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Spotlight on shining lights

Feature by Linda M. Castellitto

These three books offer peeks behind the scenes of our favorite on-screen entertainment, making them the perfect gifts for the TV aficionados and cinephiles among us.

Much like RuPaul himself, GuRu defies easy categorization. There are 80 beautiful photos of the author in his many drag guises, plus life advice on everything from conquering childhood pain to style. These highlights of RuPaul’s journey from hardworking unknown to influential and successful multihyphenate are at once fascinating, funny and inspiring. RuPaul urges readers to “stop trying to fit in when you were born to stand out” and offers insight into how drag has allowed him to express himself and feel truly seen. With multiple records, books, Emmys for his show “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and more under his flatteringly waist-cinching belt, he’s no stranger to sharing his message. This scrapbook of his life so far is another example of the power of authenticity, no matter what it looks like.

WE WERE ON A BREAK
Readers who had “the Rachel” haircut, can sing all the words to “Smelly Cat” and have celebrated “Friendsgiving” are the natural audience for journalist Kelsey Miller’s I’ll Be There for You: The One About Friends. However, even those who didn’t immerse themselves in the 1990s television phenomenon “Friends” will appreciate her perspective on how it influenced pop culture. Miller was 10 when “Friends” debuted, and “its enormous impact was baked into my DNA like radiation.” When she recently found herself timing her workouts to “Friends” reruns on her gym’s TV, Miller decided to explore why the show still resonates so strongly (16 million Americans watch reruns every week, she notes). The book is a delightfully mixed bag: Miller shares the players’ origin stories and gives insight into how TV shows are made. She also considers the show’s impact on everything from advertising to fashion to coffee culture and thoughtfully examines the show’s fatphobia, lack of diversity and depictions of gay characters. It’s an entertaining read for fans of all ages.

COMPLETELY COEN
Adam Nayman’s The Coen Brothers: This Book Really Ties the Films Together is a colorful, comprehensive tribute to the movie-making duo. The author, a Toronto- based film critic, is intrigued by the interconnectedness of the Coens’ work, which spans some four decades. He asserts that, while their films may seem to be wildly different, “nothing in the brothers’ vise-tight, magisterially engineered movies could be happening by accident.” And so, from 1987’s Raising Arizona to 1996’s Fargo to 2013’s Inside Llewyn Davis, et al., Nayman sets out to identify “some Grand Unified Theory of Coen-ness.” Readers can follow along on this quest, or they can flip around and dive into specific movies, read interviews with Coen collaborators or page through the photos and illustrations. Even if there’s no singular answer to what makes a Coen film a Coen film, this detailed compendium is a cinephile’s delight.

 

This article was originally published in the December 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

These three books offer peeks behind the scenes of our favorite on-screen entertainment, making them the perfect gifts for the TV aficionados and cinephiles among us.

NonfictionAudioPop CultureMusicMemoir

5 audiobooks to feed your pop culture diet

Feature by Anna Zeitlin

From lowbrow to highbrow TV, from comic books to rock ’n’ roll, here are five audiobooks to feed your pop culture diet. Whether your ears are tuned to licentious behind-the-scenes stories or erudite critiques, there’s something for anyone who hasn’t been hiding under a rock for the last century.

Bachelor Nation, written and read by Amy Kaufman
This is an absolute must-listen for anyone who’s ever watched “The Bachelor” and wondered what goes on behind the scenes, and for anyone curious about the tricks employed by reality TV. We learn how producers use editing to tell whatever story they want to tell, no matter what was really said. Any casual viewer knows how petty the contestants can be, but this book reveals just how ruthless the people behind the scenes can be, too. If you ever audition for the show, never reveal your fear of heights, unless you want to be the one selected for the sky-diving date. Whether you love the show or love to hate it, the juicy, tell-all nature of this audiobook makes it hard to press pause.

I Like to Watch, written and read by Emily Nussbaum
Emily Nussbaum, TV critic for The New Yorker, shares a collection of essays that treats television with respect, acknowledging it as the art form it has become. Twenty years into what many call TV’s second golden age, this is the perfect time to look back on the pivotal shows like “The Sopranos,” “Sex and the City” and even “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” all of which set TV on the path it’s on today. She delves into the difficult question of the #MeToo era: Can we still consume art by bad men? I found myself nodding along to the whole audiobook. It’s a thoughtful, opinionated collection of essays and a masterclass in critical writing.

