The Penguin Hotline Recommends: Gifts for the Pop Culture Maven

Another book I edited, I admit – but if you love the 90s TV show, or love TV at all – you’ll want to read Saul Austerlitz’s narrative about how Friends not only changed the pop culture landscape, but still has an enormous impact, and millions and millions of viewers around the world, 25 years after the premiere aired.

A truly rollicking narrative about the iconic years when comics like Bill Murray, Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, and Eddie Murphy ruled the airwaves. Surprising, wild, and tons of fun.

OK, one more that I personally edited! I’ve loved Jeff Tweedy’s music and lyrics for almost twenty years, and was and am thrilled to learn that he’s just as talented writing prose. Wilco fans will love the book, but what Jeff says about music, creativity, and his and all of our emotional landscapes and lives is incredibly profound and touching. Wilco has a new album, Ode To Joy, out this fall, and I’ll be able to listen to it in an all-new way now that I understand how Jeff writes his songs and where all that creativity comes from.