The first comprehensive study of Chinese popular music in a Western language. Drawing on extensive interviews with singers, songwriters and critics, as well as cultural, sociological, musical, and textual analysis, the book portrays the disparate ways in which China's state-run popular music industry and burgeoning underground rock music subculture represented by Cui Jian have been instrumental to the cultural and political struggles that culminated in the Tienanmen democracy movement of 1989. It also examines the links between popular music and contemporary debates about cultural identity and modernization, as well as the close connections between rock music, youth culture, and student protest.

Poetry. "Magers scribes as if poet-ghost adrift thru dressing rooms backstage taking notes, capturing the moment in all its lovely eros and happiness and cause for alarm. Writing poems like these is just as good as starting a band when poems like songs flood the brain. I like your smile." Thurston Moore "'I wanted to be high, but now I'm trapped in my life.' Frustrated by the limits of his world, PARTYKNIFE's youthful speaker wears a mask of aloofness that incompletely conceals his yearning. His poems strain to hold his exuberance, and his studied detachment belies his racing heart. 'Everything I hated has become my life now. By which I mean how happy I am.' These poems are angry, insistent, and wildly in love with life." Sarah Manguso "PARTYKNIFE is fucking awesome, like a manual to a new kind of LCD machine you aren't allowed to actually turn on yet; the book is I think really an opening of something. Just thought, 'the future.'" Blake Butler"

Shonen Knife-an all-female punk trio from Osaka, Japan-cultivated a global fan base that has included the likes of Nirvana's Kurt Cobain and Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore. Their 1998 album Happy Hour, filled with tunes about delicacies ranging from sushi to banana chips, encapsulates the band's charming fusion of cuteness with punk rock cool. Tracing histories of food and josei rock in Japan, McCorkle Okazaki outlines the ways Shonen Knife has, over the last forty years, consistently used seemingly straightforward songs about food to comment on gender stereotypes in popular culture.

JAMES BEARD AWARD WINNER • PUBLISHERS WEEKLY BESTSELLER • GOOP COOKBOOK CLUB PICK • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST COOKBOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New Yorker • Food52 • Library Journal A modern approach to mastering the art of cooking at home from the food editor at large at Bon Appétit, with more than 70 innately flexible recipes. The indispensable recipes and streamlined cooking techniques in Where Cooking Begins are an open invitation to dive into Carla Lalli Music’s laid-back cooking style. The food editor at large at Bon Appétit, her intuitive recipes are inspired by the meals she makes at home for her family and friends and the joy she takes in feeding them. Here, too, is her guide to the six essential cooking methods that will show you how to make everything without over-complicating anything—and every recipe includes suggestions for swaps and substitutions, so you’ll never feel stuck or stymied. Where Cooking Begins is also the first recent cookbook to connect the way we shop to the way we cook. Music’s modern approach—pick up your fresh ingredients a few times a week, and fill your pantry with staples bought online—will make you want to click on a burner and slide out a cutting board the minute you get home. The no-fail techniques, textured recipes, and strategies in Where Cooking Begins will make you a great cook. Praise for Where Cooking Begins “An ideal tool kit to transform a timid cook into an adventurous and confident improviser.”—Helen Rosner, The New Yorker “[Carla Lalli Music] is like everyone’s favorite aunt, the one who shows up and makes surprising things happen. Her superpower is that she believes in you as a cook. . . . Where Cooking Begins is her 250-page argument that you should believe in yourself, too.”—Julia Moskin, The New York Times “Carla Lalli Music knows how to help with ingredients, strategy and technique, but most important of all, she understands how to help you become confident as a cook.”—Nigella Lawson “A gorgeous new cookbook from Bon Appétit’s former food director Carla Lalli Music, Where Cooking Begins presents a beautiful guide to truly modern cooking. Laid back and built to share, these simple but sophisticated recipes are the kind you accidentally memorize and learn to live by.”—The Chalkboard “If you loved Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, this is the next book for you.”—PureWow