Carry That Weight

Unlike most McCartney biographies, which seem to have little to say about the man’s actual music output, The McCartney Legacy focuses on how Paul went about constructing and recording his work, giving an invaluable history that helps illuminate how he re-conceptualized his art in the wake of the Beatles’ break-up.

Class, Race, and the Formation of Urban Black Communities

Three rich histories give us the lived experiences of persons negotiating a racialized class system. These new narratives are instructive because Black Americans, despite class being violently raced in the United States, have had robust internal conversations within their own walls about what life as men and women, entrepreneurs, professionals, and essential workers mean in democratic conversation one to another.

Santa Claus is Back in Town

All of the men profiled in Ron Cooper’s book have been trained to be Santa, have been taught how to talk to children, to put nervous children at ease, and to make misbehaving children less truculent. They have been taught how to deal with difficult or awkward requests or wishes. It takes some dedication to be Santa. Maybe we all need to take a bit of instruction at a Santa school.