Sticky Fingers: The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone Magazine, written by Joe Hagan, read by Dennis Boutsikaris
Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner’s life makes for a fascinating lens through which to view the changing music- and magazine-publishing industries in the later half of the 20th century. He created legends, cementing John Lennon’s legacy as a rock god and building up the mythology behind rock ’n’ roll and the 1960s as a magically creative time. He lifted up the careers of Annie Lebowitz, Cameron Crowe and Hunter S. Thompson. He’s also a total narcissist, and this book pulls no punches. He puts profits over friendship time and again. He’s a successful business mogul, but at what cost? Joe Hagan had incredible access for this book and doesn’t hold anything back.

The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture, written and read by Glen Weldon
This book tracks the history of Batman from his origin as a Shadow knock-off, created to compete with Superman, and through all his permutations in comics, movies and cartoons. Author Glen Weldon posits that the most essential part of Batman is his pledge: When his parents are murdered, he vows to defend the defenseless. The adaptations that have ignored this part of his character are the ones that fail to connect with readers and viewers. Weldon draws a distinction between male and female fans: Male fans complain, make death threats and beg creators for the version of Batman they most relate to; female fans create their own versions, with stories they want to hear, using the characters they love in fan fiction. Weldon is a dynamic narrator, adopting New York and Scottish accents when quoting comic book authors. His “mad fan” voice is particularly skewering.

My Life as a Goddess, written and read by Guy Branum
Writer/comedian Guy Branum uses pop culture as a framing device for his memoir. As a kid, he watched old TV shows to learn about the world. His essay “The Man Who Watched The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” is a beautiful portrait of his relationship with a father who didn’t quite understand him but was proud of him. He does a line-by-line breakdown of “Bohemian Rhopsody” by Queen, interpreted as a coming-out tale that shines a whole new light on the song. Branum’s repeated line “and then I remembered, I am a Goddess” is an inspiring mantra that will boost any listener’s self-confidence. He has a way of throwing out biting asides that make this audiobook that much more fun than the book.

From lowbrow to highbrow TV, from comic books to rock ’n’ roll, here are five audiobooks to feed your pop culture diet.
NonfictionPop CultureCookbooks

Gift books: For the culture vulture who’s seen everything

Feature by Jessica Wakeman

Why choose between the page and the screen? These books are great for culture vultures who want to enjoy the two together.

Binging With Babish by Andrew Rea
Food on film can be as memorable as any character. What would Harry Potter be without butterbeer? Or “Seinfeld” without soup? In the vast universe of YouTube chefs, Andrew Rea stands out with his unique conceit: cooking dishes from TV and film to eat in real life. 

His channel’s millions of subscribers watch him prepare dishes like the Krabby Supreme from “Spongebob Squarepants,” cheesy blasters from “30 Rock” and even “the grey stuff (it’s delicious!)” from Beauty and the Beast. Rea’s new cookbook, Binging With Babish, compiles many of these recipes for the home cook. It includes serious dishes, such as creme brulee from Amélie and cannoli from The Godfather. But there are also plenty of not-so-serious recipes, such as Buddy’s pasta from Elf (spaghetti with M&Ms and a crumbled fudge PopTart, anyone?). Each recipe comes with Rea’s tips for preparation and a verdict on its edibleness.

Movies (and Other Things) by Shea Serrano
We all know one film aficionado who remembers bits and bobs about movies long after everyone else has forgotten them. This person can be tricky to shop for, as they’ve seen every movie already and have plenty of opinions about them. Enter Movies (and Other Things) by Shea Serrano, author of The Rap Year Book. Over the course of 30 essays, Serrano dives deep into topics that movie nerds love to debate, with a focus on famous films since the 1980s. Who are the members of the perfect heist movie crew? Who gets it the worst in Kill Bill? 

Movies is illustrated by Arturo Torres and, as a whole, feels internet-y in its composition, as it contains charts, listicles, a yearbook and even a script. There’s a distinctly masculine feel to the essays, with only a handful addressing films starring women. Nevertheless, any cinephile will find this a fascinating read—and for everyone else, it’s a fun coffee table book.

Why choose between the page and the screen? These books are great for culture vultures who want to enjoy the two together.
Pop CultureHistoryArts & Culture

The Day of Infamy lives on: Pearl Harbor remembered

Review by James Webb

In our media-oriented culture, history equals big business. Dissected, deconstructed, glorified and, of course, relived on the big screen, the past is a major money-maker. Now, as we approach its 60th anniversary, one of World War II's biggest events the bombing of Pearl Harbor proves to be the media event of the summer, inspiring a full-length feature film as well as a host of new books.

