Ranking My Own Books

My brutally honest, and also self-congratulatory, assessment of my own work ... which also demonstrates the ups and downs of publishing.

A few pieces of Parks and Rec news before we get to the main post!

Life According to Parks and Rec: I’m leading an online Parks and Rec study (and fun!) group over the summer and heading into the midterms. Once a month, we’ll meet online to discuss the philosophy and principles of living behind Parks and Rec, from July to November. We’ll read my book, watch an assigned episode, and have some suggested civic actions and optional writing assignments. If you’re interested, just hit me back here to let me know.

LA event: On June 2 at 7 p.m., I’ll be talking Parks and Rec at Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena, just a few blocks from “Pawnee City Hall,” with Alison Becker, who played reporter Shauna Malwae-Tweep.

If you enjoyed my book Parks and Rec … Could you consider leaving a review on the Amazon page? I don’t love sending folks to Amazon, but I’m battling algorithms here. You don’t have to buy it there, just say something nice! Thanks.

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I just published my ninth book, Parks and Rec. It’s been 15 years since I published my first, a history of The Mickey Mouse Club called Why? Because We Still Like You, and 10 since my bestseller Seinfeldia. The publishing industry has changed enormously in that time, but the most change has happened since the pandemic as cutbacks everywhere have left even traditionally published authors mostly on their own when it comes to publicity and marketing, and it has gotten harder than ever to book events and get folks to them. Media barely exists, and the few legacy outlets left are overwhelmed with not only pitches but also a constant barrage of dire news that leaves little room for book coverage. Book sections are history beyond, say, The New York Times. We need to radically rethink how we sell books, but no one is sure what to do.

And so, inspired by my friend and colleague Kirthana Ramisetti, who named her own novel, The Other Lata, “the best book of 2025,” I am doing a ranked list of books, all of them my own. Which means I’m #1 (and 2, 3, 4, and 9 …)

#9: Why? Because We Still Like You (2010)

My 2010 debut was a perfect storm of weird circumstances: Grand Central, a major publisher, had been looking for someone to write a book about the 1950s Mickey Mouse Club, and they found me, a writer at Entertainment Weekly who was writing a fair amount about current Disney stars at the time like Selena Gomez and Miley Cyrus. I agreed to the project to get a book deal. Along the way, I interviewed a bunch of people who were among pop culture’s first child stars ever, which was fun, and tried to figure out how to write a narrative nonfiction book about a TV show, which was hard. I got conflicting advice and ended up with extremely long quotes, almost like an oral history but with paragraphs in between. Meanwhile, I didn’t see my cover or subtitle until they were already on Amazon, which is not how things should work. The subtitle called it an oral history, which it was not. Then the publisher, the man who’d come up with the idea for the book in the first place, died before it was published. The book got very little publisher support from then on, and it tanked. I think there are some fun stories in there, and it was a good practice run for me in terms of writing, but it is noticeably not my best work.

#8: Sexy Feminism (2013)

Look, I got to write a book with my best friend, Heather Wood Rudúlph, based on our blog, Sexy Feminist. That was cool. It is, alas, a frozen-in-time record of all of our baby feminist, late 2000s/early 2010s ideas, and these are not ideas I would personally advocate for today. The world has changed a lot, and I’m just not convinced that the feminist credentials of Brazilian waxes are worth spilling ink on today. That said, I also believe that people need to be allowed to evolve on issues of importance, so I stand by 2013 us and our right to work it all out, even in book form.

#7: Pop Star Goddesses (2020)

I still love the concept of this book, an illustrated guide to female pop stars and what they represent. (Adele is the Goddess of Wisdom Through Heartbreak, Kacey Musgraves is the Goddess of the Unconventional, Lady Gaga is the Goddess of Social Justice.) Somehow, though, I hadn’t counted on just how fast the pop star landscape changes, so this felt out of date even faster than I expected. Britney Spears underwent dramatic changes in the years after the book’s 2020 release, Billie Eilish (among others) ascended to goddesshood around this time, and Nicki Minaj is one I wouldn’t include now. This also came out in April of 2020, which was … a challenge.

