reality television

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Cue the Sun!: The Invention of Reality TV by Emily Nussbaum

January 29, 2026 by Ellesfena Leave a Comment

The book: Cue the Sun! is a definitive history of reality television, beginning with “man on the street” radio shows and ending with The Apprentice in the early aughts. Most chapters are devoted to a single show or creator who was revolutionary within the genre, like Cops, Survivor, The Real World, or Chuck Barris’s 70’s game shows. In addition to high level overviews of the development and reception of these shows and trends within reality TV, Emily Nussbaum also interviewed cast and crew members from countless reality productions. Why I read […]

April 2024 Leftovers

X = : Poems by Stephen Berg

Charcoal Joe by Walter Mosley

A Game of Lies by Clare Mackintosh

The Hurricane Blonde by Halley Sutton

Vineland by Thomas Pynchon

L.A. Requiem by Robert Crais

Watch It Burn by Kristen Bird

Sleep With Strangers by Dolores Hitchens

The Fixer: Moguls, Mobsters, Movie Stars, and Marilyn by Josh Young

One of Us Is Wrong by Sam Holt

The Fade Out by Ed Brubaker

The Second Murderer by Denise Mina

Blackmailer by George Axelrod

The Darkest Glare: A Story of Murder, Blackmail, and Real Estate Greed in 1979 Los Angeles by Chip Jacobs

Ripley's Game by Patricia Highsmith

May 6, 2024 by Jake Leave a Comment

Happy April, y’all! X = : Poems**** This is why library book bingos are necessary. I only checked this one out because I needed to read a book of poems and I wanted to check the nettlesome “X” off the A-Z reading list. A convoluted reason to begin with and this wasn’t even the book I thought I was getting! I thought I’d get a different X by a different author. I’m glad I got this one. Some of these really spoke to me, including […]

Disney tricked me and I’m not even mad!

If the Shoe Fits by Julie Murphy

November 1, 2023 by cosbrarian Leave a Comment

I have loudly declared for a long time that we should have a hiatus on all Cinderella remakes. And I have rallied for a shorter time on the sad habit of Disney retreading old IP over and over again. It’s not that I am so mad about them redoing the same fairy tales all the time, but in a world where there are truly hundreds of versions of their Disney Princess tales, why not tell a fresh version of the story? I decided to read […]

…Then Wear It

If the Shoe Fits: A Meant to be Novel by Julie Murphy

January 20, 2022 by NoNeinNyet 1 Comment

I picked up If the Shoe Fits, the first in a series of fairy tale modernizations, awhile ago but finally got around to reading it this week. It’s also the first Julie Murphy I’ve read which feels silly because I loved the adaptation of Dumplin’ on Netflix. As you might guess from the title, this first book in the series is a take on Cinderella and it’s just delightful. It’s set on a Bachelor-like reality show which keeps the tone light but also deals with […]

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