Pearl Harbor: The Movie and the Moment is an illustrated volume about the making of the movie Pearl Harbor and peripherally about the historical event the movie portrays. It's a fascinating look at the reality behind some jaw-dropping special effects, the growth of a story and the origins of characterizations, costumes and period settings. If you have seen the movie and want to learn more about the filmmakers' secrets and about the real events that inspired them, this is the book for you. Included is a minute-by-minute timeline of the fateful day, along with drawings, charts and photographs (most from the movie) that graphically portray the terror and destruction.

Dan Van Der Vat, along with painter Tom Freeman, has given us the ideal coffee table book on the subject. Pearl Harbor: The Day of Infamy An Illustrated History is richly illustrated, in much the same manner as the popular Titanic books. It features intelligent diagrams, enlightening illustrations, vivid contemporary photographs alongside vintage shots and gorgeous paintings. The clear, interesting narrative briefly sets the scene, both historically and physically, then leads you through the events of the attack in words and pictures. Freeman's detailed paintings along with easy-to-understand diagrams show you just how, when and why things happened as they did.

The most in-depth of the books is Pearl Harbor, by British military historian H. P. Willmott. This one looks like a coffee table book, but appearances can be deceiving. Although it is filled with hundreds of photographs some surprising and unusual and scores of richly detailed charts, diagrams, maps and blueprints, this is a serious, weighty book, and the serious student of history will find it a delight. History doesn't move in a straight line, and neither does Willmott. He answers the unasked question, for instance, of why a small island nation would intentionally provoke the largest industrialized nation in the world.

Hawaii Goes to War: The Aftermath of Pearl Harbor, offers a unique look at how the military and civilians on the island coped with the crisis. Drawing from military and civilian records, Wilbur D. Jones and his wife create a picture of paradise plunged into war. Jones' best witness to what happened is his co-author and wife, Carroll Robbins Jones, who was actually there. Arriving at Pearl on November 25 to live with her father, a Navy officer, Carroll and her family survived the attack. Her mother, a gutsy combination of Margaret Bourke-White and Jacqueline Kennedy, became the Associated Press' main photographer in those frantic first months of the war, and dragging her kids along, she recorded it on film. More than 100 of her photographs are included in the book, documenting the aftermath of the attack in dramatic fashion.

Finally, if you know a child or pre-teen who would like to learn more about this chapter in our country's history, an excellent new children's book will provide the answers. Attack on Pearl Harbor: The True Story of the Day America Entered World War IIis a book the history student in your family will enjoy and probably never forget. Shelley Tanaka's narrative takes no sides in the tragedy; it simply tells the story of young people caught up in the events. An 11-year-old witnesses the attack on Kaneohe Naval Air Station from a friend's house; a 19-year-old sailor on the battleship Oklahoma struggles to survive when his ship is torpedoed; a 23-year-old Japanese sailor prepares to die in his midget submarine and ends up becoming a POW; a 14-year-old Hawaiian girl gets caught up in the confused and frightening aftermath of the attack. Featuring photos, vivid illustrations by David Craig and understandable diagrams, this is a book parent and child will want to share.

James Neal Webb is the proud son of a Navy veteran.

 

In our media-oriented culture, history equals big business. Dissected, deconstructed, glorified and, of course, relived on the big screen, the past is a major money-maker. Now, as we approach its 60th anniversary, one of World War II's biggest events the bombing of Pearl Harbor proves to be the media event of the summer, inspiring a […]
Pop CulturePhotographyMemoirHistoryArts & Culture

Battles for the bookshelf

Review by James Webb

If you're searching for a gift for a member of the greatest generation, this season's offerings of World War II books provide an exciting range of choices. With the phenomenal popularity of Tom Brokaw's The Greatest Generation as an incentive, publishers have combed archives and other sources to produce books that give new, eye-opening accounts of the war to readers young and old still fascinated by this pivotal event in world history.

What better place to start than Page One: The Front Page History of World War II as Presented in The New York Times. This is a compilation of selected issues of the nation's greatest newspaper covering our nation's greatest crisis and it makes for fascinating reading. Each front page is reproduced in its entirety, and you can't help but take note of the way the headlines grow in point size as the years go on. The smaller stories of the war can be just as fascinating as the headlines. Not many people know that the U.S. mainland the Aleutian Islands in Alaska was actually attacked twice in the summer of 1942, which a careful reading of these front pages will reveal.

