Fans pick 70 books like The Cultural Politics of Colorblind TV Casting

By Kristen J. Warner,

Here are 70 books that The Cultural Politics of Colorblind TV Casting fans have personally recommended if you like The Cultural Politics of Colorblind TV Casting. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Legitimating Television: Media Convergence and Cultural Status

Mareike Jenner Author Of Netflix and the Re-invention of Television

From my list on contemporary television.

Why am I passionate about this?

I like understanding television as culturally situated. Television is constructed along a number of sites: cultural, institutional, ideological, historical, or via the different ways audiences understand it. Interrogating television and what it does as a medium was historically relevant because it was a mass medium. But how can we evaluate the medium in times of highly fragmented audiences? Because of this, exploring Netflix as a new form of ‘television’ has become so important to me. The authors all try to get to terms with how television has changed over its short existence. This helps us understand the medium better, as well as our current moment.

Mareike's book list on contemporary television

Mareike Jenner Why did Mareike love this book?

This is one of my favorite books about contemporary television.

It deals with the processes that changed how television was viewed following the changes in HBO-style ‘quality’ television. It also critically explores the ways legitimization and associated words like ‘quality’ work as an ultimately classist system where television works as cultural capital.

Netflix established itself on the back of this legitimization, using HBO-style ‘quality’ TV series like House of Cards and Orange is the New Black. But HBO also used DVDs to ‘filter’ the individual program out from the ‘flow’ of television, which helped Netflix to establish itself as television.

By Michael Z. Newman, Elana Levine,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Legitimating Television as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Legitimating Television: Media Convergence and Cultural Status explores how and why television is gaining a new level of cultural respectability in the 21st century. Once looked down upon as a "plug-in drug" offering little redeeming social or artistic value, television is now said to be in a creative renaissance, with critics hailing the rise of Quality series such as Mad Men and 30 Rock. Likewise, DVDs and DVRs, web video, HDTV, and mobile devices have shifted the longstanding conception of television as a household appliance toward a new understanding of TV as a sophisticated, high-tech gadget.

Newman and Levine argue…


Book cover of Complex Serial Drama and Multiplatform Television

Mareike Jenner Author Of Netflix and the Re-invention of Television

From my list on contemporary television.

Why am I passionate about this?

I like understanding television as culturally situated. Television is constructed along a number of sites: cultural, institutional, ideological, historical, or via the different ways audiences understand it. Interrogating television and what it does as a medium was historically relevant because it was a mass medium. But how can we evaluate the medium in times of highly fragmented audiences? Because of this, exploring Netflix as a new form of ‘television’ has become so important to me. The authors all try to get to terms with how television has changed over its short existence. This helps us understand the medium better, as well as our current moment.

Mareike's book list on contemporary television

Mareike Jenner Why did Mareike love this book?

Dunleavy explores what complexity means for contemporary ‘quality’ TV. She focusses on the narrative structures, creative strategies, and style of contemporary television.

For me, what stands out about this book is how it explores the interrelationship between recent technological changes and what we understand as television. This results in a redefinition of television.

When writing the second edition of my book, I found the different ways people have conceptualized contemporary television especially important.

By Trisha Dunleavy,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Complex Serial Drama and Multiplatform Television as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This book examines the creative strategies, narrative characteristics, industrial practices and stylistic tendencies of complex serial drama. Exemplified by shows like HBO's The Sopranos, AMC's Mad Men and Breaking Bad, Showtime's Dexter, and Netflix's Stranger Things, complex serials are distinguished by their conceptual originality, narrative complexity, transgressive lead characters and serial allure. As a drama form that continues to expand and diversify in today's television, HBO's Boardwalk Empire and Game of Thrones, Netflix's Orange Is the New Black and Hulu's The Handmaid's Tale provide further examples. Dunleavy investigates the strategies that underpin the innovations, influence and success of complex serial…


Book cover of Video Revolutions: On the History of a Medium

Mareike Jenner Author Of Netflix and the Re-invention of Television

From my list on contemporary television.

Why am I passionate about this?

I like understanding television as culturally situated. Television is constructed along a number of sites: cultural, institutional, ideological, historical, or via the different ways audiences understand it. Interrogating television and what it does as a medium was historically relevant because it was a mass medium. But how can we evaluate the medium in times of highly fragmented audiences? Because of this, exploring Netflix as a new form of ‘television’ has become so important to me. The authors all try to get to terms with how television has changed over its short existence. This helps us understand the medium better, as well as our current moment.

