Reading List

This is an ongoing reading list of books that I often use as reference or because I just enjoy reading them. Some I’ll review on the blog, but others I just think are important to share with my readers. There are some classic books in this list and some that are just brain candy. This list will grow as I add more titles.

Albee, Edward, Stretching My Mind: The Collected Essays 1960 to 2005
Alibhai-Brown, Yasmin, Exotic England: The Making of a Curious Nation
Alibhai-Brown, Yasmin, Who Do We Think We Are? Imagining a New Britain
Al-Kadhi, Amrou, Life as a Unicorn: A Journey from Shame to Pride and Everything in Between
Als, Hilton, White Girls
Als, Hilton, The Women
America’s Test Kitchen, The Complete Vegetarian Cookbook: A Fresh Guide to Eating Well with 700 Foolproof Recipes
America’s Test Kitchen, The Compete America’s Test Kitchen TV Show Cookbook: 2001 – 2019
Andrew, Dudley, Concepts in Film Theory
Austen, Jane, Emma.
Austen, Jane, Pride & Prejudice
Austen, Jane, Sense & Sensibility
Baker, Roger, Drag: A History of Female Impersonation in the Performing Arts
Barry, Lynda, Cruddy: An Illustrated Novel
Baum, L. Frank, The Annotated Wizard of Oz
Bayless, Rick, Mexico: One Plate at a Time
Beachy, Kyle, The Slide: A Novel
Beachy, Kyle, The Most Fun Thing: Dispatches from a Skateboard Life
Beadle, Jeremy J., Will Pop Eat Itself? Pop Music in the Soundbite Era
Benes, Jim, Chicago Christmas: One Hundred Years of Christmas Memories
Bhabha, Homi K., Nation and Narration
Block, Gay, Rescuers: Portraits of Moral Courage in the Holocaust
Bogdanovich, Peter, ed., The Best American Movie Writing 1999
Bourdain, Anthony, Anthony Bourdain’s Les Halles Cookbook: Strategies, Recipes, and Techniques of Classic Bistro Cooking
Boylan, Jennifer Finney, She’s Not There: A Life in Two Genders
Branum, Guy, My Life as a Goddess: A Memoir Through (Un)Popular Culture
Brontë, Anne, Agnes Grey
Brontë, Charlotte, Jane Eyre
Brontë, Emily, Wuthering Heights
Brooker, Charlie, Screen Burn: Television with Its Face Torn Off
Bruzzi, Stella, Undressing Cinema: Clothing and Identity in the Movies
Burr, Ty, Gods Like Us: On Movie Stardom and Modern Fame
Burrill, Anthony, Make It Now! Creative Inspiration and the Art of Getting Things Done
Chemam, Melissa, Massive Attack: Out of the Comfort
Cheu, Johnson, ed., Tim Burton: Essays on Film
Chiang, Ted, Stories of Your Life and Others
Chow, Lesley, You’re History: The Twelve Strangest Women in Music
Clinton, Hillary, An Invitation to the White House: At Home with History
Cobb, William Jelani, The Devil and Dave Chappelle: And Other Essays
Coluci, Jim, Golden Girls Forever: An Unauthorized Look Behind the Lanai
Cooke, Mervyn, A History of Film Music
Cooper, Jeremy, Growing Up: The Young British Artists at 50
Costa, Margaret, Four Seasons Cookery Book
Cruz-Malavé, Arnaldo, Queer Latino Testimonio, Keith Haring, and Juanito Xtravaganza: Hard Tails
DeCaro, Frank, A Boy Named Phyllis: A Suburban Memoir
Dell, Jake, Autobiography of a Delicatessen: Katz’s
D’Emilio, John, Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities
Dennis, Patrick. The Joyous Season
Dillard, Annie, The Maytrees: A Novel
Dillon, Brian, Objects in the Mirror: Essays
Dillon, Brian, Essayism
Doty, Alexander, Making Things Perfectly Queer: Interpreting Mass Culture
Downs, Alan, The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man’s World
Drescher, Fran, Enter Whining
Dutton, Danielle, Sprawl
Dyer, Richard, Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society
Dyer, Richard, Stars
Eddy, CHuck, Terminated for Reasons of Taste: Other Ways to Hear Essential and Inessential Music
Ehrenreich, Barbara, Nickel and Dimed: Undercover in Low-Wage America
Eisenstadt, Jill, From Rockaway
Evans, Peter William and Celestino Deleyto, eds., Terms of Endearment: Hollywood Romantic Comedy of the 80s and 90s