A similar approach can be found in The Second World War: An Illustrated History of World War II, Volume I, edited by the writer and literary critic Sir John Hammerton. This is a massive set of books that reprint the journal The War Illustrated, a popular British publication that covered the war practically from its inception. For the true aficionado of WWII memorabilia, this is as close to source materials as you're likely to get. Where else would you find the verbatim dispatch of a Russian journalist as he waits in Moscow, listening to the sound of German guns only 70 miles from the city? Or the account of an RAF bomber crew, shot down over the Atlantic, who survived nine days in a life raft before finally being rescued? Maybe you'll want to get the volume covering the beginnings of the war, or perhaps the one concerning America's entry into the conflict. A truly interested reader will want to have them all.

Another excellent entry is Our Finest Hour: Voices of the World War II Generation. While it contains only a fraction of the vast archives of Life's World War II photographs, every picture included here is superb. In truth, words aren't needed, but contemporaneous material from the magazine enhances the photographs. Photographers for Life have always had a knack for capturing a story on film. Whether it's a colonel kneeling before the flag-draped body of his son on Okinawa, or the mute exhaustion of a foot soldier after D-Day, words aren't even necessary; each photo conveys a wealth of information and emotion.

Five years after its original publication Andy Rooney's My Warhas been reissued in a gift edition with a new forward by Tom Brokaw. Rooney was a young sergeant writing for Stars and Stripes during the war, and he was eyewitness to some of the most momentous events in this nation's history. He focuses not on the planning sessions or the summit meetings or even the crucial battles though he was present at many of these things but rather on the experiences of the common soldier. Whether it be the pilots who bombed Germany despite their horrendous casualty rate, or the foot soldiers who plodded across Europe, Rooney tells their story. Drafted at the war's beginning, he began as a member of an artillery company, but used his writing background to gain a position with the Army's newspaper. Rooney tells his story in such an appealing, matter-of-fact style that the reader feels like he is part of a private conversation. An excellent, funny and moving book, My War makes a worthy addition to any World War II bookshelf.

Now if you're wondering, Which of these books should I buy my Granddad? we have a surprising answer for you. If he's a veteran of the war, he'd enjoy any of these selections, but we would be willing to bet that Max Allen Collins' For The Boys: The Racy Pin-Ups of World War IIwould put the biggest grin on his face. This is a full color collection of the arty and racy pin-ups and posters that ended up on the walls and jackets and bombers of the soldiers of the war. It may be politically incorrect, but it's history. Just don't give it to him while the great-grandkids are around!

A personal favorite among the new World War II books is one of the most unusual books on the war I've ever seen. While we all have been raised to think of the war as one fought in black and white, in newsreels and grainy photographs, The Second World War In Color by Stewart Binns and Adrian Wood is just that a collection of color photographs of the war. Adolph Hitler lounges in a smartly cut blue pin-stripe suit and olive bombers warm up with brown beaches, blue skies and green palm trees in the background. This book is at times jaw-droppingly amazing; somehow the color makes the impact of the war more immediate.

From funny posters to heartbreaking photographs, these new books bring to life the experience of World War II and provide fascinating reading for the veterans who were there and for those who want a revealing glimpse of history in the making.

If you're searching for a gift for a member of the greatest generation, this season's offerings of World War II books provide an exciting range of choices. With the phenomenal popularity of Tom Brokaw's The Greatest Generation as an incentive, publishers have combed archives and other sources to produce books that give new, eye-opening accounts […]
Pop CultureMusicHistoryBiographyArts & Culture

Gift gallery

Review by Miriam Drennan

An invitation flutters out of the usual coupons, bills, and sweepstakes notices. Cousin Curtis's daughter, Sally the Scholar, is graduating this month; you can't remember if she's finishing grammar school, officer training, or clown college, but the invitation definitely reads commencement. What gift doesn't require bake sales, passing grades, or student loans? Why, books, of course!

A physics book? As a gift? If Sally or anyone else you know has a penchant for subatomic particles and chaos (theory, that is), then Physics in the 20th Century is the gift of choice. Author Curt Suplee, science writer for the Washington Post, explores the past, present, and future of physics, and readers will realize that matter . . . well, matters! Suplee's text includes practical, everyday applications, making physics accessible to all types of thinkers. Gorgeous photographs and digital illustrations, many presented as center spreads, make this a lovely display book as well. Definitely not your run-of-the-mill, ho-hum, college physics textbook.

Noel Coward was living proof that one needn't have only one profession. The sometimes-playwright, sometimes-painter, sometimes-composer was the definitive artiste of his time, and perhaps of this century. To celebrate what would have been Coward's 100th birthday, The Overlook Press has published Noel Coward: The Complete Lyrics. Editor Barry Day, who has authored several books on Coward, has compiled and annotated 500 songs, including many that remain unpublished and unknown. Plenty of photographs and illustrations, as well as background information from both Coward and Day, make this book an elegant gift for the well-rounded, sophisticated person in your life.

