Climbing the Charts: What Radio Airplay Tells Us About the Diffusion of Innovation by Gabriel Rossman

The nutshell: UCLA sociologist Rossman explains why the Black Eyed Peas’ “My Humps”-which critics panned and the record company didn’t heavily promote-climbed the charts, and who was responsible for country stations pulling the Dixie Chicks off the air after they criticized President Bush. He argues that the production of a hit radio single can teach us a great deal about how new products and practices are adopted by society.

Literary lovechild of: Ben Fong-Torres’s The Hits Just Keep On Coming: A History of Top 40 Radio and Chip and Dan Heath’s Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die.

You’ll find it on your bookshelf if: You blame payola for the fact that your band never made it onto KROQ.

Cocktail party fodder: By the middle of its second season, Glee had placed 113 singles on the Billboard Hot 100 chart-breaking Elvis Presley’s record of 108.

For optimal benefit: Disconnect from your iPod, Pandora, Spotify, and satellite radio for a week and rely solely on FM radio for your music consumption.

Snap judgment: It’d be hard to find a wonkier take on Rihanna’s “Umbrella,” but this one is delightful. Plus, Rossman’s extensive research and careful arguments offer insight into how ideas and culture spread.

Darkest America: Black Minstrelsy from Slavery to Hip Hop by Yuval Taylor and Jake Austen

The nutshell: Most of us think of minstrelsy as an embarrassing fossil, but Chicago-based editors Taylor and Austen present a history of black minstrelsy-African American actors, singers, and comedians performing in the blackface tradition-that reveals something richer and worthier of attention.

Literary lovechild of: Mel Watkins’s On the Real Side: A History of African American Comedy and Jeff Chang’s Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation.

You’ll find it on your bookshelf if: You’ve long hidden your shameful love of Aunt Jemima syrup.

Cocktail party fodder: The troupe of Charles Hicks-commonly known as the father of black minstrelsy-created the “Why did the chicken cross the road?” joke.

For optimal benefit: Watch Spike Lee’s Bamboozled-which Taylor and Austen analyze in extensive detail in their final chapter-before reading.

Snap judgment: A nuanced reconsideration of an art form that might otherwise seem one-note.

Gravity’s Engines: How Bubble-Blowing Black Holes Rule Galaxies, Stars, and Life in the Cosmos by Caleb Scharf

The nutshell: Columbia University astronomer Scharf combines stories of scientific discovery with astronomical questions, answers, and educated guesses to explore how black holes both organize and help explain the universe.

Literary lovechild of: Richard Feynman’s QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter and Lawrence M. Krauss’s A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing.

You’ll find it on your bookshelf if: You blubbered when the Mars rover landed, even though you swore it was just a piece of dust in your eye.

Cocktail party fodder: It’s estimated that there are a billion trillion individual normal stars in the entire observable universe-while the total number of human beings ever born is estimated at about 110 billion. So, there are about 10 billion stars in the universe for every human being who ever existed.

For optimal benefit: Avoid reading while taking mushrooms.

Snap judgment: Scharf is a writer you’ll gladly follow to the end of the universe.

-Sarah Rothbard

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