Television Books

This lush book should do more than grace your coffee table. It is a magnificent companion to the PBS "reality" tv show. In a departure from the self-consciousness of the genre, this project was undertaken very seriously and turned out to be dynamic and enriching to all involved. The book supplements the program with a detailed history of the house and of turn-of-the-century society. More detail is given about the Bowler family's experiment in "time-travel", including "behind-the-scenes" tales and commentary that is by turns hilarious, moving, and sometimes, downright horrifying. (If you haven't seen the series, by all means buy the tapes)

The Bowler family is charming and intelligent -- a real family with flaws, but a lovable group of six who gamely and thoroughly threw themselves in this experiment. The book delves much more deeply into the gritty conditions lived, and the joyous lessons learned. (we also find how the "the shampoo dilemma" was resolved!). More is told of Joyce Bowler's ambivalence in being a "lady of the house" and how the emotional experience enlightened and edified her -- and affected her for life.

She wants to go back, and so will you -- and you can, through this hefty, glossy, handsome book.

It's been months since I've seen the program on PBS but I found this book to be very interesting and filled with detail. My complaint, minor, is that with the inevitable editing of material required by compressing three months of material into a small book or a few hours of video something is often lost. Some details in the program aren't even mentioned in the book and vice versa. I'm still waiting on my copy of the video, apparently it's on a long backorder, but I'd say get both because they make a fascinating combination.

I revisted this book very recently, it chronicles the tale of a 20th century British Family trying to live live life as it was lived a the end of 19th century. A good proportion of Britains housing stock hails from the Victorian to pre WW2 periods, so it was not difficult to find a house suitable to be transported back in time. The family had a real struggle with all aspects of daily life, cooking, cleaning, entertainment, peronal hygiene and worst of all for the females, the clothes (moreover the loathed and dreaded corset!). A marvellous historical resource for children, particularly if you can get hold of the TV documentry as well. It was originaly shown on Channel 4 in Britian to mark the the millenium. I am pretty sure Amazon uk has it on DVD, for the intersted.

Do you remember seeing this series on PBS earlier this year? This book is a conjuction to this series, but this series was orginally from England and the book too. The book embody a 1999 family, time traveling to the spring of 1900 to live three months as victorians. It's takes place in the south-east part of London, near the millenium dome. The book starts out with the history of late victorian britain and a timeline of 1900 in England. Then, you will read about how they started this project and etc. This book was a great read for me because I learned more than I learned watching this series or in history. This is a great read for anyone, I mean anyone.

They said complete and they mean complete. This is not a book for the novice. This is a highly comprehensive look at each episode, from the Unearthly Child and onwards. Each episode is examined for it's own issues, then looked at in how it fits the series, and how it fits the culture of the day. It's so detailed, this book only makes it through the first three seasons and there are a total of seven books covering the orignial series and I'm guessing we'll get the new series soon (he does mention the 2005 season).

If you are a detail junky, this is the book for you. The cross referencing of the culture of the day, BBC politics, actors issues, development of the story and so forth are facinating. It's kept me turning pages and running to order the next installment. It's a definite must for the hard core fan.

not only of the start of a great show, but also details British television history and pop culture to put it into a larger context. Sometimes academic, sometimes fanwankish, but never tiresomely pedantic or boring. Can't wait to pick up the next volumes.

Lawrence and Tat continue their absolutely exhaustive review of the whole of Doctor Who. Yet again ther eis more information than you can shake a stick at. This time we explore the Hartnell era with emphasis on the cultural and political landscape at the time. Essential for the serious fan

The "About Time" books are kind of like TV's Dr. Gregory House. He's smug, rude, disdainful, and in general a colossal pain the butt. On the other hand, he's RIGHT so much of the time, and just so darned interesting to be around that you just can't tell him to stuff it and leave. These books are the same way. "About Time 1" is the first volume of the series in terms of content, but the fourth to be published, and the weirdly two-faced attitude the authors have displayed since the beginning continues to assert itself pretty forcefully. They regularly take what can only be described as "potshots" at both the show itself and the show's fans. Almost every positive comment about one of the stories covered in this book is accompanied by a despairing, off-handed lament about how much worse the show became later on. Wood and Miles also frequently ridicule various examples of silly and/or obsessive fan behavior. Yet even while they're spending so much time slagging off both their subject matter and their intended audience, by creating such an exhaustive and erudite examination of "Doctor Who," they're implicitly showing both show and fans a substantial amount of respect.