If your favorite graduate has chosen a less-than-traditional career path, The Virtuoso: Face to Face with 40 Extraordinary Talents will provide inspiration. Author Ken Carbone interviews folks like Henri Vaillancourt, canoe maker; Sylvia Earle, explorer; and Olympic gold medalist Nadia Comaneci, to name a few. Peppered with essays on the elements of virtuosity, The Virtuoso includes stunning photographs by Howard Schatz, who captures each virtuoso in perspectives that illustrate the marriage of occupation and soul. A gorgeous gift for those who dare to take the road less traveled.

Memorial Day and Armed Forces Day are both recognized this month, and Scholastic's Encyclopedia of the United States at War follows our country from the Revolution to the Gulf War. Tragedy and triumph are brought to life with photographs, illustrations, maps, eyewitness accounts, and other historical details of each war. Why did Anna Marie Lane receive a soldier's pension following the Revolution? And just how old was Johnny Shiloh when he fought in the Civil War? Famous battles are chronicled, and authors June English and Thomas Jones follow each war from start to finish. A wonderful gift for history buffs, military buffs, and students both young and old.

As the turn of another century draws nigh, William Morrow Books asked 25 women to recall their memories of the last turn of the century. The result is We Remember: Women Born at the Turn of the Century Tell the Stories of Their Lives. Brooke Astor, active as ever, recounts her heartaches and triumphs (between phone calls with her veterinarian); Martha Jane Faulkner, age 104 and the daughter of a slave, talks about moving north to the Promised Land of New York City, only to find it not-so-promising; Dr. Leila Denmark discusses her 70+ years of practicing medicine; and many other remarkable women reflect on what a difference a century makes. Includes a foreword by Hillary Rodham Clinton and timeline endpapers.

Is Sally someone who is destined to ask, What's behind Curtain #3? while wearing a tuxedo and/or evening gown midday? The Encyclopedia of TV Game Shows is the perfect solution. With a foreword by Merv Griffin, this reference book contains over 250 pages of entries, and dozens of appendices and photographs. It's fairly inclusive; you'll find information ranging from gameshow dynasties like The Price Is Right to gameshows that were merely blips on the screen (does anyone remember The Better Sex from the 1970s?). And did you know that Walter Cronkite, Hugh Downs, and Mike Wallace all served as gameshow hosts? A fun conversation piece, The Encyclopedia of TV Game Shows makes an ideal prize for departing graduates, departing contestants, and otherwise.

An invitation flutters out of the usual coupons, bills, and sweepstakes notices. Cousin Curtis's daughter, Sally the Scholar, is graduating this month; you can't remember if she's finishing grammar school, officer training, or clown college, but the invitation definitely reads commencement. What gift doesn't require bake sales, passing grades, or student loans? Why, books, of […]
NonfictionPop CultureMemoir

The Beauty of Living Twice

Review by Amy Scribner

It’s impossible to overstate just how famous Sharon Stone was in the 1990s. After the phenomenon of 1992’s Basic Instinct, the legendary beauty earned further acclaim for roles in Casino and The Muse and became one of the highest paid actors on the planet. As a result, her every move was scrutinized. She would have broken the internet—if that had been a thing back in 1996—when she wore a black turtleneck from the Gap to the Oscars.

In Stone’s generous new memoir, The Beauty of Living Twice, she writes about it all, starting with her loving but fraught childhood in blue-collar Pennsylvania, where her family laughed hard and fought loudly. “They did a horrible, beautiful, awful, amazing job with us,” she writes of her parents. “They gave us their best. They gave us everything. All of it. The full Irish.”

Stone also reveals in this memoir that she and her sister were sexually abused by her maternal grandfather. That portion of the book is understandably vague and brief, but it’s clear this betrayal impacted the family irrevocably.

In fact, The Beauty of Living Twice alternates between vague summarization and incredibly personal recollections. Stone writes in detail about the massive stroke she suffered in 2001, which left her in financial and physical ruin that took years to recover from. She dishes on her experiences with some of the biggest stars in Hollywood and her philanthropic efforts around the world. But she only briefly talks about her experience of adopting three sons, one of whom became the subject of an acrimonious custody dispute with her ex-husband Phil Bronstein.

