14 Books About Pop Culture to Distract You From 2020

In Movies (and Other Things), Shea Serrano asks us to consider how we would perceive some of our most favorite films if we changed the smallest of details: one chapter answers which race Kevin Costner was able to white savior the best, because did you know that he white saviors Mexicans in McFarland, USA, and white saviors Native Americans in Dances with Wolves, and white saviors Black people in Black or White, and white saviors the Cleveland Browns in Draft Day? Another chapter answers what other high school movie characters would be in Regina George’s circle of friends if we opened up the Mean Girls universe to include other movies: Johnny Lawrence is temporarily in, Claire from The Breakfast Club is in, Ferris Bueller is out, Isis from Bring It On is out… Ultimately, Serrano’s Movies (and Other Things) forces us to consider the fact that not only do our lives need to be more diverse, but the media we consume needs to be more diverse as well.

Without a doubt, Meryl Streep is the most celebrated actress of our time. In Erin Carlson’s follow-up to I’ll Have What She’s Having, she takes a glorious look back at the storied life and career of the woman who has stepped in the shoes of everyone from Miranda Priestly to Margaret Thatcher. Tracing her upbringing and coming of age during the tumultuous ’60s and ’70s, followed by her refusal to let ageist Hollywood standards convince her that she was past her prime after 40, Queen Meryl is part biography and part bible for anyone who has ever been in awe of Streep’s abilities, remarkable endurance, and enormous impact she’s had on pop culture. It also features impressive illustrations by artist Justin Teodoro as well as Streep trivia, roundups, and more.

The sixth installment in the Pop Classics series by Canada’s ECW Press, author Soraya Roberts looks back at pop culture force that was My So-Called Life, the short-lived teen drama that proved to be a bit too real for ’90s network television. However, its impact and influence has lived on far beyond the series’ first and only season, with its themes of teenage angst, rebellion, and romance becoming the unspoken inspiration for everything from Felicity to Glee. Analyzing My So-Called Life through the rise of third-wave feminism and the depiction of female anger, Roberts creates a compelling case for why characters like Angela Chase, Jordan Catalano, and Rickie Vasquez are still speaking to viewers a quarter of a century later.

Practically overnight, hip-hop became a generation-defining genre and movement, symbols of youth rebellion and cultural representation. In a post–civil rights era defined by deindustrialization and globalization, hip-hop crystallized a multiracial and multicultural generation’s worldview and transformed American politics and culture. Can’t Stop Won’t Stop is a comprehensive portrait of hip-hop’s rise and reign, featuring original interviews with rappers, DJs, music writers, graffiti artists, and everyone in between—bringing a new overview to the music, art, and ideas that have shaped a transformative and ever-changing genre.

Popular culture and America remembers Jackie O as JFK’s dutiful wife and a vision of beloved style and grace, but another important element of her life that is scarcely told is her career as a book editor for Viking and later Doubleday. In Reading Jackie, William Kuhn combines interviews and analysis to weave a fascinating tale of Jackie’s other life, the one she worked tirelessly to keep private so that the literary world, and society at large, might take her more seriously and see her as something more than a wife and mother. Despite the fact that she ruthlessly avoided publicity, Jackie famously pushed boundaries and courted controversy through the books she chose to associate herself with, such as explorations into the myths of female beauty or the story of Thomas Jefferson’s relationship with Sally Hemings, an enslaved woman. Chronicling her life through the books she read and left her mark on, Reading Jackie reveals the former First Lady’s true legacy as a tasteful, independent woman.

No one should be shocked to learn that the world of Walt Disney Studios in the early 20th century was a horrific “little boys’ club,” but in The Queens of Animation, Nathalia Holt tells the stories of the women who worked their way up through the halls of America’s most treasured animation company—dodging workplace patriarchy, sexism, harassment, and discrimination at every turn. Any Disney fan can recite the studio’s classic tales, but what might not be so readily known is how its female employees fought for how female characters were represented and how their stories were told, often at the expense of their creative freedom or even their jobs. Creating compelling biographical accounts of the female employees’ lives and careers, The Queens of Animation is sure to fascinate anyone interested in Disney, pop culture, and feminism.

In this academic account, author Robin R. Means Coleman provides new insight into timeless debates surrounding the depiction and representation of Black people on American network television, specifically that of the beloved family sitcom. Analyzing everything from the ’50s radio series Beulah to Living Single, Coleman asks us to consider how we might all perceive each other differently if the window through which we see our world, the television, worked a little harder to unite us than divide us.

Another entry in ECW’s Pop Classics series, Jen Sookfong Lee’s Gentleman of the Shade takes a deep dive into one of the most beloved and celebrated cult classics of the ’90s, My Own Private Idaho. The film inspired as much as it provoked, and provided a new ethos for a new generation: being different is better than being good. Analyzing My Own Private Idaho’s philosophies and depictions of same-sex love and masculinity, Gentleman of the Shade also takes a look at how the film ended up indirectly influencing popular culture and media in an indelible way, pinpointing it everywhere from R.E.M. to James Franco.