Mareike's book list on contemporary television

Mareike Jenner Why did Mareike love this book?

This is a short book in which Newman explores the changes in what the term ‘video’ means.

The term is closely intertwined with the history of television, describing first television broadcasts and then how taping was used to bridge the time differences between the American east and west coasts. The term then described the ways home video revolutionized how video was used in the private sphere. Today, we receive videos as the digital snippets we see on YouTube or the short clips we post on social media. 

I like Newman’s work in general. But this book tells us so much about TV history in the US; I find it an incredibly fascinating work.

By Michael Z. Newman,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Video Revolutions as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Since the days of early television, video has been an indispensable part of culture, society, and moving-image media industries. Over the decades, it has been an avant-garde artistic medium, a high-tech consumer gadget, a format for watching movies at home, a force for democracy, and the ultimate, ubiquitous means of documenting reality. In the twenty-first century, video is the name we give all kinds of moving images. We know it as an adaptable medium that bridges analog and digital, amateur and professional, broadcasting and recording, television and cinema, art and commercial culture, and old media and new digital networks. In…


Book cover of Online TV

Mareike Jenner Author Of Netflix and the Re-invention of Television

From my list on contemporary television.

Why am I passionate about this?

I like understanding television as culturally situated. Television is constructed along a number of sites: cultural, institutional, ideological, historical, or via the different ways audiences understand it. Interrogating television and what it does as a medium was historically relevant because it was a mass medium. But how can we evaluate the medium in times of highly fragmented audiences? Because of this, exploring Netflix as a new form of ‘television’ has become so important to me. The authors all try to get to terms with how television has changed over its short existence. This helps us understand the medium better, as well as our current moment.

Mareike's book list on contemporary television

Mareike Jenner Why did Mareike love this book?

This book came out a few months after the first edition of my book, and I remember being really frustrated because it added so many important ideas.

I still find its interrogation of interfaces and how they interact, open as different tabs, intriguing. Johnson focusses on how online TV functions within an internet ecosystem. This leads to interesting ideas about what TV distributed via the internet means.

By Catherine Johnson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Online TV as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

With growth in access to high-speed broadband and 4G, and increased ownership of smartphones, tablets and internet-connected television sets, the internet has simultaneously begun to compete with and transform television. Online TV argues that these changes create the conditions for an emergent internet era that challenges the language and concepts that we have to talk about television as a medium.

In a wide-ranging analysis, Catherine Johnson sets out a series of conceptual frameworks designed to provide a clearer language with which to analyse the changes to television in the internet era and to bring into focus the power dynamics of…


Book cover of Misunderstood Shark

Cassandra Federman Author Of This Is a Sea Cow

From my list on children’s stories about ocean animals.

Why am I passionate about this?

I've been fascinated by the ocean and all of its inhabitants for as long as I can remember. When I was little, I discovered my dad’s SCUBA license and it blew my mind that I was related to someone who was allowed to explore the underwater world! Later, when I got to college, I took advantage of two exciting opportunities. First, I got my own scuba license. Second, I studied abroad in Belize, where I conducted manatee research by tagging, tracking, and rescuing manatees. I enjoyed the time I spent with the animals, but not the lab work. Now I express my passion for sea creatures in the books I write.

Cassandra's book list on children’s stories about ocean animals

Cassandra Federman Why did Cassandra love this book?

This book introduces some basic facts about sharks in an original, laugh-your-pants-off kind of way. The misunderstood shark derails jellyfish’s live TV broadcast with his questionable behavior. Readers will be left to debate the shark’s actual intentions and to discuss the cool shark facts they learned along the way. The supporting characters in the book also have fantastically funny dialogue. Every inch of this book is fun! And again, kids will be laughing and learning at the same time.

By Ame Dyckman, Scott Magoon (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Misunderstood Shark as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 3, 4, and 5.

What is this book about?

From bestselling author Ame Dyckman and illustrator Scott Magoon comes the laugh-out-loud story about a Misunderstood Shark who just wants to show the world who he really is...

