In the words of one reader, Brian W. Fairbanks has a real talent for extracting the essence of a given subject and articulating it in a meaningful way. In WRITINGS, the author collects some of his finest essays and criticism spanning the years 1991-2005 and covering four subjects: FILM LITERATURE MUSIC SOCIETY Whether offering an insightful analysis of film noir, examining Benjamin Franklin's impact on American society, taking a clear-eyed, non-partisan look at democrats, republicans, the 2004 presidential campaign, George W. Bush, and the war on terror, or lambasting the corruption of television news, Brian W. Fairbanks is ingenious with a sophisticated yet effortlessly readable style. Also available in two hardcover editions.

"Fleeing the mobsters he has double crossed, Harry Fabian runs through a virtual obstacle course of London's back streets and alleys during a night in which the shadows seem to grow darker with his every footstep. The night itself seems to be his stalker, its shadows enveloping him like a closing coffin lid."So begins "The Shadows of Film Noir," Brian W. Fairbanks' perceptive analysis of the genre, one of the highlights of a collection that also includes knowledgable profiles of film giants like John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, Richard Widmark and even Elliott Gould, as well as a memorable lament for the movie palaces that have fallen victim to the multiplex in our fast food styled culture.THE LATE SHOW: WRITINGS ON FILM celebrates the glory days of cinema in witty prose from a writer with a "real talent for extracting the essence of a given subject and articulating it in a meaningful way."

Just in time for 2012. Take a nostalgic look back at a previous "end of the world" with SURVIVING Y2K. "THOUSANDS OF PLANES WILL FALL FROM THE SKY!" "NUCLEAR MISSILES WILL LAUNCH THEMSELVES!" "THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES, AS WE KNOW IT, WILL FALL ON JANUARY 1, 2000!" WERE THE DOOMSAYERS RIGHT? The doomsayers were wrong about the effect of the "millennium computer bug" on society, but Brian W. Fairbanks was right about the bigger bugs of big business, big government, the media, and religious extremists. Now, this underground classic, originally published in 1999, is back. UNCUT! UNCENSORED! EVERY SHOCK INTACT! It's as relevant and irreverent as it was in 1999. It's not about the bug. IT'S ABOUT US. AND THEM!

OK2BG is narrative nonfiction, a Memoir about a guy who wants to be a Mentor preferably to a teenager, so they can have a decent & meaningful conversation about stuff & preferably with a kid at-risk, or just otherwise lost, in order to help both the teenager as well as the determined subject of this story realize their unique potential & find or reinforce their place in the world. Overall, a chronicle about the author’s attempt over several years to understand the question of ‘why do I want to be a Mentor’ which eventually helps him become a more insightful person. Subsequently in September, 2010 after a plague of teen suicides, Jack turns his attention to researching gay biographies into optimistically appropriate groups of books for gay kids at-risk, from bullying. After 5 years Jack has categorized 2,000+ books in the form of Memoirs, Biographies & Autobiographies written by or about 1,000+ allegedly gay men. The primary message in OK2BG is to read & reassess before you run asunder!

On the 200th anniversary of the first edition of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Transmedia Creatures presents studies of Frankenstein by international scholars from converging disciplines such as humanities, musicology, film studies, television studies, English and digital humanities. These innovative contributions investigate the afterlives of a novel taught in a disparate array of courses - Frankenstein disturbs and transcends boundaries, be they political, ethical, theological, aesthetic, and not least of media, ensuring its vibrant presence in contemporary popular culture. Transmedia Creatures highlights how cultural content is redistributed through multiple media, forms and modes of production (including user-generated ones from “below”) that often appear synchronously and dismantle and renew established readings of the text, while at the same time incorporating and revitalizing aspects that have always been central to it. The authors engage with concepts, value systems and aesthetic-moral categories—among them the family, horror, monstrosity, diversity, education, risk, technology, the body—from a variety of contemporary approaches and highly original perspectives, which yields new connections. Ultimately, Frankenstein, as evidenced by this collection, is paradoxically enriched by the heteroglossia of preconceptions, misreadings, and overreadings that attend it, and that reveal the complex interweaving of perceptions and responses it generates. Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.

What is an American? Our diversity makes us unique. It also makes us strong. But from Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin to Ronald Reagan and James Baldwin, those born and raised in the land of the free share some common traits. Who exemplifies and who betrays America's promise? The three controversial essays in REDISCOVERING AMERICA ("America and the Perfectibility of Man," "James Baldwin: Loving and Leaving America," and "The Pattern American") examine the character of the United States as expressed in the writings of Crevecoeur, Benjamin Franklin, James Baldwin and other significant American figures. A history lesson as sophisticated as it is succinct.

Brian W. Fairbanks, Entertainment Editor at Paris Woman Journal in Paris, France, "has a talent for extracting the essence of a given subject and articulating it in a meaningful way."In I SAW THAT MOVIE, TOO, he extracts the essence from several hundred films, and articulates some of the most meaningful opinions on the cinema you'll ever read. In the foreword, he also offers a perceptive analysis of the way that movies, more importantly, the way we "see" movies, has changed from the time he was a young movie buff "obsessed by that light in the darkness" to the era of the multiplex and the DVD.As one reader says, he has "a sophisticated yet effortlessly readable style." Smart, insightful, always honest, but never pretentious, Fairbanks is a life-long film buff who backs up his opinions with a knowledge of both the art and artifice of cinema.