And authorial biases aside, the books just keep getting better. Either by accident or by design, each successive volume seems to go deeper in its analyses, to be more insightful and, thus, more entertaining than the one before. "About Time 1" deals with the first three seasons of the show, from its 1963 inception to the 1966 story "The War Machines," so in this volume we get a hugely enlightening look at the cultural and technological environment in which the show was born and the various societal and literary contexts that informed each story. As an American born in the early 1970s, these informative "Where Does This Come From?" subsections were unfailingly interesting. We also get two dozen new sidebar essays explaining various tangential matters in great depth; some are literary, such as "What Kind of Future Did We Expect?"; some are somewhat scientific, such as "What Makes the TARDIS Work?", which touches on some rudimentary quantum physics; and some are metatextual, such as "What Are These Stories REALLY Called?"

So if you are anything more than a casual fan of "Doctor Who," I would honestly say that you owe it to yourself to own, or at least read, these books. Regardless of the aforementioned problems, when all is said and done I think the "About Time" series will stand as the definitive analysis of TV's longest-running sci-fi program. Like Dr. House, its personal shortcomings won't be able to disguise the fact that it's simply unbeatable in its chosen field.

Another great book added to my collection.When I was reading this book,i kept thinking back to when I was watching the episodes and I laughed a lot.It all made a little bit more sense to me,(Im not all that good when it comes to understanding everything that they say)This book is a MUST HAVE for any AbFab fan!

Having seen most of the episodes that are in script form in the book, it was really hilarious to read them and think back on the episode. Five+stars for this one!!!!!!!!

Jennifer Saunders is one of the world's greatest comedy writers. If you are serious about comedy then you need to see Jennifer's show, "Absolutely Fabulous" on Comedy Central Cable TV. Airs on Saturday afternoon 4p.m. (Pacific time). This comedy was so succesful the American Networks rejected it for being "too funny!" Go figure. In any case, if you want to learn some great comedy buy this book, and watch the TV shows. You can also purchase Jennifer's movie, "The Last Shout" and her TV episodes. Jennifer Saunders is top notch professional comedy to the utmost. James Russell/California.

Buy this book-PLEASE! Do everything you can to get your little hands on it. You will not regret your purchase. J. Saunders is a comedic genius. She writes with the talent and craft that all comedians-turned-tv stars in the US dream they could posess. No comedian--not Jerry Seinfeld, Rosanne Barr, Jim Carrey--can write anything remotely as entertaining, funny, and completely fresh as Saunders. Not even Friends is this funny--and I enjoy that show.

No American sitcom can touch the level of orginality, spunk, finese, and energy of this British television show. In fact, 90% of the things done and said on this show are not permitted on American television (save the cable channel Comedy Central) because the show would be so funny (in comparison to all other US sitcoms) that it would expose the Grand Canyon-esque gap between it's sublime quality and the bloody mess that is American sitcoms.

(If you do not believe me, that US shows have become, well, redundant bird droppings, just watch any show starring a one-time-stand up-comic and see if they don't do the "I killed/lost your pet and bought a new one that looks exactly the same to fool you" number). Pure, uninspiring wishy-washy tv. I'm 24 and I swear that I have been watching the same show over and over again, no matter who they get to star in it or try hide this fact under a new series name. Sounds like you? Enter . . . Abosultely Fabulous.

Absolutely Fabulous 2 is truly beyond hilarious. My gosh! I do not know how J. Saunders and J. Lumley are able to transform mere words on a page to the masterfully acted characters of Edina and Pasty that they inhabit on screen.

