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Bookhive's favorite TV show ever, OITNB, is back as of late last night, when Netflix released all 14 episodes for Season 3 a few hours early. That was very nice of them but I was fast asleep, so I didn't get a jump-start on my binge, which will probably have to wait until Saturday afternoon.
Last year I did a 'Books for TV Lovers' post to celebrate Season 2, so hopefully this will tide all of you over until you can race home from work (why isn't OITNB day a national holiday?).
Mad Men is back for the final episodes of Season 7. "The end of an era," as AMC is wording it, which is a tad dramatic, AMC. It is, after all, a TV show, and it's actually a TV show that not many people watch every week, as it turns out. Nevertheless, prestige drama, antihero, blah blah blah, it's culturally important.
I did a post last year on the really excellent NY Public Library's reading list for Mad Men, and I encourage everyone to revisit it. There have already been some great references this season, like the waitress Diane reading John Dos Passos in the diner.
Read. Watch. Enjoy!
Only two weeks in to Season 4 of HBO's 'Girls' and you already can't get enough right? JK. Sometimes (often) it feels like I'm the only person rooting for this show anymore, but if you, like me, still care and think 'Girls' is great, then enjoy the following reading list:
Not That Kind of Girl by Lena Dunham -- Perhaps a bit on the nose, but if this is what you like, then you will like it.
How Should a Person Be by Sheila Heti -- A really great novel about friendship between creative women in Toronto. Also some truly unfortunate sex scenes that share a sensibility with 'Girls.'
Anything by the lovely Jane Smiley, director of the Iowa Writers Workshop, where our intrepid heroine is enrolling this season. A Thousand Acres is terrific and I've heard great things about her latest novel as well.
Little Women by Louis May Alcott -- Everyone cites 'Sex and the City' as the natural predecessor but any group of four women coming-of-age and having mostly shitty stuff happen to them owes everything to Little Women. This viewpoint is clearly shared by Lena Dunham who included a really funny and sweet allusion to the novel in Season 2. FYI - Hanna is Jo, Marnie is Meg, Shoshanna is Amy, Ray/Adam are very likely Marmee, and Jessa is no one because the March sisters don't have a really useless, annoying, selfish sister....maybe Beth?
Books For TV Lovers is a recurring post that rounds up a reading list of titles inspired by my favorite TV shows.
The final season of 'Parks and Recreation' started last week and it hasn't really sunk in yet how much I love this show and how profoundly I'm going to miss this fictional world. It started with a whisper and very slowly snuck up on me until I caught myself crying at April and Andy's wedding episode. Treat yo self to these literary illustrations (see what I did there?) inspired by 'Parks and Recreation' and try to enjoy the final few episodes (without crying).
Books For TV Lovers is a recurring post that rounds up a reading list of titles inspired by my favorite TV shows.
There are no literary references worth discussing on this show but it's my favorite and it's amazing so here's the Season 2 trailer. If you haven't gotten into this yet, I'm not sure what's wrong with you. If you think we're friends and you tell me that this isn't your sense of humor, we won't be friends anymore, FYI.
If you really insist in squeezing a book recommendation out of it, I guess I'd advise Yes, Please by Amy Poehler, as Broad City's beloved mentor and executive producer, or Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me by Mindy Kaling, because funny women on tv deserve your attention. Also any book about stoners or NYC.
'Broad City' Season 2 premieres tonight on Comedy Central.
Books For TV Lovers is a recurring post that rounds up a reading list of titles inspired by my favorite TV shows.
Season 5 of IFC's 'Portlandia' premiered on January 8, much to my delight, especially now that I've visited Portland a few times. Please enjoy this ten minute long feminist bookstore sketch compilation, and then read the following books, which will help you fully immerse in 'Portlandia':
Wild by Cheryl Strayed - I'm just going to keep recommending it, so get used to it. Strayed is a notable Portland resident these days, and the movie includes an Art Alexakis cameo.
Girl in a Band by Kim Gordon (out February 24) - In lieu of a book about/by Sleater Kinney's Carrie Brownstein, this should more than suffice.
Any book you buy from Powells, Portland's awesome new/used bookstore. They have a great website, by the way, and are one of the nation's best alternatives if you're anti-Amazon.
A Beverly Cleary novel - The much-beloved children's book author grew up in Portland. My favorite is the epistolary novel Dear Mr. Henshaw.
Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey - Kesey is a pretty famous Oregon resident and University of Oregon alumni, and this novel is about - what else? - the logging industry.
It's ba-ack. Like many fans, I become disenchanted with 'Downton Abbey' at the end of season 3 (you know what I'm talking about), and yet again in the middle of season 4. That said, January is the absolute worst and the only thing that makes it tolerable is cozying up with all the good tv premieres. If 'The Bachelor' started at any other time of year I'd probably care a lot less, but right now it's 5 degrees and pitch black outside, so I need the escape very badly. Here are some books to weather the storm with:
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro -- Much like 'Downton,' this gorgeous novel revolves around an English manor house and its staff as they adapt to a very quickly-changing world, with narrative jumps between pre- and post-War England. An equally gorgeous film adaptation starring Emma Thompson is also a good use of your time.
Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier -- Sumptuous and romantic and creepy and very indulgent, this is another novel in which a house functions as much as a character as any of the humans, most of whom are rather lifeless.
Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh -- In which a young London socialite accidentally becomes a professional race car driver, etc. People drink champagne and say things like, "Isn't it just too, too awful." More satire than celebration of the between the Wars culture of the Bright Young Things.
The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton -- Just in case you're wondering what Cora's American family is up to in Rhode Island. I read a great interview with George R.R. Martin in which he drew the comparison between 'Downton Abbey' and 'Boardwalk Empire' and pointed out how the two programs are operating in the same time frame, and how together they give such a vivid and well-rounded representation of the culture of the 1930s. Edith Wharton was writing about a slightly earlier period, but think of it as the cultural milieu of Cora's coming-of-age.
Books For TV Lovers is a recurring post that rounds up a reading list of titles inspired by my favorite TV shows.
Last week all seven seasons of Gilmore Girls went up on Netflix, which has been a cause for celebration across the more feminist reaches of the Internet. I will admit, I couldn't stomach that clippy, preppy dialogue one bit, and people have always told me I resemble Rory Gilmore, which I resented, so I never got into the show. I was a major convert to the cult of Amy Sherman-Palladino, however, with the tragically short run of 'Bunheads' (RIP), so I'm ready to give 'Gilmore Girls' a chance this time around. It helps that I can pick and choose whatever seasons/episodes I want, and have access to the whole trove at once. I've also been feeling a lot of nostalgia for the WB network these days, probably a result of my Keri Russell fixation which reached alarming levels after 'Dawn of the Planet of the Apes' (which is so much better than you probably think it is; it's worth it for Keri Russell's hair/wardrobe alone), so I'll be digging in to 'Felicity' and 'Dawson's Creek' this winter also.
So apparently Rory Gilmore is quite bookish? She is constantly reading (or holding books, pretending to read them), throughout the series, and someone took the time to list out every book referenced on the show. It is so obviously a list made up for a fictional character because she's "reads" a lot of stuff that teenage girls, no matter how intelligent, could not slog through, like Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. That's not a book, it's six books, so please don't hold yourself to any standard of completing this list. For the record, I've read about 100 of 339.
Pretty Little Liars is one of the most literature allusion-laden shows on TV right now, and much like Lost before it, the references serve to enhance the show's central mystery plot line. There is no point in my trying to summarize what is going in in this show because its fifth season premiered last week and it is already so far down a ridiculous path that I wouldn't know where to begin, so I'll just say that it's the high school version of a "dead girl" show, and unlike its natural predecessors like Veronica Mars or Twin Peaks, it does not get bogged down by the central murder story in the slightest. It is extraordinarily campy, but also completely self-aware, and is just the best thing ever.
Read moreSeason 2 of Orange is the New Black premieres on Netflix at midnight on June 6, so in honor of this auspicious occasion, I've assembled some reading lists inspired by the show and its characters. If you're anything like me, you'll have Season 2 wrapped up by Monday morning, so you'll have plenty of free time for reading while you wait for Season 3.
As always, the New York Public Library has you covered with a really excellently curated reading list for the show. This includes all titles that characters are seen reading, or are explicitly referenced in the show. As a librarian, Tastyee has to be my favorite character, as she works in the prison library, and her thoughts on Ulysses ("Ain't nobody got time for that") is a highlight of Season 1.
Books of Orange is the New Black ("Because Piper Chapman is the new Rory Gilmore") is a nice Tumblr of books referenced on the show. It veers into fan site territory, but it's truly impressive how many people have taken the time to pause an episode in order to inventory the books on Alex's shelves. This is probably the best site for those specifically interested in the books adjacent to the lesbian characters and relationships on the show. If you don't love Alex, then there really isn't much here for you.
BuzzFeed has a very sloppy and GIF-heavy round-up of "All of the Books Referenced on 'Orange is the New Black'." Definitely the place to go if you want visual evidence of the books mentioned on the other sites, but it is BuzzFeed, so consider yourself warned.
It's not available yet, but an official 'Orange is the New Black' cookbook will be released in the fall of 2014 by Abrams Books. That sounds disgusting, but when I read Piper Kerman's memoir, I was really curious about all of the bizarre recipes she mentions (prison cheesecake?), especially because everything had to be prepared in a microwave.
Finally, I can't write a post on the series 'Orange is the New Black' without recommending Piper Kerman's memoir by the same name that inspired the show. The series is only very loosely based on the real story, and if anything Piper has just become an audience stand-in to get us into the world occupied by significantly more compelling and diverse characters, which the real Piper Kerman has admitted was always the plan. That doesn't mean the her memoir isn't interesting and compelling, but just don't expect it to perfectly align with the series. It's a quick and easy read, and would make for a good vacation book this summer.
This Sunday Mad Men Season 7 will culminate in its (mid-season?) finale. I had originally planned on putting together a reading list of books referenced on the show from memory, but Billy Parrott at the New York Public Library has already done so, far above and beyond what mine would have been. Not only does he include every book that appears on the show, he also gives recommendations for additional background reading and historical context. His list is thorough and sophisticated, and beautifully and simply designed (as if I couldn’t already tell it was made by a librarian). Browse his list, read some titles, and tweet about it with #MadMenReading. Tune in to AMC on Sunday May 25 at 10 pm for the finale.
