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Read the op-ed here.

My life with Bruce Springsteen This essay is a Preview, an occasional feature at Current and a companion to our Review features. In Previews we publish short excerpts from new and upcoming books that tell a good story and fit our general mission of commentary, reflection, judgment. This essay has been adapted with permission from the publisher from Born in the U.S.A: Bruce Springsteen in Am...

The puppeteer who helped bring the Muppets to life was also a bereaved queer man searching for love. A friend of the late Muppeteer Richard Hunt said he vowed to live life to the fullest after losing his boyfriend. Read the full excerpt here. Funny Boy: The Richard Hunt Biography is on sale March 15, 2024. Pre-order now!

New Brunswick, NJ (March 11, 2024) – Rutgers University Press will publish two new titles by Eric Alterman, Distinguished Professor of English and Journalism at Brooklyn College and author of the national bestseller What Liberal Media? The Truth About Bias and the News. Alterman has been a columnist for The Nation, The American Prospect, Rolling Stone, and many other publications. He i...

Queer Newark book chronicles LGBTQ history 20 years after teen's killing. Professor Whitney Strub, who teaches LGBTQ history at Rutgers University-Newark, is the editor of Queer Newark: Stories of Resistance, Love and Community. The new book is among recent initiatives related to the death of Sakia Gunn, a Black lesbian teenager killed in Newark in 2003. Read more from the interview her...

Tom Fox knows a thing or two about Hudson River Park. He was the founding president of the Hudson River Park Conservancy — and he’ll even have a book published about it this spring called: Creating the Hudson River Park, Environmental and Community, Activism, Politics and Greed. Tom shares in this op-ed why Pier 76 and the stretch of Hudson River from W29th Street to W44th Street should become...

"Stein delivers a meticulously detailed biography of Muppets puppeteer Richard Hunt...Exemplary research, culled from a plenitude of interviews with Hunt’s family, friends, and coworkers, reveals a talented artist with tireless energy, enthusiasm, wit, and personality." ~Library Journal Read the full review here: https://www.libraryjournal.com/review/funny-boy-the-richard-hunt-b...

Check out the amazing list of new LGBTQIA+ titles on sale now, including Queer Newark: Stories of Resistance, Love, and Community, edited by Whitney Strub. See the whole list here. Editor Whit Strub will be joined by contributors Aaron Frazier, Dominique Rocker, and Peter Savastano at The Newark Public Library (Main Library James Brown African American Room 5 Washington St., Newark,...

Billy Joel's first single in seventeen years provides and occasion for reflection by Jim Cullen, author of Bridge and Tunnel Boys: Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, and the Metropolitan Sound of the American Century. Read the piece at Current: https://currentpub.com/2024/02/01/just-the-way-he-is/

"From the opening paragraph of its prologue, written by Rutgers Professor Whitney Strub, who also served as the book’s editor, Queer Newark—Stories of Resistance, Love, and Community ties modern art and activism to historic perspective and struggle....The book winds through the decades artfully, and those attuned to sociological history will recognize an evolving set of issues, some relatable ...

My book Funny Boy, the biography of gay Muppet performer Richard Hunt, began as a labor of love – as well it should have. When I was a kid in the ’80s, in America’s rust belt suburbia, the Muppets were everywhere: television, movies, books, records, toys. They were part of the very fabric of my life (I even slept on Kermit-print sheets.). I rediscovered the Muppets about twenty years lat...

We're excited to share that Derek Penslar's book, "Zionism: An Emotional State," was recently a finalist for the 73rd National Jewish Book Awards in the Modern Jewish Thought and Experience category!  Read more able to Jewish Book Council Awards here: https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/pb-daily/73rd-national-jewish-book-award-winners