MUSIC

 » Lord Don't Slow Me Down - Despite the common belief that they will never top their first album, Definitely Maybe, Oasis feels like a real band well on into their second decade. The possibility even remains, maybe more so now than ever, that they could produce something equally spectacular to their 1994 debut. Director Baillie Walsh spent a year on the road with the band to compile this film.

MUSIC

 » Brit Box, The - Subtitled "UK Indie, Shoegaze, And Brit-Pop Gems Of The Last Millennium," this Rhino box set documents various transformations of Brit rock and Brit pop during the 1980s and 90s with some 78 entries of different artists at some of their most promising moments.

LITERATURE

 » Elliot Smith - In this 224-page hardcover book, friend and photographer Autumn De Wilde's collection of personal Smith photographs is augmented with ephemera, handwritten lyrics, and revealing conversations with Beck, Chris Walla, Mark Lanegan and other members of Smith's inner circle.

PHOTOGRAPHY

 » Punk 365 - Award-winning writer, editor, producer, and music consultant Holly George-Warren has compiled a remarkable photo book that decidedly makes no attempt to provide a comprehensive depiction of punk, yet arguably comes as close as any volume out there to doing just that.

LITERATURE

 » Operation Supergoose - William Hart's attempt to expose the second Bush administration's questionable take on foreign policy, a challenge undertaken with larger than life strokes, feels like getting hit over the head with a novelty-sized paintbrush--that is, if one hadn't already had to endure it for months in the form of cable news network chatter and local op-ed pieces, both now a distinctive shade of blue.

LITERATURE

 » Travels With Herodotus - A moral element is woven through the memoirs of Ryszard Kapuściński, but what is amazing about the work is that its moral element comes from unasked questions that, where other authors are or would feel to naïve to do so, Kapuściński does not hesitate to posit.