Overall, the book reads like an oral history, as if someone were typing furiously while Stone reminisced about her exceptional life. (“Remind me to tell you about James Brown,” she writes late in the book. She does not, unfortunately, tell us about James Brown.) Somehow, this old Hollywood narrative style works, and Stone delivers a bighearted, wonderfully rambling story full of wisdom and humor.

It’s impossible to overstate just how famous Sharon Stone was in the 1990s, and in her generous new memoir, she writes about it all.
NonfictionPop CultureHumor

We Had a Little Real Estate Problem

Review by Priscilla Kipp

Native Americans have had an image problem for as long as non-­Native people have had a say in it, from the Pilgrims to P.T. Barnum to Andrew Jackson to Hollywood movie producers. In the media, Indigenous people have been cast as savage, ignorant and unfunny, except as the butt of jokes. There is a sad logic to that: What would Native Americans have to laugh about? White settlers tried to vanquish them, denied them their culture, language and tribal lands, portrayed them as caricatures of their authentic selves and trapped them by systemic racism that fosters roadblocks to work and education. As the groundbreaking stand-up comedian Charlie Hill once said to a white audience, “For so long you probably thought that Indians never had a sense of humor. We never thought you were too funny either.”

Richly researched and told through the vibrant voices of the comics themselves—including Cherokee citizen Will Rogers and his son Will Rogers Jr., Osage member Ryan Red Corn, Kiowa member Adrianne Chalepah, Oneida member Charlie Hill and more—Kliph Nesteroff’s extraordinary We Had a Little Real Estate Problem: The Unheralded Story of Native Americans and Comedy chronicles a legacy deserving of inclusion in the history of comedy in the U.S. and Canada. Supporting players include Olympian, actor and member of the Sac and Fox Nation Jim Thorpe, who protested stereotyping in Hollywood Westerns in the 1930s and ’40s, demanding “only American Indians for American Indian parts.” Thorpe’s list of acceptable Native American performers, however, inspired the U.S. government to investigate whether those listed were truly Indigenous or if they were immigrants who were in the country illegally, according to Variety: “Italians, Mexicans, Armenians, and other swarthy-skinned foreigners have been passing themselves off as Indians, figuring no one could then question their entry.”

With the arrival of television, Native comedians-­to-be, inspired by shows like “The Tonight Show,” began learning their craft at far-flung casinos and truck stops in the middle of the night. Pay was pathetic, and audiences were sparse and unsure of how to react to a funny Native American, though fellow Indigenous people had no trouble relating to their own. In the 1970s, Charlie Hill, David Letterman, Jay Leno and Robin Williams shared the sidewalk line for a spot on the stage of the Comedy Store, a famous comedy club in Hollywood where scouts would come to spot new talent who, in turn, would help other aspiring comics—as Letterman did when he invited Hill onto his show as his first Native American guest.

Richly researched and told through the vibrant voices of Native American comics, Kliph Nesteroff’s extraordinary We Had a Little Real Estate Problem chronicles a legacy deserving of inclusion in the history of comedy.

NonfictionSocial SciencePop Culture

The Sprawl

Review by Alden Mudge

Think of The Sprawl: Reconsidering the Weird American Suburbs as an idiosyncratic road trip through America’s suburbs. Your guide, Jason Diamond, grew up in suburban Chicago but has lived much of his adult life in New York City. A recurring question during this excursion is whether or not Diamond will live in the suburbs again.

He tells us he has recently read everything he could find about suburbia. This includes fiction by John Cheever, who shaped our experience of suburban New York, and work by Shirley Jackson, Ray Bradbury and Celeste Ng. And let’s not forget William Gibson, the speculative-fiction writer who founded the cyberpunk genre and grew up in suburban Charlottesville, North Carolina, which he once described as “like living on Mars.”

There are movies, music and TV here, too. Who could forget Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Sixteen Candle or "Leave It to Beaver"?  Or the work of David Lynch, whom Diamond credits with darkening our simple notions of the suburbs with a haunting idea that “there’s darkness hiding in the corner of the [suburban] room or standing on the nice lawn.” Music? Yes! We park for a time along grassy streets to listen to garage bands rouse the neighbors. We imagine other garages where teens tinker toward new technologies.

“I like to seek out places connected to movies and shows I love,” Diamond writes. Thus we travel to Seaside, the real-life location of Seahaven Island from Jim Carey’s The Truman Show. More out of curiosity than love, we visit Celebration, Florida, Disney’s planned community, which Diamond says is pretty creepy in its near-perfection. We’ve already visited ur-suburbs like Zion, Illinois, and Llewellyn Park, New Jersey, would-be Edens founded by confused or saintly hucksters to escape the evils of city life without actually going back to hunting and gathering. And of course there is Levittown, New York, the very image of suburban regimentation. Finally, we pause in a cul-de-sac to briefly consider the changing demographics of suburbs in the age of movements like Black Lives Matter.