#6: So Fetch (2024)

This is a good book about the movie Mean Girls. I particularly loved interviewing the director, Mark Waters, and the Canadian actors who played those small but crucial parts, like Chris Anton (as “Huge Guy”), Stefanie Drummond (Bethany Byrd), and Clare Preuss (Caroline Krafft). The second half of the book nails what I’m best at, which is analysis of the movie’s long-term cultural effects. But it was a real bummer that Tina Fey, whom I used to interview a lot when I was at Entertainment Weekly, wouldn’t talk to me for this, and thus neither would any of the other main cast.

#5: Seinfeldia (2016)

The next few on the list are all kind-of a toss-up when it comes to ranking, but Seinfeldia doesn’t need my help at this point, so it’s probably lower than it should be. It was an instant and lasting New York Times bestseller, and it continues to sell. It also deserves credit for the boom in TV books in the last ten years; because it sold well, it was used as a comp to sell many, many of the TV books to come. I’m grateful for what it has done for me and this industry.

#4: Sex and the City and Us (2018)

As the follow-up to Seinfeldia, this book improves on the formula and tackles a show that was formative in my own life, which infuses the storytelling. I got to talk to most of the key players and delve into the show’s massive economic, social, and cultural effects. The book came well before the horrific And Just Like That reboot, which allows you to get nostalgic about how good the original was, but boy, does that reboot taint it all just a little.

#3: Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted (2013)

I figured out how to write a book like this while writing Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted, so it’s not as consistently confident as the others. But it was my first real passion project, which I pitched after Why? Because We Still Like You. It has a vital story behind it: The Mary Tyler Moore Show was not only a feminist milestone, but also the first show to have numerous female writers, specifically because creators James L. Brooks and Allan Burns wanted the realism that hiring women to write women would provide. It’s a show that I think remains relevant, and I believe more people should still be watching. (It holds up remarkably well, with very few whoa-we-wouldn’t-say-that-now moments, which is very impressive for a ‘70s sitcom.) While my mastery is not entirely present yet, it’s among the most important stories I’ve told.

#2: Parks and Rec (2026)

My numbers 1 and 2 here are close, and I was tempted to put this first since it’s my most recent. This book is definitely the apex of my “books about specific TV shows” work, the culmination since Seinfeldia. I got to talk to all of the major players, and found that showrunner Mike Schur and stars Amy Poehler and Nick Offerman made something so special because they are the most exceptional people I have ever encountered in 20-plus years of covering Hollywood. I got to include my own experiences early in my career as a local newspaper reporter. This was a spiritual experience that made me a better person, and I got to do everything I wanted in this book at a time when we desperately need its messages about community, friendship, and civic participation. You should buy it, read it, pass it on, and tell all of your friends to do the same. I am unequivocally proud of it.

#1: When Women Invented Television (2021)

The only thing that could beat my Parks and Rec experience was telling the stories of four female pioneers of early television: Gertrude Berg, who created, produced, and starred in TV’s first family sticom, The Goldbergs; Irna Phillips, who created the entire soap opera genre, including The Guiding Light, the longest-running soap in broadcast history; Hazel Scott, a jazz pianist, civil rights activist, and the first Black person to host a national, primetime show; and Betty White, who we all know for her later comedy work but was also crucial to the development of the daytime talk show. I loved doing archival research on these underappreciated women and I consider it a cause to talk about them whenever I can. It suffered a bit from proximity to the pandemic in terms of promotion, so I will say here that you should also buy this one, read it, pass it on, and tell all of your friends to do the same.

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Other Stuff I’ve Written Lately

I finally nailed book events … on Book 9. Here’s how.: For my friend Andrea Bartz’s excellent Substack about being an author, a postmortem on my excellent Parks and Rec book tour and some lessons learned over my 15 years as an author. Bonus: a photo of me with Nick Offerman’s parents!

‘Heated Rivalry’ and the Rise of the Parody Musical: My on-the-scene reporting from Heated Rivalry: The Musical Parody.

Why ‘Parks and Rec’ Makes Us Feel So Good: My conversation with fellow author and superfan Shea Serrano.

What Should Have Happened in ‘The Devil Wears Prada 2’: Some thoughts on dying legacy media and the dystopian sequel that brings it to life.