Faludi, Susan, In the Darkroom
Fielding, Helen, Bridget Jones’s Diary
Fields, Anna, The Girl in the Show: Three Generations of Comedy, Culture, and Feminism
Fisher, Carrie, The Best Awful
Fisher, Carrie, Delusions of Grandma
Fitzgerald, Tom and Lorenzo Marquez, Legendary Children: The First Decade of RuPaul’s Drag Race and the Last Century of Queer Life
Flagg, Fannie, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe
Freedman, Paul, Ten Restaurants That Changed America
Freitag, Amanda, The Chef Next Door: A Pro Chef’s Recipes for Fun, Fearless Home Cooking
Gabler, Neal, Barbra Streisand: Redefining Beauty, Femininity, and Power
Gaffney, Mo and Kathy Najimy, Parallel Lives: The Kathy and Mo Show
Gardner, John, On Moral Fiction
Gardner, John, The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers
George, Kadija, Write Black, Write British
Gibbons, Stella, Cold Comfort Farm
Gill, A.A., Paper View: The Best of Sunday Times Television Columns
Gleason, Holly, Women Walk the Line: How Women in Country Music Changed Our Lives
Gocsik, Karen, Richard Barsam, Dave Monahan, Writing About Movies
Gold, Jonathan, Counter Intelligence: Where to Eat in the Real Los Angeles
Granacki, Victoria, Chicago’s Polish Downtown
Green, Elon, Last Call: A True Story of Love, Lust, and Murderin Queer New York
Greenfield, Meg, Washington
Griffin, Chase, What’s on the Menu? A Novel
Griffin, Kathy, Kathy Griffin’s Celebrity Run-Ins: My A-Z Indez
Griffiths, Robin, ed., British Queer Cinema
Grimes, William, Appetite City: A Culinary History of New York
Guarnaschelli, Alex, Old-School Comfort Food: The Way I Learned to Cook
Habegger, Larry, James O’Reilly and Sean O’Reilly, eds., Travelers’ Tales Hong Kong: True Stories of Life on the Road
Hamessley, Lydia R., Unlikely Angel: The Songs of Dolly Parton
Hanley, Tim, The Many Lives of Catwoman: The Felonious History of a Feline Fatale
Hari, Johann, God Save the Queen? Monarchy and the Truth about the Windsors
Harrison, Barbara Grizzuti, The Astonishing World: Essays
Hart, Hannah, My Drunk Kitchen Holidays: How to Savor and Celebrate the Year
Haskell, Molly, Holding My Own in No Man’s Land: Women and Men and Film and Feminists
Henry, Diana, A Bird in the Hand: Chicken Recipes for Every Day and Every Mood
Highberger, Craig, Superstar in a Housedress: The Life and Legend of Jackie Curtis
Hill, Andy, Scoring the Screen: The Secret Language of Film Music
Hine, Darlene Clark, Tricia Danielle Keaton, Stephen Small, eds., Black Europe and the African Diaspora
Holton, Woody, Abigail Adams: A Life
Hom, Ken, Easy Family Dishes: A Memoir with Recipes
Hopkinson, Simon with Lindsey Bareham, Roast Chicken and Other Stories
Hopper, Jessica, The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic
Horton, Andrew, Comedy/Cinema/Theory
Hugh, Molly, ed., Best Food Writing 2015
Hugo, Victor, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame
Humble, Nicola, Culinary Pleasures: A History of Britain Through Cookbooks
Huq, Rupa, Beyond Subculture: Pop, Youth, and Identity in a Postcolonial World
India, Gary, Vile Days: The Village Voice Art Columns, 1985-1988
Isenberg, Nancy, White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America
James, Henry, The Turn of the Screw
Janowitz, Tama, They Is Us
Janowitz, Tama, A Cannibal in Manhattan
Janowitz, Tama, A Certain Age: A Novel
Janowitz, Tama, Slaves of New York
Janowitz, Tama, Area Code 212: New York Days, New York Nights
Janowitz, Tama, Scream: A Memoir of Glamour and Dysfunction
Jesella, Kara and Marisa Meltzer, How Sassy Changed My Life: A Love Letter to the Greatest Teen Magazine of All Time
Johnson, E. Patrick, Appropriating Blackness: Performance and the Politics of Authenticity
Jones, Owen, Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class
Jules-Rosette, Bennetta, Black Paris: The African Writers’ Landscape