I will never grow tired of reading or watching these episodes. Although this collection lacks the episode "France" which is also another favorite, the book features the scripts for the best ABFAB episodes ever. I am talking "Poor" "Morocco" and "Hospital"--they are the series finest and showcase Eddie and Pats at their best.

Buy and read this book while watching the corresponding episodes to see what I am talking about. You will not be disappointed unless you were expecting God to appear--oh, wait, that happens, (in Absolutely Fabulous the Last Shout which is absolutely required watching). Bye, Sweetie Darlings.

This book is a fascinating, engaging read. It feels more like a great story than a history book, but is a really interesting insight into the beginnings of WSM, the early history of radio, country music, the Opry, the start of many a famous name in broadcasting, and Nashville itself. Thoroughly enjoyable, I would recommend this to every reader I know.

Havighurst has compiled a tremendous amount of information on this subject into a story which comes to life. I can't imagine any one writing a more definitive work on WSM and that era. He has succeeded, for this reader, into making WSM a living, breathing character unto itself within this story. I'm not even a huge country music fan but no matter, Havighurst's storytelling style and obvious passion for telling this story won me over early on. Once I picked it up I couldn't put it down. He made me feel as if I was right there in the early days of radio, watching and listening as all the early pioneers of the industry shaped the airwaves. Great read for anyone interested in how radio began and evolved and it's impact on not only country music but the world as well.

I believe Air Castle of the South is an important book, in that it goes far beyond the history of a musical genre. It sheds light on the mindset of those who first dabbled in a revolutionary new medium. The innocence, curiosity, and zeal of some of radio's brilliantly naive pioneers is painstakingly recorded, as is their evolution from enthusiastic hobbyists to full time broadcasters. But this accessible read is not just a nostalgic indulgence. It's full of insights for the era-changing times we are in now, where the Internet is opening new doors of opportunity for those willing to rethink the why, the what, and the how. As a performing artist who came up through the ranks playing on country music radio shows, including the Opry, Air Castle rekindled my affection for the charm and simplicity of those shows. As someone who grew up listening to a transistor radio in bed late at night with an earphone, it renewed my love of the medium of sound; where the absence of force-fed visual images allows one's imagination to create them in the theater of the mind. Thank you, Craig Havighurst, for this invaluable work. It is clearly a labor of love.

Just finished Craig Havighurst's magnificent history of WSM. It's a read that you hate to see come to an end.

What a GREAT station WSM was in its golden age which extended into the TV era while other stations of its size threw in the towel and got rid of its live musicians and the stuff that made bigtime radio great.

The book comes to a sad ending--the rash sacking of TNN and Opryland--and I kinda felt like I was finishing the final pages of "Gone With the Wind."

Anybody with an interest in Bluegrass, Country, Nashville, big time radio, the Ryman and/or the roots of country music and broadcasting has to read this book.

This calendar is awesome !! There are 12 pages with Alias stars and it is perfect for the walls. If you love ALIAS you should get this ASAP..

This calender has GREAT pics from season 4! If you are truely an Alias fan you should deff have this hanging on your wall. I love the pictures and its so exciting to see who it will be for each month =)

I am not going to go into explicit detail on so simplistic an item.

The actual day-to-day calendar aspect of this product is typical for wall-mounted calendars. The pictures this time are a little fresher, and there are more of them, which is a good thing. Nearly every shot is a promo shot from Season 4 (of course) and while I could wish for some perhaps more original stances and poses, if you're an Alias fan, it's always nice to see one of your favorite cast members when you need to check the date or your plans for the month. A smallish version of the photos is up on this site, so you can tell what you're getting before you buy.

Only fans would get a kick out of this, but if you're a fan, I guarantee you won't be disappointed.

