With gorgeously illustrated cartoons and single-panel “diversions” in Steve and Harry’s signature style, Number One Is Walking is full of the everyday moments that make up a movie star’s life, capturing Steve Martin’s singular humor and acclaimed career in film. The perfect gift from the team who brought you the #1 New York Times bestseller A Wealth of Pigeons.

It’s estimated that each year between eighty and ninety million children around the globe are given a box of LEGO, while up to ten million adults buy sets for themselves. Yet LEGO is much more than a dizzying number of plastic bricks that can be put together and combined in countless ways. LEGO is also a vision of the significance of what play can mean for humanity.
    This book tells the extraordinary story of a global company and a Danish family who for ninety years have defended children’s right to play—and who believe grown-ups, too, should make the time to nurture their inner child. The LEGO Story is built on Jens Andersen’s unique access to LEGO’s own archives, as well as on Andersen’s extensive conversations with Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, former president and CEO of the LEGO group and grandson of its founder, Ole Kirk Christiansen.
    A riveting cultural history of changing generations’ views of childhood and the importance of play, The LEGO Story also a fascinating case study of how innovation and creativity helped leaders transform LEGO from a small carpentry business into the world’s largest producer of play materials and one of the most beloved brands in the world. Richly illustrated with never-before-seen photos from the family’s private archive, this is the ultimate book for fans of LEGO, revealing everything you ever wanted to know about the brand. 

This catalog accompanies an exhibition of alternative comics from the 1980s and 1990s with a particular focus upon artists who contributed to the anthologies Raw (1980–91) and Weirdo (1981–94) and comics from venues such as alternative newspapers and independent presses. Following the popularity and eventual decline of underground comics in the 1960s and 1970s, this next generation of cartoonists explored more complex themes and forms and garnered eclectic readers in new markets.
    Featuring 180 color illustrations, this book comprehensively examines the world of these comics from interdisciplinary perspectives. Essayists from art historical, literary, and other fields focus on the role of influential editors and publishers as well as the strategies artists employed to encourage readers to take the art form seriously. Subjects include the aesthetics of Raw and Weirdo, the punk-influenced work of Gary Panter, and the genre-breaking work of the Hernandez Brothers.

JIMI is the ultimate tribute to the greatest guitar player in rock and roll history, celebrating what would have been Jimi Hendrix's 80th birthday on November 27, 2022. This comprehensive visual celebration is an official collaboration with Jimi's sister, Janie Hendrix, and John McDermott of Experience Hendrix L.L.C. JIMI significantly expands on the authors' previously published titles, including An Illustrated Experience, and features a new introduction by Janie, extensive biographical texts, and a trove of lesser known and never-before-published photographs, personal memorabilia, lyrics, and more. Additionally, JIMI includes quotations by legendary musicians, such as Paul McCartney, Ron Wood, Jeff Beck, Lenny Kravitz, Drake, Dave Grohl, and others who have spoken about Hendrix's lasting influence.

Written by Disney Legend Andreas Deja and lavishly illustrated, Walt Disney’s The Jungle Book gathers original animation celluloids, animation drawings, and concept art—many of which have never been shown to the public—from the popular exhibition at The Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco.
    Considered one of the finest and most influential Disney movie, The Jungle Book (1967) is the last animated film that Walt Disney personally produced with his signature vision and footprint. This curated collection explores the nuanced complexities and challenges that were overcome throughout the film’s development and production, such as the unique characters and their voice-actor counterparts, the application of cutting-edge animation techniques of the time, and the timeless, original songs by the Sherman Brothers and Terry Gilkyson. Dive into the impact of Walt’s passing on the Disney Studios and the everlasting legacy of the film throughout the world.

Spider-Man is one of the world's best-loved and most recognized super heroes, the spectacular star of comic books, movie blockbusters, and TV shows. Released to coincide with Spidey’s 60th anniversary in 2022, the Spider-Man Character Encyclopedia New Edition profiles more than 200 timeless Spidey characters in alphabetical order. Packed with original Marvel artwork and fascinating info, it's the perfect introduction to the web-slinger's amazing world.

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