Here are 100 books that Primetime Blues fans have personally recommended if you like
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I’ve seen the benefit of investing in awareness about how you can improve in leadership. I am a military veteran with two decades of experience in leading teams in high-stress environments. I’ve seen military leadership at its strongest and at its weakest. I’ve since led multi-million dollar projects and seen the value of investing in leadership and developing a culture of high-performance. For over 100 weeks, I researched and wrote a series of blog articles titled Leadership Sparks. The goal was to be able to create a spark with my words in someone else's mind. To pass the small ignition point of leadership growth to them.
Everyone loves Netflix. But I love their story more. If the conditions are right, your business could look very different. The Netflix way showed me the importance of the statement ‘hire good people and get out of their way'. Whilst that comment is simple, building a company that allows that is more complicated.
This book challenged the way I viewed organizational structure and innate bureaucracies. Reed describes some simple philosophies that provide a contrast to the status quo. I love the challenge of this book to traditional success.
Hard work is irrelevant. Be radically honest. Adequate performance gets a generous severance. And never, ever try to please your boss.
These are some of the ground rules if you work at Netflix. They are part of a unique cultural experiment that explains how the company has transformed itself at lightning speed from a DVD mail order service into a streaming superpower - with 125 million fervent subscribers and a market capitalisation bigger than Disney.
Finally Reed Hastings, Netflix Chairman and CEO, is sharing the secrets that have revolutionised the entertainment and tech industries. With INSEAD business school professor Erin…
NORVEL: An American Hero chronicles the remarkable life of Norvel Lee, a civil rights pioneer and Olympic athlete who challenged segregation in 1948 Virginia. Born in the Blue Ridge Mountains to working-class parents who valued education, Lee overcame Jim Crow laws and a speech impediment to achieve extraordinary success.
Kimberly Potts is a TV and pop culture journalist and author who believes television is not only the ultimate entertainment medium, but is also the ultimate cultural common denominator. She has written for The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, Vulture, The Hollywood Reporter, TV Guide, The Los Angeles Times, Yahoo, Variety, People.com, US Weekly, E! Online, Thrillist, Esquire.com, AOL, Movies.com, and The Wrap. Kimberly also co-hosts the Pop Literacyand #Authoring podcasts, and is a member of the Television Critics Association, Critics Choice Association, Authors Guild, and American Society of Journalist and Authors.
Most of those curious about the history of television have heard of the boy who invented it: Philo Farnsworth. He was just 14 years old when he conceived the idea that led to the first televised image less than a decade later. Farnsworth died penniless and unwell despite a life spent devoted to what became one of the most influential inventions of his lifetime and ours. That journey is a large part of the story the Tube authors unfold, but there are several additional key players who factor into the medium’s early years, and that, along with what will feel like some prescient thoughts about the current state of the television industry, make for an insightful, delightful read in this 1996 tome.
Traces the progress of the diverse group of iconoclasts including an Idaho farm boy, an eccentric Scotsman, and two Russian Americans from the laboratory prototypes that drew public laughter to the vicious courtroom battles for control of what would become an enormous market power. With devilish character sketches, compelling stories, and scientific explanations that are easy to follow, the Fishers capture the brilliance, vision, and frustration behind the invention of television. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.
Kimberly Potts is a TV and pop culture journalist and author who believes television is not only the ultimate entertainment medium, but is also the ultimate cultural common denominator. She has written for The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, Vulture, The Hollywood Reporter, TV Guide, The Los Angeles Times, Yahoo, Variety, People.com, US Weekly, E! Online, Thrillist, Esquire.com, AOL, Movies.com, and The Wrap. Kimberly also co-hosts the Pop Literacyand #Authoring podcasts, and is a member of the Television Critics Association, Critics Choice Association, Authors Guild, and American Society of Journalist and Authors.
Remember E.O.B., the drama about political speechwriters starring Mary Beth Hurt? Or the speechwriter series called Word of Mouth and starring Gladys Knight? Or the other one, The War Room, starring Brad Hall? Actually, no one saw any of them, because they were all versions of the same failed TV pilot, from St. Elsewhere producers Bruce Paltrow and Tom Fontana. And the story of the series’ saga to not making it to primetime covers more than a year, and highlights all the network, casting, technical, and general TV industry drama that can impact the TV pilot process, a process the networks still use to fill their schedules every year.
Absurdly funny, trenchant, and provocative, this outside-looking-in account of the stillbirth of one particular television series is a must read for every serious and not-so-serious television viewer.
NORVEL: An American Hero chronicles the remarkable life of Norvel Lee, a civil rights pioneer and Olympic athlete who challenged segregation in 1948 Virginia. Born in the Blue Ridge Mountains to working-class parents who valued education, Lee overcame Jim Crow laws and a speech impediment to achieve extraordinary success.