What is great about the "Alias: 2006 Wall Calendar" is that it really is an "Alias" calendar and not a Jennifer Garner as Sydney Bristow calendar. After the month of January, which features a head shot of Garner as Sydney as the main photograph, with three candid shots of Sydney in disguise and one of her with Michael Vaughn, the star of the show never gets another photograph as big in the rest of the entire calendar. Yes, there are more pictures of Jennifer Garner than anybody else in the calendar, but the rest of the cast members in the ensemble each get their own pages (as a point of contrast and comparison, "The Buffy the Vampire Slayer 2006 Wall Calendar" has five pages for Buffy and only three other cast members get a month to call their own).

To name names the others getting the one big and four small shots are Ron Rifkin as Arvin Sloane, Michael Vartan as Michael Vaughn, Carl Lumbly as Marcus Dixon, Kevin Weisman as Marshall Flinkman, Greg Grunberg as Eric Weiss, Mia Maestro as Nadia Santos, and Victor Garber as Jack Bristow. If there are interesting shots of any of the characters undercover (e.g., Marcus Dixon doing his island guy routine) those are usually included in the candid shots. But I also want to note that for most of these shots the actors certainly look like they are in character, which is a nice touch. As a result, this is one of the better calendars for a television show that is out there this holiday season.

The calendar part of the calendar gives you the phases of the moon and national holidays. If you actually want to write things down on the calendar to remember appointments, birthdays and the date of the final episode of "Alias." The show will end in 2006 but the calendars should continue for a while as a retrospective for the show. That is already true for the 2006 version given that Vaughn is dead, Nadia is in a coma, and Weiss has a new day job (not that death, lack of consciousness or new employment has prohibited any of the characters from appearing in episodes this last season). But when ABC started playing around which where "Alias" was in the schedule I figured it was going to be the end of the road for the series.

My mom put this book in my Christmas stocking a few years ago because I was a big fan of the Brady Bunch, and I love to cook. Let me tell you now that this is an excellent cookbook! If you hate stylized cookbooks tall on glossy, artsy photos of the food, but short on content, then this book is for you. Sure, there are some pictures and stories about the show, and some cutesy recipe names like "Marcia, Marcia, Marc0ia Muffins", but this stuff is kept to a minimum (and if you are a fan of the show, this stuff brings back some fun memories.).
The real substance of this cookbook comes from the recipes! This is a great book for the serious home cook who prepares lots of meals for hungry family members who like good food. The recipes range from simple homestyle classics to more sophisticated cuisine and lighter fare. It covers everything from breakfast to dessert, even beverages. It is PACKED with recipes, and everything I have made out of the book has been top quality. It is obvious that this book was put together by a serious cook and that it is not just a vehicle to sell books based on the BB gimmick.
You need not be a fan of the show to love this book. It is one of my most used cookbooks, and I have dozens of them.

There's some great recipies, but there's also some really odd ones. I mailed some double trouble chip cookies to a really good friend of mine. That was 4 years ago and he still remembers them and says they were his favorite. I love the recipies for tortillas and boiling water.

I got this as a gift some years ago. I normally don't go for celebrity/themed cookbooks because usually they're only a pedestrian collection of random recipes, plus a bunch of stock photos and a hastily written foreword.

But no! Like everything else Brady Bunch, this book was made with love! It's packed full of unique (i.e. "you read it here first" type of stuff) trivia, anecdotes, and quotes... plus some cute little trivia quizzes and photos.

Oh, and the recipes. As a cookbook, completely aside from all the Brady Bunch content - it's excellent! Some of these recipes have become my staples, and when I'm looking for something new, I've taken to looking here first (move over, Joy Of Cooking!).

Did the Bradys eat this way every day? No wonder they were always so cheerful!

This book is not only a staple item for an avid Brady Bunch collector, but it is a must have for the active cook as well. This book is filled with Alice's favorite dishes to satisfy even the greatest appetite!

This would be a great way to start a unit for upper elementary kids on media and truth in journalism. It's a visual delight, and has lots of details to spark further inquiry. While most kids today think they are pretty media-wise, can they indeed tell the difference between "entertainment" and "infotainment?" A fun visually engaging introduction to the "War of the Worlds" broadcast, might provoke some interesting conversations in the classroom.