Every beachgoer knows that there's nothing more terrifying than a... SHARRRK! But this shark is just misunderstood, or is he? In a wholly original, sidesplittingly funny story, New York Times bestselling author Ame Dyckman and illustrator Scott Magoon take this perennial theme and turn it on its (hammer)head with a brand-new cheeky character. The filming of an underwater TV show goes awry when the crew gets interrupted by a... SHARRRK! Poor Shark,…


Book cover of Death Warrant

Madison Lawson Author Of The Registration

From my list on thriller books for adults who miss YA dystopian.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been fascinated with the macabre since childhood and have always been drawn to the darker sides of humanity. In nearly every story, the villain is my favorite character, and I’m most intrigued with their motives. From The Magic Tree House to Artemis Fowl to The Hunger Games to The Purge, I’ve consumed as much sci-fi, dystopian, thriller fiction as possible my entire life. I’ve written several thriller novels and dystopian books and have worked with Bradley Fuller, the producer of The Purge and A Quiet Place, on the possible movie adaptation of my debut novel. If you also like dystopian thrillers, feel free to check out my recommendations!

Madison's book list on thriller books for adults who miss YA dystopian

Madison Lawson Why did Madison love this book?

I loved this book because it was equally gripping and thrilling as it was funny. It’s impressive when a book so seamlessly weaves real-world experiences and pop culture references with the sci-fi aspects of a dystopian world.

I loved the main character, Frankie, and how she was relatable yet completely unique. Her humor and love of movies,  I also loved how it was thought-provoking without feeling like a soap-box political book.

This book was like a quirky Black Mirror-esque cautionary tale of where our society could easily be heading, with plenty of laugh-out-loud moments. I liked how Bryan Johnston took reality TV and made it extreme.

By Bryan Johnston,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Death Warrant as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Death Makes Great TV.

Frankie Percival is cashing in her chips. To save her brother from financial ruin, Frankie—a single stage performer and mentalist who never made it big—agrees to be assassinated on the most popular television show on the planet: Death Warrant. Once she signs her life away, her memory is wiped clean of the agreement, leaving her with no idea she will soon be killed spectacularly for global entertainment.

After years of working in low-rent theaters, Frankie prepares for the biggest performance of her life as her Death Warrant assassin closes in on her. Every person she encounters…


Book cover of The Hunger Games

Lyndi Alexander Author Of Windmills

From my list on fantasy with female underdogs.

Why am I passionate about this?

I love to cheer for underdogs, and young women who are in this category have my special devotion. As a child of the 1960s, I remember a time when women didn’t have the same rights and opportunities as men, and we still seem to be fighting it today. Coming from a trauma-based childhood myself, I find myself comparing and contrasting coping mechanisms. Luckily, I haven’t found it necessary to kill anyone with dragon stone or jacked-up hornets so far. It delights me when these girls win, whether they game the system or fight their way with guns and knives.

Lyndi's book list on fantasy with female underdogs

Lyndi Alexander Why did Lyndi love this book?

I fell in love with Katniss from the very beginning. I was the oldest daughter in a single-parent family and had to take over and care for my younger sisters a lot of times because my father was dysfunctional. So I get it. The whole concept is horrifying to me—children forced to kill each other—but following along as Katniss manages to defeat the fate waiting for her inspired me.

I related to how she did most of it on her own, seeing as she had been let down by her mother, her country, and, later, those she thought were friends. Trust is so important and valuable for young people to have, and so easy to destroy.

By Suzanne Collins,

Why should I read it?

54 authors picked The Hunger Games as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 12, 13, 14, and 15.

What is this book about?

Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen regards it as a death sentence when she is forced to represent her district in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV. But Katniss has been close to death before - and survival, for her, is second nature. The Hunger Games is a searing novel set in a future with unsettling parallels to our present. Welcome to the deadliest reality TV show ever...


Book cover of Catching Fire

Buffy Naillon Author Of The Girl Who Fell Into the Sky: The Noah and Clare Chronicles Book 1

From my list on sci-fi where food plays a defining role.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve always been surrounded by food culture. I grew up in a diner family. My parents started Lakey’s Cafe just before I was born. My first jobs as a kid were in that restaurant. After that, I worked in restaurants as a server for more than 10 years of my life. When the opportunity presented itself to throw in the napkin and become a writer, I did. My writing now as a professional writer centers around the food and beverage industry. One topic that I don’t see discussed enough is the role that food plays in science fiction and fantasy novels. Food in novels has a way of showing us something about ourselves.

Buffy's book list on sci-fi where food plays a defining role

Buffy Naillon Why did Buffy love this book?

You can’t get much more food-oriented in science fiction than a novel called The Hunger Games, and true to its name, food and food politics play a central role in the book’s theme. The book’s author, Suzanne Collins, uses juxtaposition and food politics throughout the series to highlight the difference between the haves and the have-nots. While all the books in the Hunger Games series highlight these discrepancies, it’s Collins’s second book Catching Fire where the differences are most pronounced. The feast in the Capitol, along with its potions to induce vomiting (and by extension, encourage more eating), stands out in particular: The reaction of the book’s main character, Katniss Everdeen, herself a poor girl from the Seam of District 12 makes this scene both comical and revolting.