Julien, Isaac, Isaac Julien: True North Fantôme Afrique
Julien, Isaac, Isaac Julien: Riot
Keaton, Diane, Brother and Sister: A Memoir
Kesteloot, Lilyan, Black Writers in French: A Literary History of Negritude
Kerr, Jean, Please Don’t Eat the Daisies
Khong, Rachel, Lucky Peach All About Eggs: Everything We Know About the World’s Most Important Food
Kimmel, Daniel M., I’ll Have What She’s Having: Behind the Scenes of the Great Romantic Comedies
King, Si and Dave Myers, The Hairy Bikers’ 12 Days of Christmas: Fabulous Festive Recipes to Feed Your Family and Friends
Kirk, Kris and Ed Heath, Men in Frocks
Kirk, Kris, A Boy Called Mary: Kris Kirk’s Greatest Hits
Koul, Scaachi, One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter: Essays
Krämer, Peter and Yannis Tzioumakis, eds., The Hollywood Renaissance: Revisiting America Cinema’s Most Celebrated Era
Kureishi, Hanif, Intimacy and Midnight All Day: A Novel and Stories
Kureishi, Hanif, Something to Tell You: A Novel
Kureishi, Hanif, The Last Word
Kureishi, Hanif, Dreaming and Scheming: Collected Prose
Kureishi, Hanif, Collected Essays
Kureishi, Hanif, What Happened?
Landis, John, ed., The Best American Movie Writing 2001
Lanzmann, Claude, Shoah: The Complete Text of the Acclaimed Holocaust Film
Lebewohl, Sharon and Rena Bulkin, The 2nd Ave Deli Cookbook: Recipes and Memories from Abe Lebewohl’s Legendary Kitchen
Ledermann, Robert P., Christmas on State Street: 1940s and Beyond
Lee, A. Robert, Other Britain, Other British: Contemporary Multicultural Fiction
Leopold, David, ed., Hirschfeld Century: Portrait of an Artist and His Age
LeGuin, Ursula K., Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places
Lewis, Edna, The Taste of Country Cooking
Lewis, George E., A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music
Lin-Liu, Jen, On the Noodle Road: From Beijing to Rome, with Love and Pasta
Loder, Kurt, Bat Chain Puller: Rock and Roll in the Age of Celebrity
Lodge, David, After Bakhtin: Essays on Fiction and Criticism
Loh, Lucienne, The Postcolonial Country in Contemporary Literature
Loh, Sandra Tsing, The Madwoman and the Roomba: My Year of Domestic Mayhem
Long, Michael G., Peaceful Neighbor: Discovering the Countercultural Mister Rogers
Loos, Anita, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes/But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes
Luiselli, Valeria, Faces in the Crowd
Lukacher, Ned, Daemonic Figures: Shakespeare and the Question of Conscious
Lyseggen, Kristin Schreier, The Women of San Quentin: Soul Murder of Transgender Women in Male Prisons
MacDonald, Norm, Based on a True Story: A Memoir
Mania, Grege, Born to Be Public: A Memoir
Manzano, Sonia, Becoming Maria: Love and Chaos in the South Bronx
Maso, Carole, Ava: A Novel
Massad, Joseph A., Islam in Liberalism
Massad, Joseph A., Desiring Arabs
McCabe, Janet, Feminist Film Studies: Writing the Woman into Cinema
McCartin, Jospeh A., Collision Course: Ronald Reagan, the Air Traffic Controllers, and the Strike That Changed America
McCourt, James, Time Remaining: Stories
McCourt, James, Queer Street: The Rise and Fall of an American, 1947-1985
McCullers, Carson, Reflections in a Golden Eye
McGee, Harold, On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen
McInerney, Jay, Bright Lights, Big City
McKee, Guian, The Problems of Jobs: Liberalism, Race, and Deindustrialization in Philadelphia
Mercer, Kobena, Welcome to the Jungle: New Positions in Black Culture
Mercer, Kobena, Travel & See: Black Diaspora Art Practices Since the 1980s
Minghella, Anthony, Minghella Plays 1: Whale Music, A Little Like Drowning, Two Planks and a Passion, Made in Bangkok
Minghella, Anthony, Minghella Plays 2: Cigarettes and Chocolate, Hang Up, What If It’s Raining, Truly Madly Deeply, Mosaic, Days Like This
Mitchell, David, Number9Dream