Aliens Are Coming is about a false radio broadcst about aliens.This book illustrates how a little prank could affect so many people. I thought this book was great and you should too.

One of the most famous - or infamous - hoaxes in American history, an event that terrified hundreds of thousands and sent normal people into panic-driven frenzies, may not be the first thing you'd think of when you consider writing a picture book for young readers, but thank goodness Meghan McCarthy had a vision for this book that presents this very significant snippet of Americana in a way that not only won't scare the bejeezus out of your little alien hunter, it will entertain them with great, kid-friendly art, and educate them with photos of the period and some really well-researched historical information in the back pages that will make this one a staple in American classrooms. A must for anyone studying the time period.

Picture book non-fiction. A hard format to write in, or the hardest format to write in? Every year countless libraries get inundated with the same old same old. Your bee books. Your dinosaur books. Your fifteen different biographies of Teddy Roosevelt. So you can imagine my surprise when I picked up a book that looked... different. You don't expect something called, "Aliens Are Coming" to be factual. You especially don't expect it to tell the truth when you flip through the pages and see large multi-tentacle-laden outer space beasties terrorizing the natural landscape. But then, it helps to know your history. Seeing the 1938 radio broadcast of "War of the Worlds" for what it truly was (perfect picture book fare), McCarthy gives us, thrills, chills, and some wonderful little factoids in the back of what I might well call my favorite non-fiction picture book of 2006.

It's the 1930s! Good old 1930s. Open the book and here's a cheery announcer telling kids that back in the thirties the primary source of entertainment and information was the radio. It then explains that some people "were easily fooled by a radio play that sounded like an actual news bulletin". Turn the page, and everything is black and white. We're looking at a typical American street scene. "It was October, 30, 1938, the day before Halloween". We next see a nice black and white scene of a family gathered in their living room. The noise coming out of the radio forms into colorful dancing sequences. Suddenly an announcer comes on and starts talking about a flaming meteorite that has fallen in New Jersey. As the listeners grow worried, the scene shifts to a field where a group of people stand around as a flying saucer slowly begins to open up. It's aliens! And they've come to conquer us all! They ransack the farmlands. They invade the cities. They land all over the country. "Was this the end of the world?" Certainly a lot of people listening thought so. The pictures are back to black and white and we're seeing clogged highways and jammed phone lines, and police investigating perfectly calm fields in the country. It wasn't the end of the world. It was Orson Welles and his troupe of actors at the Mercury Theatre performing a realistic version of "War of the Worlds". Interesting factual information rounds off the book with the true story and fun info about subsequent readings of the story (with similar results).

Part of the fun of this book is that there is no indication that any of this story might not be entirely on the up and up until you reach its end. Then it finishes a bit abruptly. Still, imagine introducing this book to a room full of second graders. You tell them in all seriousness (preferably around Halloween time) that this book is a true story. True true true. Then you fill their little heads with a wacked-out tale of alien invasion and widespread panic. The fact that they've been duped only makes them (like those poor 1938 American citizens) only more intrigued and want to read the book again and again later. The pictures make it ideal read-aloud material, to say nothing of the haunting scenes, colorful during the broadcast and bleak in real life. Though McCarthy works with a misleadingly simple palette, her pictures have a great deal of depth, tone, and character to them.

Actually, author/illustrator Meghan McCarthy has always struck me as being underrated. She first came to my attention when she wrote, "The Adventures of Patty and the Big Red Bus". Like a cohesive Lauren Child, McCarthy is particularly good at her atmospheric round-eyed cartoonish illustrations. She seems at her best when she's writing non-fiction too. Her factual information bringing up the book's rear is just amazing. All in all, this is one of the most amusing and wonderful titles to grace libraries and bookstores this or any year. A great idea for a book and superb follow-through. Amusing to its core.