Like all road trips, The Sprawl has its lolling moments. Diamond’s suburbs are lonely and boring places in need of a sense of community or at least a trip to the mall. Our attention wanders, and we focus on what Diamond reveals about himself, his boyhood bouncing from suburb to suburb to be with one or another of his divorced parents. But then a thought rouses us: The very blandness of these burbs is at the root of an ongoing restless, creative explosion. Diamond, as promised, lets us see “just how much the suburbs have influenced our culture.”

Think of The Sprawl: Reconsidering the Weird American Suburbs as an idiosyncratic road trip through America’s suburbs. Your guide, Jason Diamond, grew up in suburban Chicago but has lived much of his adult life in New York City. A recurring question during this excursion is whether or not Diamond will live in the suburbs again. He tells […]
NonfictionSocial SciencePop Culture

The Day It Finally Happens

Review by Becky Libourel Diamond

Humans have always been privy to threats to our existence and livelihood. These have evolved along with us, especially as our population and technology continue to advance at breakneck speeds. But what are the chances of these ominous scenarios actually happening? Journalist Mike Pearl, author of the Vice column “How Scared Should I Be?” ventures into this uncertain future in his debut, The Day It Finally Happens: Alien Contact, Dinosaur Parks, Immortal Humans—and Other Possible Phenomena.

Composed of 19 different scenarios/chapters, Pearl assigns each a plausibility rating, the likelihood of it occurring in this century, its scariness factor and whether it’s worth us changing our habits. Some have been contemplated for years, such as “The Day Nuclear Bombs Kill Us All” and “The Day Humans Become Immortal.” But others are more recent and perhaps even surprising, such as “The Day a Tech Billionaire Takes Over the World” and “The Day the Last Cemetery Runs Out of Space.” Many are scary, but some are actually promising, such as “The Day the Last Slave Goes Free.”

Incorporating mind-boggling statistics and expert commentary, Pearl touches on a variety of industries and life aspects, including politics, ethics, science, medicine and technology. As a result, his forecasts are explained with knowledge, opinion and a sprinkling of humor, such as the “hmm . . .” moment in the chapter about alien contact where he muses, “Funnily enough, contact with intelligent extraterrestrials is one of the more plausible topics in this book.”

Luckily not all is gloom and doom. Scientific evidence tells us that humanity will not be the same forever, and Pearl assures us that we wouldn’t want that anyway. We can take comfort in the fact that it’s a slow process and that “new species, in a way, ‘replace’ older ones.” He acknowledges that the book’s idea was born out of his own mounting anxieties and even suggests that writing about these predictions is therapeutic. As the author puts it, “Envisioning future possibilities in a sensible, fact-based way is a helpful habit that leads to clearer thinking.” Ultimately, The Day It Finally Happens is an exercise in light-hearted but crystal-clear thinking.

Humans have always been privy to threats to our existence and livelihood. These have evolved along with us, especially as our population and technology continue to advance at breakneck speeds. But what are the chances of these ominous scenarios actually happening? Journalist Mike Pearl, author of the Vice column “How Scared Should I Be?” ventures […]
Pop CultureArts & CultureArt

Awards for Good Boys

Review by Anna Christensen

In the middle of this book, I received an exasperated text from a friend. A male acquaintance, she said, had posted a comment under a picture on her social media in which he remarked that she looked “so much slimmer!” The post was about her Ph.D. work. “Isn’t it wonderful that we’re all just here to be commented on by men?” she said. “He has probably never been confronted with the idea that his opinion might not be inherently valuable.”

Indeed, this seems like a stunt that would earn the offender his own shining ribbon from Shelby Lorman in her new book. Funny, intelligent, weary and based on her popular Instagram account, Awards for Good Boys takes a critical look at the men whose actual treatment of women doesn’t quite jibe with the feminist politics they parrot. That male acquaintance that knows all the #MeToo jargon but feels entitled to a little something “more” after buying you a drink? He’s a Good Boy. The ex who texts you “just to check in” after you told him you needed space? Another Good Boy. The guy you’ve been seeing who insists that labeling human relationships is somehow ethically and morally wrong? A Good Boy several times over.