Kimberly Potts is a TV and pop culture journalist and author who believes television is not only the ultimate entertainment medium, but is also the ultimate cultural common denominator. She has written for The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, Vulture, The Hollywood Reporter, TV Guide, The Los Angeles Times, Yahoo, Variety, People.com, US Weekly, E! Online, Thrillist, Esquire.com, AOL, Movies.com, and The Wrap. Kimberly also co-hosts the Pop Literacyand #Authoring podcasts, and is a member of the Television Critics Association, Critics Choice Association, Authors Guild, and American Society of Journalist and Authors.
The most important aspect of television history is, of course, the shows. And though there have been hundreds, at least, more series that will need to be added to the book since it was published in 2015, it is a gorgeously designed collection of viewing suggestions. And like any great guidebook, it’s also just a fun way for any TV fan to revisit the best series of the past, arranged by decades, and including American and international programming.
The most groundbreaking and important must-see shows from the 1950s to today’s golden age of television. This latest addition to the best-selling and highly acclaimed 1001 series showcases the best programs produced for television from its inception to the bumper crop of great shows being produced in today’s era of original cable programming and digital streaming. Offering a critical evaluation of the most important and groundbreaking TV programs ever created, this book tracks television’s evolution through decades of social, cultural, and stylistic change. Included are shows that broke new ground, influenced the future, and left a lasting mark, ranging from…
I am a professor of pop culture, so I know personally that talking about race can be so incredibly awkward at times – but it does not always have to be! Often, many restrict themselves from fully participating in these necessary dialogues only because of a profound fear of “saying the wrong thing.” As individuals responsible for preparing a new generation of thinkers prepared to innovate improved solutions for the society we share, inevitably, the topic of race must not only be broached, but broached productively. I write to provide tools to help make such difficult conversations less difficult.
This book is excellent in providing quantitative data to demonstrate how well-meaning people often make negative racial associations based upon media content – this book really helps readers question to what degree we are influenced by or are impervious to media images.
While they do not focus on movies exclusively, they do thoroughly explain subtle racial patterns within mainstream media.
Living in a segregated society, white Americans learn about African Americans not through personal relationships but through the images the media show them. "The Black Image in the White Mind" offers the most comprehensive look at the intricate racial patterns in the mass media and how they shape the ambivalent attitudes of Whites towards Blacks. Using the media, and especially television, as barometers of race relations, Robert M. Entman and Andrew Rojecki explore but then go beyond the treatment of African Americans on network and local news to incisively uncover the messages sent about race by the entertainment industry -…
I’m a Black woman who writes stories about Black girls who aren’t all that nice. And, to me, that means writing stories where Black girls are at the forefront of their stories and given the space to be whoever they are, wholly and without minimizing their character to make them fit into neat boxes next to others. I do this because being able to take up space as you are is, oftentimes, a privilege. And I want to make sure the stories I write offer that space to every reader who picks up one of my books.
I would not be a writer had I not read this book. It was the first time I saw a Black girl be the main character in a fantasy novel, and she doesn’t limit herself to playing by the rules.
Jane McKeene is a troublemaker with a smart mouth, but she’s fearless against the shamblers (zombies), resourceful, and her complicated friendship with Kate was something I loved every minute of.
Trained at Miss Preston's School of Combat for Negro Girls in both weaponry and etiquette, Jane McKeene is poised for a successful career protecting the wealthy from the encroaching plague of walking dead. But when families begin to go missing, Jane uncovers a conspiracy that pits her against some powerful enemies. Sent far from home, Jane will need all her resourcefulness, wit and strength of character to survive.
A powerful, compelling tale of a young girl's journey through a hostile world, Jane McKeene is an unforgettable protagonist, and Dread Nation is an unforgettable book.
I am a lifelong lover of books. As a child, one of my most prized possessions was my library card. It gave me entrance to a world of untold wonders from the past, present, and future. My love of reading sparked my imagination and led me to my own fledgling writing efforts. I come from a family of storytellers, my mother being the chief example. She delighted us with stories from her childhood and her maturation in the rural South. She was an excellent mimic, which added realism and humor to every tale.
This book brilliantly tells the story of the guerilla warfare that Black people waged against the purveyors of slavery in the antebellum South. It belies the White establishment’s portrayal of the compliant, intellectually challenged Negro who was content to live under the necessary guidance and protection of his or her master.
In fact, a sprawling network of underground freedom fighters developed secret codes, signs, and escape routes that enabled them to thwart the system that strove to keep them in chains. The book’s protagonist, Liz Spocott, is a “dreamer” who is able to see the future.
This book helped me understand that fiction writers are also dreamers, capable of seeing worlds that do not yet exist, and pushed me to join their ranks.