This engaging and readable account of modern GLBT/queer history argues that gays and lesbians have become increasingly visible in the past thirty years. Whereas it was once scandalous for GLBT people to meet publicly, many 'mainstream' institutions such as Disney sponsor gay days, if nothing else to demonstrate their own 'inclusivity' and gain money from this community.

Because coming out is such a common event today, myself and other generation xers (regardless of our own sexuality) may inadvertently dismiss the revolutionary impact these declarations of self had for the generations of Americans who were conditioned to believe that GLBT and 'well adjusted' were essentially contradictions in terms.

Gays and lesbians were not the lonely mysterious stranger but friends, neighbors, and coworkers. Any depression which these individuals experienced because of sexuality was the result of society intoning negative self-esteem messages rather than the 'natural' state of being.

Walters's book is also important because she traces how a rise in GLBT visibility (although not the same as equality) has prompted a backlash. The right wing vociferously campaigns against gay rights in today's environment because the greater cultural visibility has effectively undone their own world. Whatever they actually think of GLBT rights, now having to acknowledge that GLBT people exist is a very uncomfortable development.

Prior to Stonewall, these people and their predecessors were effectively enabled to pretend that GLBT people actually did not exist because the prevailing cultural norms had prevented GLBT visibility.

This book primarily deals with the cultural aspects of GLBT rights, but it is still an important and essential read. Both scholars and/or community activists will want to understand how cultural visibility is not the same as political equality but is necessary for facilitating the progress.

Author Suzanna Danuta Walters chronciles the history of gay visibility in America excellently in this book! Looking at it from a variety of perspectives: Cinema, Television, Advertising (Marketing)and her own personal accounts of being a lesbian parent. While the debate rages on over assimilation, equal rights and the unigueness of gay culture, I feel that the author has done an excellent job bringing to light valid arguements while chronciling the history of how far we have come as a culture and how much furhter we have to go. It never ends and we are fooling arourselves to think that it does.
It sometime shocks and angers me how the gay community refuses to support such good work as this. Ignorance in anytything is not bliss!

Anyone interested in any type of gay studies should read this book. The author puts together tons of research into a rich and well developed text.

This is one of the most thorough and thought-provoking books I have ever read. I couldn't put it down and have in fact read it more than once. It offers a current and readable analysis of the contradiction between gay visibility in America and the growing trend of such Anti-gay initiatives as the Defense of Marriage Act. It was very enjoyable to read and very insightful.

"All the Rage" presents a readable and engaging overview of
gay and lesbian cultural visibility in recent years, with
emphasis on the growing representation in television. The
book takes a middle-of-the-road view that cultural visibility,
while good, does not necessarily imply progress in achieving
political rights (and, in fact, growing cultural visibility
for gays and lesbians has coincided with increasing efforts
to impede progress toward gay rights). The book offers a
number of insights through detailed treatments of particular
TV shows, advertisements, etc., with loving attention. I
thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, and I learned a lot on
the ride.

an informative and entertaining look at gay and lesbian images on radio and television through the decades. the author makes a number of interesting and relevant points in a non-judgmental yet authoritative style. should be on all public and university library shelves.

Witty, insightful, daring, complete, and as non-dry as you can get, this book goes where none have gone before, not only regaling us an authoritative on-screen compendium of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered images, but the "stories behind the stores" - lesbians invading NBC studios, gay activists interrupting Walter Cronkite on the air, from the tortured, pitiful images of the early "exposes" of "the gay lifestyle" to full, responsible news coverage of activism. Neatly divided into small chapters, it weaves the tale of the first whispers of the "love that dare not speak its name" through to the out and loud shouting of "Ellen" and "Will & Grace" (and the format, for better or for worse, makes for great bathroom reading). An absolute must-have for every queer library and TV fan.