Mitchell, Tony, ed., Global Noise: Rap and Hip-Hop Outside the USA
Mo, Timothy, Sour Sweet
Modiano, Patrick, The Occupation Trilogy: La place de l’etoile/The Night Watch/Ring Roads
Monroe, Rachel, Savage Appetites: True Stories of Women, Crime, and Obsession
Morgan, Joan, When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost: A Hip-Hop Feminist Breaks It Down
Ng, Jason Y., Hong Kong State of Mind: 37 Views of a City That Doesn’t Blink
Nicholson, Ted, Susan Olsen, and Lisa Sutton, Love to Love You Bradys: The Bizarre Story of The Brady Bunch Variety Hour
Nieschlag, Lisa and Lars Wentrup, New York Christmas: Recipes and Stories
Nosrat, Samin, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking
Obama, Barack, A Promised Land
Obama, Michelle, Becoming
O’Connell, Ryan, I’m Special: And Other Lies We Tell Ourselves
O’Neill, Molly, New York Cookbook: From Pelham Bay to Park Avenue, Firehouses to Four-Star Restaurants
Orlean, Susan, Saturday Night
O’Rourke, P.J., Republican Party Reptile: The Confessions, Adventures, Essays and (Other) Outrages
Page, Edwin, Gothic Fantasy: The Films of Tim Burton
Panayi, Panikos, Spicing Up Britain: The Multicultural History of British Food
Panayi, Panikos, An Immigration History of Britain: Multiculturalism Racism Since 1800
Paterson, Jennifer, Jennifer’s Diary: One Fat Lady
Penn, Amy Phillips, Elaine’s: The Rise of One of New York’s Most Legendary Restaurants from Those Who Were There
Perez, Caroline Criado, Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men
Perkins, Sue, Spectacles: A Memoir
Pero, Peter, Chicago’s Pilsen Neighborhood
Plascencia, Salvador, The People of Paper
Poehler, Amy, Yes, Please
Posey, Parker, You’re on an Airplane: A Self-Mythologizing Memoir
Powell, Kevin, My Mother. Barack Obama. Donald Trump. And the Last Stand of the Angry White Man
Pozner, Jennifer, Reality Bites Back: The Troubling Truth about Guilty Pleasure TV
Prose, Francine, Household Saints: A Novel
Puar, Jasbir, Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times
Queenan, Joe, If You’re Talking to Me, Your Career Must Be in Trouble
Radner, Hilary, Neo-Feminist Cinema: Girly Films, Chick Flicks, and Consumer Culture
Rankine, Claudia, Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric
Rankine, Claudia, Citizen: An American Lyric
Ray, Rachael, Rachael Ray 50: Memories and Meals from a Sweet and Savory Life: A Cookbook
Rayner, Jay, Wasted Calories and Ruined Nights: A Journey Deeper into Dining Hell
Rebello, Stephen, Dolls! Dolls! Dolls! Deep Inside Valley of the Dolls, the Most Beloved Bad Book and Movie of All Time
Reductress, How to Win at Feminism: The Definitive Guide to Having It All – And Then Some!
Rhys-Morgan, Dean, Bold, Beautiful, and Damned: The World of 1980s Fashion Illustrator Tony Viramontes
Rich, Frank, Hot Seat: Theatre Criticism: ‘NY Times’, 1980-1993
Rife, Katherine, If You Like Quentin Tarantino…Here Are Over 200 Films, TV Shows, and Other Oddities That You Will Love
Ritchie, Donald A., Doing Oral History
Roberts, Cokie, Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation
Rodriguez, Richard, Days of Obligation: An Argument with My Mexican Father
Rosenbaum, Ron, The Shakespeare Wars: Clashing Scholars, Public Fiascoes, Palace Coups
Rosenblum, Constance, ed., New York Stories: The Best of the City Section of the New York Times
Rudnick, Paul, I’ll Take It
Rudolph, Christine and Susie Theodorou, Copenhagen Cult Recipes
Rushdie, Salman, Languages of Truth: Essays 2003-2020
Salamon, Julie, The Devil’s Candy: The Bonfire of the Vanities Goes to Hollywood
Satow, Julie, The Plaza: The Secret Life of America’s Most Famous Hotel
Schiffman, Bonnie and Bill Zehme, Rolling Stone Book of Comedy
Sedaris, Amy, I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence
Sedaris, Amy, Simple Times: Crafts for Poor People!