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Good Lord Bird, winner of the 2013 National Book Award for Fiction, Deacon King Kong, Five-Carat Soul, and Kill 'Em and Leave
In the days before the Civil War, a runaway slave named Liz Spocott breaks free from her captors and escapes into the labyrinthine swamps of Maryland’s eastern shore, setting loose a drama of violence and hope among slave catchers, plantation owners, watermen, runaway slaves, and free blacks. Liz is near death, wracked by disturbing visions of the future, and armed with “the Code,” a fiercely guarded cryptic means of…
History is learned in the worst way by most, through textbooks. Textbooks are written heavy on dates, timelines, and synopsizing events for multiple-choice, maybe a few, essay questions in schools. Whose facts are they? To paraphrase Frederick Douglass, what does the Fourth of July mean when you’re black? History is taught in these fact silos. But that’s not how it happens. History happens in layers that build under pressure, erupt, and shift like rock sediment evolving over time. I chose these five nonfiction books because they unapologetically show the fault lines and pressures that make American history. These books also uncover the hidden gems created by those societal pressures.
I found this book while researching my own history book. I purchased a used copy complete with the underlined text and notes of other people that I always find interesting. It’s an old book, first published more than fifty years ago. I see it as the perfect companion piece to King’s book.
Here, late author/editor Dorothy Sterling (quite an agitator herself) includes African American leaders' letters, speeches, songs, and news articles. Sterling covers heavyweights such as Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, and Henry Highland Garnet, along with overlooked figures Ira Aldridge (Shakespearean actor), poet Phillis Wheatley, merchant Paul Cuffe, and opera singer Elizabeth Greenfield, the Black Swan. Reading Speak Out expanded my knowledge of the breadth and scope of the early Civil Rights Movement.
This impressive collection, drawn from a wealth of original research into previously untapped sources,including letters, diaries, memoirs, speeches, poems, songs, newspaper articles, advertisements, a ship's log, and official documents,allows African Americans to speak afresh across more than two centuries. Besides the expected voices of Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth, this book makes vivid the experiences and views of a diverse range of lesser-known but equally fascinating personalities: Ira Aldridge, one of the great Shakespearean actors of his day William Allen, the first black college professor in the country the astronomer and mathematician Benjamin Banneker Paul Cuffe, owner of a fleet…
My great uncle was an eccentric book collector who lived in an old, rambling house stuffed floor-to-ceiling with thousands and thousands of books. After he died, I inherited a tiny portion of his collection: a set of state guidebooks from the 1930s and 40s. These were the American Guides created by the Federal Writers’ Project, the New Deal program that put jobless writers to work during the Great Depression. I dipped into these weird, rich, fascinating books, and I was hooked immediately. Some years later, I quit my job in publishing to research and write my own account of the FWP’s unlikely rise and lamentable fall, Republic of Detours.
Today, most people know Zora Neale Hurston as a novelist, thanks to her classic Their Eyes Were Watching God. But she was also an accomplished folklorist, anthropologist, playwright, and essayist. And yet, by the late 1930s, she was broke, and she found work with both the Federal Theater Project and Federal Writers’ Project. This book collects Hurston’s writing for the FWP in her home state of Florida, along with an incisive essay by Pamela Bordelon. The sheer variety of material on display here wasn’t unusual for the FWP: you’ll find essayistic meditations on folklife and art, collections of tall tales and children’s songs, and sketches of labor in the turpentine camps and citrus groves—as well as a chilling report on a racist massacre in Ocoee.
When Pamala Bordelon was researching a work on the Florida Federal Writers Project, she discovered writings in the collection that were unmistakably from the hand of Zora Neale Hurston, one of the leading writers of the Harlem Renaissance. Over half of the works included here have not been published or are only available in the Library of America edition of Hurston's works. As Hurston's fans know, all of her novels draw upon her deep interest in folklore, particularly from her home state of Florida. Here we see the roots of that work, from the wonderful folktale of the monstrous alligator…
I have written 60 books over the past 20 years. My titles include picture books, poetry books, and dozens of nonfiction books covering a wide range of history and social studies topics. My picture books deal with concepts such as counting and colors. I enjoy rhyming and wordplay and conveying ideas in simple terms.
An outgrowth of the 1619 project, this masterful picture book traces a family’s roots from Africa through generations of enslavement in the United States to today. A young girl’s grandmother tells stories in the form of poems that convey joy, terror, heartache, persecution, struggle, and triumph. Illustrations move from light during the times in Africa to dark during the decades of enslavement and back to light in the present. The book ends on a positive note with the girl drawing an American flag—the flag of the country that her ancestors helped build and “that I will help build, too.”
The 1619 Project's lyrical picture book in verse chronicles the consequences of slavery and the history of Black resistance in the United States, thoughtfully rendered by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones and Newbery honor-winning author Renee Watson.
A young student receives a family tree assignment in school, but she can only trace back three generations. Grandma gathers the whole family, and the student learns that 400 years ago, in 1619, their ancestors were stolen and brought to America by white slave traders. But before that, they had a home, a land, a language. She learns how the people said to…