Author Steven Capsuto chronicles the history (1930-2000) of gay and lesbian characters on Network TV and in doing so mirrors the history and struggles of the gay community to be shown as real, full human beings. Even as a reader familar with much of the material mentioned here I even discovered new things that I didn't know. While heterosexual television character continue to romp all over the screen in wanton abandon, even the smallest, simpliest signs of affection between two characters of the same sex is treated with scorn. Has the gay community actually progressed? Given the choices of lonely Will on "Will & Grace," the constant in your face gay sex on "Queer as Folk" and the little screen time of the now lesbian romance and soon child for Dr. Weaver on "E.R." I'm not sure. Media (especially televison) and gay and lesbian studies scholars should take note, there is such a wealth of a history and knowledge here that it can't be ignored. A rich, acurate and very well written text.

The first striking thing about this book is the amazing amount of research that would have been necessary to have written it. Just how does a person master this much material, run down particular episodes of "Medical Center" from the early 1970s or "Hill Street Blues" from the 1980s, and dozens of more obscure programs? I don't know, but Steven Capsuto has managed to do it.

The result is a singularly fascinating book, and a worthy companion to Vito Russo's The Celluloid Closet. And since television plays a more important role than movies in shaping public perceptions of gay people (and in helping young gay people to understand their places in the world), Capsuto's project is arguably even more important.

For gay readers over 40, this book is likely to produce some strong nostalgic feelings. Reading the author's accounts of such significant broadcasts as "That Certain Summer" (with Hal Holbrooke and Martin Sheen) or "A Question of Love" (with Gena Rowlands and Jane Alexander), one can't help but reflect on memories of a former self and how the world was then.

For younger readers, this book will fill an important gap in their cultural knowledge--what happened many years before Ellen and Will & Grace, "lesbian chic" and heightened gay visibility. It also tells the story of lesbian and gay media activism, of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and its forerunners. And Capsuto covers television and radio depictions of bisexual and transgendered people in his thorough account.

Perhaps most important, the book also helps to illuminate a continuing flaw in television depictions of gay life: for all the progress of the past decade, there continues to exist a kind of unwritten Hays Code that bars most expressions of affection or sexual desire between persons of the same sex from American network television.

Will & Grace continues to depict what may be the only attractive, witty, smart and successful gay man in Manhattan who has no sex life. In its own way, this show is as deficient today as was "The Andy Griffith Show" in depicting (during the height of the civil rights movement) the only town in North Carolina with no black people.

Television provides a crucial window through which we see our lives and our society. Capsuto's book helps us to remember how skewed that vision has often been, and to realize the important changes that are still needed. This is an important work of cultural and social history.

I first read this book a couple of years ago and thought it was very clever. Though the author sometimes sacrifices compelling language to reach a rhyme, the overall story is a rich, satirical tale for adults about how TV is used to lull a group of dissatisfied slaves back into complacency, presented in the guise of a children's book. I bought a copy recently to read to my junior high media literacy class in honor of "Turn Off Your TV Week" and a lot of it flew right over their heads. I think the rhyming helps to cloud the real issues being presented so I would recommend this title only for a high-school-and-older audience. Also, this book, unedited, is not suitable for read-alouds as it is deceptively long (and one can only listen to rhyming couplets for so long).

A classic! Fable for today's kids. My boys got the message, and my husband and I both loved it! Our current family favorite.

This is a fun book. The graphics are really engaging, and the writing has a really incisive glance at consumerism and how TV and media control every aspect of our lives. It's a nice follow up to Snark, Inc. and in many ways it's a stronger book.

Turn off the TV and check it out!

This is a very clever follow up to Snark, Inc. I read a review somewhere stating the book puts more twists into fewer pages, and I agree with that. I liked Snark but this book is more of an interesting critique of its enemy (if you will) as it has a stronger narrative. I think the best underlying theme of the book is that the "protaganosts" are treated as a faceless collective - which is exactly what people become as media consumers. There's a great illustration to convey this when the Snox Boxes are delivered to slaves, and they're all in the background with no discernable faces. Definitely worth picking up if you have your doubts about the true intentions of mega-media corporations. Control, control, control!