Ira Madison III

In this nostalgic and raucous collection of sixteen original essays, Ira Madison III—critic, television writer, and host of the beloved podcast "Keep It"—combines memoir and criticism to offer a brand-new pop-culture manifesto. You can recall the first TV show, movie, book, or song that made you feel understood—that shaped how you live, what you love, and who you would become. It gave you an entire worldview. For Ira Madison, that book was Chuck Klosterman's Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, which cemented the idea that pop culture could be a rigorous subject—and that, for better or for worse, it shapes all of us. Here Madison explores the key cultural moments that inspired his career as a critic and guided his coming of age as a Black gay man in Milwaukee. In this hilarious, full throttle trip through the 1990s and 2000s, he recounts learning about sex from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and his mom's Lil' Kim CDs; facing the most heartbreaking election of his youth (not George W. Bush's 2004 re-election but Jennifer Hudson's losing American Idol); observing how Jerry Springer accidentally shaped queer representation; and how never getting his driver’s license in high school made him just like Cher Horowitz in Clueless: “A virgin who can’t drive.” Brimming with a profound love for a bygone culture and alternating between irreverence and heartfelt insight, Pure Innocent Fun, like all the best products of pop culture, will leave you entertained and surprisingly enlightened.

Throughout history, Wakanda was a kingdom walled-off to the world, thriving in secret. But under T’Challa’s rule, the Wakandans’ resources and technology are now available to other nations. Even nations such as Rudyarda, a former apartheid state. Some disagree with the decision to offer aid to a place with such a tortured past, but the Black Panther believes the people of Rudyarda shouldn’t pay for the sins of its Colonizers forever, and his rule is absolute. That is, until a former Black Panther is resurrected from the ancestral plane. Then, everything is uncertain. Because as everyone knows: there can only be one Black Panther in Wakanda. T’Chaka’s return to the land of the living divides reason from nature, a ruler from his allies, and T’Challa from his family. But as T’Challa—along with Shuri, Okoye, and Misty Knight— search for the cause, mysterious forces conspire to subvert his authority from without and within. Other dead men come to life. Old grudges find their way into the light. And when catastrophe strikes, a son must reckon with his father’s sins while a new generation of hero rises.