Sedaris, David, Holidays on Ice
Sedaris, David, Naked
Sedaris, David, Me Talk Pretty One Day
Seinfeld, Jerry, Is This Anything?
Seinfeld, Jerry, Seinlanguage
Selvon, Sam, The Lonely Londoners
Sepinwall, Alan, The Revolution Was Televised: How the Sopranos, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Lost, and Other Groundbreaking Dramas Changed TV Forever
Shales, Tom, On the Air
Shanley, John Patrick, Moonstruck, Joe Versus the Volcano, and Five Corners: Screenplays
Shapiro, Peter, Turn the Beat Around: The Secret History of Disco
Shepherd, Jean, In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash
Sikov, Ed, Screwball: Hollywood’s Madcap Romantic Comedies
Simon, John, John Simon on Film: Criticism 1973-2001
Sirota, David, Back to the Future: How the 1980s Explain the World We Live In
Sischy, Ingrid, Nothing Is Lost: Selected Essays
Smarsh, Sarah, She Come by It Natural: Dolly Parton and the Women Who Lived Her Songs
Smith, Andrew F., Savoring Gotham: A Food Lover’s Companion to New York City
Smith, Zadie, Feel Free: Essays
Smith, Zadie, Intimations: Six Essays
Solanos, Valerie, SCUM Manifesto
Solomos, John, Race and Racism in Britain
Spencer, Kyle, She’s Gone Country: Dispatches from a Lost Soul in the Heart of Dixie
Stwart, James B., Follow the Story: How to Write Successful Nonfiction
Stewart, Martha, The Martha Stewart Cookbook: Collected Recipes for Every Day
Strub, Sean, Body Counts: A Memoir of Activism, Sex, and Survival
Sweeney, Terry, Irritable Bowels and the People Who Give You Them
Thomas, R. Eric, Here for It: Or, How to Save Your Soul in America: Essays
Townsend, Sue, The Queen and I
Traiser, Rebecca, Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger
Travers, Peter, ed., The Rolling Stone Film Reader: The Best Film Writing from Rolling Stone Magazine
Venkatesh, Sudhir Alladi, American Project: The Rise and Fall of a Modern Ghetto
Vogel, Joseph, James Baldwin and the 1980s: Witnessing the Reagan Era
von Hoffman, Nicholas, Citizen Cohn: The Life and Times of Ray Cohn
Wagner, Jane, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe
Waldoks, Moshe, The Best American Humor 1994
Walters, Suzanna Danuta, All the Rage: The Story of Gay Visibility in America
West, Lindy, Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman
West, Lindy, Shit, Actually: The Definitive, 100% Objective Guide to Modern Cinema
White, Marco Pierre, White Heat 25
Whitehead, Colson, The Colossus of New York
Wilson, A.N., Victoria: A Life
Woods, Paul A., Tim Burton: A Child’s Garden of Nightmares
Woolf, Virginia, Mrs Dalloway
Woolf, Virginia, The London Scene: Six Essays on London Life
Wright, Clarissa Dickson, Food: What We Eat and How We Eat
Wright, Clarissa Dickson, Clarissa’s Comfort Food
Wright, Clarissa Dickson, A History of English
Yan, Martin, Martin Yan’s Chinatown Cooking: 200 Traditional Recipes from 11 Chinatowns Around the World
Yarrow, Allison, 90s Bitch: Media, Culture, and the Failed Promise of Gender Equality
Yasusada, Araki, Doubled Flowering: From the Notebooks of Araki Yasusada
Zeisler, Andi, We Were Feminists Once: From Riot Grrrl to CoverGirl®, the Buying and Selling of a Political Movement
Zimmerman, Steve, Food in the Movies