Sunday, September 17, 2006
 
Book Report: TV Now: Stars and Shows by Dorothy Scheuer (1984)
I picked this book up at a book fair for a quarter because it's like TV Superstars '83, and I already shot my credibility as a serious thinker by admitting a weird attraction to the Scholastic books covering television from the era in which these things mattered to me. Man, I remember the little one page tissue-paperesque book order forms from Scholastic, Tab, Arrow, and so on, and how one could buy real books for a buck or two for a paperback. Of course, we didn't have a buck or two, so I just got to look at the catalogs and imagine (for the most part). And now, some twenty years later, I'm amassing a library which includes the occasional book I was denied in elementary school.

This book, like the other, deals with television shows in the 1983-1984 time frame, so there's quite a bit of overlap--Mr. T., Tootie Fields, Gary Coleman, and so on. But where TV Superstars '83 filled out its pages with stars who've faded from even my memory, this book delves into the television industry, including chapters on the portrayal of technology on television, cable television, a bit about ratings, adulation for commercials, and musings about the future of interactive television. So this work might be the slightly more serious of the two.

Like you're going to run out and get it or click the link below to order it from Amazon. Still, I read it because it was a cheap and quick way to get another item on my annual list of what I've read and a last ditch Sunday night blog entry. But I read it, and here's my post on it.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:21 PM
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