The 2019 Emmy Awards will take over television on Sunday, September 22nd. Because loving TV doesn’t mean you can’t love books too, below are a few literary recommendations for fans of this season’s most popular series & TV movies. Check out a title while you’re waiting for Hollywood to churn out a new season of your favorite show!
For fans of…
POSE (nominee, Outstanding Drama Series & Lead Actor)
Check out: The House of Impossible Beauties by Joseph Cassara
POSE, starring the fabulous Billy Porter, revolves around NYC’s underground house and ballroom culture in the 1980s and 90s. “Houses” serve as alternate families for LGBTQ and gender non-conforming youth, led by house “mothers” and “fathers” that are older members of the scene. If you’re a fan of POSE, check out Joseph Cassara’s 2018 acclaimed debut novel, written about and in tribute to the stars of the cult documentary Paris is Burning.
Russian Doll (nominee, Outstanding Comedy Series)
Check out: Life After Life by Kate Atkinson and Emily of New Moon by L.M. Montgomery
Russian Doll’s Nadia (played by actress Natasha Lyonne) finds herself stuck in a time loop; she attends a NYC party thrown in her honor and ends up dying at the end of the night, only to wake up again the next day unharmed with the party looming in her future. British author Kate Atkinson released her bestselling novel Life After Life in 2013, featuring a time loop of a slightly different nature--the main character wakes up not in adulthood but in infancy. Fans of the witty Lyonne will appreciate Atkinson’s female-driven stories and sharp sense of humor. Also noteworthy is a children’s book that features prominently in the series as a favorite of Nadia--Emily of New Moon (by the author of the infamous Anne of Green Gables). Like Emily, Nadia has had a difficult childhood; in one episode, she tells a friend, “Everybody loves Anne. But I like Emily. She's dark."
Bandersnatch (nominee, Outstanding Television Movie)
Check out: Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar
Bantam Books’ Choose Your Own Adventure series was one of the most popular book series for children growing up in the 1980s and 90s. Those children are now adults with Netflix streaming subscriptions and interactive media addictions, so it was only natural that a choose-your-own-adventure film like Bandersnatch would be a wild hit. If you loved the Bantam series and Bandersnatch, check out Julio Cortazar’s Hopscotch, a stream-of-consciousness novel published in the 1960s that you can either read straight through like a regular novel, or can follow an alternative reading order that fills in details and changes the plot.
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (nominee, Outstanding Comedy Series, Lead Actress, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Guest Actress, Guest Actor)
Check out: Joan Rivers Confidential by Melissa Rivers and The Trials of Lenny Bruce: The Fall and Rise of an American Icon by Ronald K.L. Collins
The character of Midge Maisel is based loosely on Joan Rivers, who rose to stardom in the 1960s. Get an inside look at the intrepid female comedian that inspired the series in the title Joan Rivers Confidential, a remarkable scrapbook of her mother’s letters, clippings, photos, and more published in 2017 by her daughter Melissa Rivers. The infamous Lenny Bruce also features prominently in the show, helping Midge on her path to stardom. Learn more about this groundbreaking performer as well as his troubled history in The Trials of Lenny Bruce: The Fall and Rise of an American Icon, which includes a bonus audio CD with recordings of Lenny performing!
Sharp Objects (Outstanding Limited Series, Lead Actress & Supporting Actress) & True Detective (Outstanding Lead Actor)
Check out: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt
Sharp Objects and the True Detective series pull heavily from the canon of Southern Gothic literature. Dive into authors Willam Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, Cormac McCarthy, and Carson McCullers, to start. Creative non-fiction title Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1994), a steamy tale of murder, voodoo, and Savannah society, is also sure to be a crowd-pleaser for fans of these two shows.
This blog post reflects the opinions of the author and does not necessarily represent the views of Brooklyn Public Library.
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