Best books … chosen

Alan Sepinwall is the chief TV critic at Rolling Stone and author of The Revolution Was Televised, a chronicle of the rise of prestige television. His new book, Welcome to The O.C., is an in-depth oral history of Fox’s early-oughts hit teen drama.

It’s Not TV

by Felix Gillette and John Koblin (2022). The story of 21st-century television is synonymous with the story of HBO. Gillette and Koblin offer details galore about the rise of the pay-cable giant that gave us The Sopranos, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Game of Thrones, and the impact it has had on the whole medium.

Mad Men Carousel

by Matt Zoller Seitz (2015). Each episode of Mad Men has so many thematic layers, historical and pop cultural references, and stylistic flourishes, that you can discover something new each time you watch. But it helps to have Zoller Seitz’s insightful episode-by-episode analysis by your side as you do it.

Burn It Down

by Maureen Ryan (2023). Ryan has spent years operating as the TV industry’s unofficial HR department, reporting stories for the Huffington Post, Chicago Tribune, and Vanity Fair about producers and executives behaving in a variety of abusive ways. Her book paints a damning portrait of how the business has allowed so many Bad Men to flourish, while also offering ideas for how TV can be better.

Live From New York

by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales (2002). An exhaustive oral history of Saturday Night Live’s first quarter century. Miller and Shales spoke to nearly every key figure, both on camera and off, and unearthed a treasure trove of behind-the-scenes dish.

I Like to Watch

by Emily Nussbaum (2019). The Pulitzer Prize–winning critic gathers some of her best New Yorker columns, along with new material, for this sparkling collection of serious TV talk. Highlights include the best analysis of Sex and the City you’ll ever read and Nussbaum wrestling with MeToo and artists she once loved, like Louis C.K. and Bill Cosby.

Audience of One

by James Poniewozik (2019). As this New York Times TV writer succinctly puts it, “Without TV, there’s no Trump.” Audience of One smartly not only examines how reality television boosted Donald Trump’s public image enough to make him a national political figure but also looks at how decades of scripted television conditioned some viewers to outright root for such a man.