By Suzanne Collins,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Catching Fire as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 12, 13, 14, and 15.

What is this book about?

The second book in the ground-breaking Hunger
Games trilogy.

After winning the brutal Hunger Games, Katniss and Peeta return
to their district, hoping for a peaceful future. But their victory
has caused rebellion to break out ... and the Capitol has decided
that someone must pay.

As Katniss and Peeta are forced to visit the districts on the
Capitol's Victory Tour, the stakes are higher than ever. Unless they
can convince the world that they are still lost in their love
for each other, the consequences will be horrifying.

Then comes the cruellest twist: the contestants for the
next Hunger…


Book cover of Mockingjay

Patricia Marcantonio Author Of Under the Blood Moon

From my list on books to keep you on the edge of your seats.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a writer of murder mysteries, it goes without saying I’m a fan of whodunits. But I’m also a fan of horror stories and those tales that keep me turning pages and looking into the shadows. So in my newest book, I wanted to combine the two. That is, mixing scares and thrills with a whodunit and adding a big dose of Latino culture and characters. In a lot of my work, I write about the culture with which I grew up. I also love to tap into the Mexican myths and folk stories I heard as a kid then revamping and retelling them into something new.

Patricia's book list on books to keep you on the edge of your seats

Patricia Marcantonio Why did Patricia love this book?

Talk about nonstop. The final book in the Hunger Game series sends Katniss Everdeen on one thrilling and scary journey after another. Through war zones, as the rebels fight Capitol forces and right into the heart of the Capitol, above and below ground. She and her crew face not only human fighters but the horrific engineered mutts and traps. Emotionally, it’s no picnic either because her Hunger Games partner Peeta has been brainwashed to kill her. Then there’s all the political intrigue. Whew. I stayed up into the night to read this because the story wouldn’t let go of me.  

By Suzanne Collins,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Mockingjay as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 12, 13, 14, and 15.

What is this book about?

The final book in the ground-breaking Hunger Games
trilogy.
Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has survived the Hunger Games
twice. But now that she's made it out of the bloody arena
alive, she's still not safe.

The Capitol is angry. The Capitol wants revenge.

Who do they think should pay for the unrest? Katniss.

And what's worse, President Snow has made it clear that no one
else is safe either. Not Katniss's family, not her friends, not
the people of District 12.



now a major feature film starring Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson
& Liam Hemsworth



OTHER BOOKS IN THE SERIES…


Book cover of Race and Races: Cases and Resources for a Diverse America

Beverly Moran Author Of Race and Wealth Disparities: A Multidisciplinary Discourse

From my list on understanding critical race theory.

Why am I passionate about this?

Every author writing about race and tax in the United States uses my article with William Whitford, “A Black Critique of the Internal Revenue Code.” Using census data, Bill and I showed that blacks and whites who earn the same income, live in the same geographic areas, have the same education and marital status, pay different amounts of federal income tax because of the race and wealth disparities outlined in Race and Wealth Disparities: A Multidisciplinary Discourse edited by Beverly Moran. 

Beverly's book list on understanding critical race theory

Beverly Moran Why did Beverly love this book?

I have used this textbook for over ten years. It groups Supreme Court decisions and other writings by Hispanics, Native Americans, Blacks, and Asians in a way that allows students to understand how doctrine shifts over almost three hundred years of jurisprudence. The text gently gets students to expand their knowledge base and confront what they learned (or did not learn) in other courses. I enjoy this textbook every time that I use it.

By Juan F. Perea, Richard Delgado, Angela Harris , Jean Stefancic , Stephanie M. Wildman

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Race and Races as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This casebook presents interdisciplinary, critical perspectives on race and racism and covers the roles of law and history in shaping the meanings of race in the United States. Updates the second edition with new material on: President Obama's election and "post-racialism"; important studies of implicit bias; the Voting Rights Act and allegedly race-neutral restrictions on voting; recurring violence against and harassment of Latino immigrants; book-banning in Arizona; and demographic changes and their implications. Includes new cases such as Shelby County v. Holder and Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, current statistics, and updated references. Features rich historical treatment of…


Book cover of Legitimating Television: Media Convergence and Cultural Status
Book cover of Complex Serial Drama and Multiplatform Television
Book cover of Video Revolutions: On the History of a Medium

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