The music of the 1980s left an indelible mark on pop culture. Thanks to the dawn of MTV and the increasing affordability of synthesizers, a generation of innovative artists took the world by storm to create one of the last great glory eras of pop music. To get to the heart of what made this decade so special, music journalist Jim Beviglia weaves a narrative of the stories behind the pop music phenomenon. Playing Back the 80s: A Decade of Unstoppable Hits features original interviews with more than sixty artists, producers, session players, writers, and others who were directly involved with the most memorable songs of the decade. Among those who appear in Playing Back the 80s are iconic artists like Huey Lewis, Rick Springfield, Kim Carnes, Vernon Reid, Dennis DeYoung, Colin Hay, and Eddie Money telling the stories of how they created, often against imposing odds and in the midst of bizarre circumstances, the unstoppable hits and unheralded gems that still enchant so many fans today. Playing Back the 80s will have music fans pulling their old cassettes out of storage and remembering when and where they heard the songs first. For those who didn’t grow up in the 80s, this endlessly fun book will show them what the fuss was all about and maybe reveal a few surprises along the way.

A most excellent array of 24 close-up magic miracles, inspired by the books of the 1980's. Introduction by David Regal.

(Keyboard Presents). No single decade revitalized the keyboard as a focal point as much as the 1980s. Now, the editors of Keyboard magazine have culled that era's most insightful articles and combined them with a wealth of insight to create this landmark book. Features 20 interviews with noted players and producers like Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, Duran Duran's Nick Rhodes, Depeche Mode's Vince Clarke, Peter Gabriel, and The Human League, as well as such visionary pioneers as Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, and Frank Zappa.

For fans of vintage YA, a humorous and in-depth history of beloved teen literature from the 1980s and 1990s, full of trivia and pop culture fun. Those pink covers. That flimsy paper. The nonstop series installments that hooked readers throughout their entire adolescence. These were not the serious-issue novels of the 1970s, nor the blockbuster YA trilogies that arrived in the 2000s. Nestled in between were the girl-centric teen books of the ’80s and ’90s—short, cheap, and utterly adored. In Paperback Crush, author Gabrielle Moss explores the history of this genre with affection and humor, highlighting the best-known series along with their many diverse knockoffs. From friendship clubs and school newspapers to pesky siblings and glamorous beauty queens, these stories feature girl protagonists in all their glory. Journey back to your younger days, a time of girl power nourished by sustained silent reading. Let Paperback Crush lead you on a visual tour of nostalgia-inducing book covers from the library stacks of the past.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Now a major motion picture directed by Steven Spielberg. “Enchanting . . . Willy Wonka meets The Matrix.”—USA Today • “As one adventure leads expertly to the next, time simply evaporates.”—Entertainment Weekly A world at stake. A quest for the ultimate prize. Are you ready? In the year 2045, reality is an ugly place. The only time Wade Watts really feels alive is when he’s jacked into the OASIS, a vast virtual world where most of humanity spends their days. When the eccentric creator of the OASIS dies, he leaves behind a series of fiendish puzzles, based on his obsession with the pop culture of decades past. Whoever is first to solve them will inherit his vast fortune—and control of the OASIS itself. Then Wade cracks the first clue. Suddenly he’s beset by rivals who’ll kill to take this prize. The race is on—and the only way to survive is to win. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Entertainment Weekly • San Francisco Chronicle • Village Voice • Chicago Sun-Times • iO9 • The AV Club “Delightful . . . the grown-up’s Harry Potter.”—HuffPost “An addictive read . . . part intergalactic scavenger hunt, part romance, and all heart.”—CNN “A most excellent ride . . . Cline stuffs his novel with a cornucopia of pop culture, as if to wink to the reader.”—Boston Globe “Ridiculously fun and large-hearted . . . Cline is that rare writer who can translate his own dorky enthusiasms into prose that’s both hilarious and compassionate.”—NPR “[A] fantastic page-turner . . . starts out like a simple bit of fun and winds up feeling like a rich and plausible picture of future friendships in a world not too distant from our own.”—iO9

An anthology bringing together some of the most importnat and controvesial plays from the last twenty years.