Five of the best books on the business of television

Jennifer Keishin Armstrong grew up deep in the southwest suburbs of Chicago, then escaped to New York to live in a succession of very small apartments and write about pop culture. In the process, she became a feminist, a Buddhist, and the singer/guitarist in an amateur rock band. She also spent a decade on staff at Entertainment Weekly, cofounded SexyFeminist.com, and now writes for several publications, including Women’s Health, O, Writer’s Digest, Fast Company, and New York‘s Vulture. Her collaboration with Heather Wood Rudulph, Sexy Feminism, was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in March 2013.

Armstrong's latest book is Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted: And all the Brilliant Minds Who Made The Mary Tyler Moore Show a Classic.

One of her five best books on the business of television, as shared at 250 Words:

Top of the Rock: Inside the Rise and Fall of Must See TV by Warren Littlefield

The man who brought us NBC’s heyday as the network’s president of entertainment gives us the inside scoop on assembling a killer schedule: Cheers, Friends, ER, Seinfeld. Not every former network exec’s memoir is worth reading—trust me—but this one has absorbed TV insiders since its release last year.

Read about another book on the list.

Visit Jennifer Keishin Armstrong's website.

My Book, The Movie: Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted.

The Page 99 Test: Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted.

--Marshal Zeringue