• Roadrunner: A Song by Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers
• By Joshua Clover, professor of English and comparative literature
• Duke University Press, September 2021

Clover charts both the emotional power and history of “Roadunner,” the 1972 song by Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers. “Like the song itself, Clover tells a story about a particular time and place — the American era that rock ‘n’ roll signifies — that becomes a story about love and the modern world,” says the publisher. From a review by Greil Marcus, author of The History of Rock ‘n’ Roll in Ten Songs: “It is thrilling to be in the presence of a writer realizing all of his gifts — and yet he and the reader never lose sight of the song or cease to hear it.” First volume in the Singles series, edited by Clover and Emily J. Lordi.

• Peculiar Places: A Queer Crip History of White Rural Nonconformity
• By Ryan Lee Cartwright, assistant professor of American studies
• University of Chicago Press, September 2021

Cartwright maps racialized queer and disability histories of white social nonconformity across 20th-century rural America. From a review by John Howard of King’s College: “Cartwright’s writing is lucid, even page-turning, and his scholarship sound and persuasive, arguing that sensationalized accounts of the disabled, dispossessed and marginalized in 20th-century rural America can be repurposed to unpack countless norms and deviancies.”

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