Though full of the cartoons that populate Lorman’s Instagram, the book resists simply being a pithy ode to the many potholes that exist in the female experience. Lorman writes sensitively about the behaviors that these acts of marginalization often prompt in women, conditioned as we are to make ourselves small. It can get a little uncomfortable when she describes back to you the many ways you’ve taken up the emotional labor for men, but she does so while speaking in the tones of your most sympathetic, self-aware friend. Drawing it all together at the end is an emotionally intelligent and compassionate conclusion to an argument you didn’t even realize that you were reading. The gift of Awards for Good Boys lies in the way it lightly bops you on the head with the clarity you need to see through the madness disguising itself as acceptable.

Funny, intelligent, weary and based on her popular Instagram account, Awards for Good Boys takes a critical look at the men whose actual treatment of women doesn’t quite jibe with the feminist politics they parrot.
NonfictionPop Culture

What’s the deal with Seinfeld?

Review by Keith Herrell

Maybe we should add “Seinfeldia” to the lexicon, joining “yada yada,” “sponge-worthy” and “Festivus.”

In Jennifer Keishin Armstrong’s view, espoused in the book of the same name, it’s not just a play on the title of the NBC sitcom that ran from 1989 to 1998 and starred comedian Jerry Seinfeld and featured four friends dedicated to zero personal growth. It’s an imaginary place, still thriving thanks to obsessive fans and enduring memes. And Seinfeldia (the book, that is) is the essential travel guide.

Armstrong is on familiar turf here: She also wrote Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted, about “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” and spent a decade on the staff of Entertainment Weekly. It’s a safe bet that she had a blast writing Seinfeldia, revisiting its origins, debriefing its writers (still shell-shocked from dealing with famously punctilious co-creator Larry David) and catching up with former cast members and network executives.

She’s at her best with tales from the writers, eager to dish about their turn at bat. Encouraged to mine their daily lives for stories, they came up with plotlines about dates gone wrong, shenanigans at the zoo and transgressions of the all-important “social contract.” But eventually the mines are emptied and it comes down to, as one writer once said, “sitting in an office in Studio City.”

And how did “the show about nothing” change everything? In Armstrong’s view, just look at shows like “The Office,” with its awkward humor, or “The Wire,” with its narrative complexity—both “Seinfeld” staples. But perhaps there’s nothing new under the sun: We learn that Michael Richards, who played “hipster doofus” Kramer, gleaned acting tips from watching Gale Storm in the 1950s sitcom “My Little Margie.”

 

This article was originally published in the July 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Maybe we should add “Seinfeldia” to the lexicon, joining “yada yada,” “sponge-worthy” and “Festivus.” In Jennifer Keishin Armstrong’s view, espoused in the book of the same name, it’s not just a play on the title of the NBC sitcom that ran from 1989 to 1998 and starred comedian Jerry Seinfeld and featured four friends dedicated to zero personal growth. It’s an imaginary place, still thriving thanks to obsessive fans and enduring memes. And Seinfeldia (the book, that is) is the essential travel guide.
NonfictionPop Culture

A hip and culinary trip to China

Review by Heather Seggel

It’s fitting that Eddie Huang’s follow-up to the bestselling Fresh Off the Boat—adapted into a TV series—opens as he phonetically transcribes a Charlie Parker sax riff. Double Cup Love: On the Trail of Family, Food, and Broken Hearts in China is a foodie travelogue and comic tour de force, but it’s also something of a word-jazz concerto.

The setup is simple: Feeling pressured by his success, Huang ventures to Chengdu to cook with street vendors and dig further into the roots of the food he’s known for. He also plans to fly his girlfriend out and propose. 

Huang’s hip-hop patois infuses his writing, whether he’s describing a bout of chili-induced diarrhea (and there are several) or exploring the difficult family dynamics that shaped him as a young man. He captures the pressures of the kitchen, which are even greater while he’s in China, since as often as not he’s cooking in a converted closet, battling chili fumes along with carbon monoxide. 

Huang’s romance takes some unexpected twists (on his way to propose he is almost left behind at a rest stop where he’s once again paying for his gastronomic bravery), but Double Cup Love has more to offer than that. The rooftop parties and underground clubs, chewy intestines and all that swagger reveal a family story that’s tender at the core.

 

This article was originally published in the June 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

It’s fitting that Eddie Huang’s follow-up to the bestselling Fresh Off the Boat—adapted into a TV series—opens as he phonetically transcribes a Charlie Parker sax riff. Double Cup Love: On the Trail of Family, Food, and Broken Hearts in China is a foodie travelogue and comic tour de force, but it’s also something of a word-jazz concerto.

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