In Life Is Not a Reality Show, breakout star of Bravo’s The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills Kyle Richards reveals everything she’s learned about succeeding without getting stuck up, with insights into everything from keeping a marriage fresh while juggling four kids (with not a nanny in sight) to finding the best beauty steals and home-decorating inspirations. Pop culture fanatics and fans of hip, no-nonsense women’s books from Kelly Cutrone, Bethenny Frankel, and Brandi Glanville will find all they’re looking for and more in Richards’s Life Is Not a Reality Show.

An intimate portrait of a marriage intertwined with a meditation on reality TV that reveals surprising connections and the meaning of an authentic life. A VINTAGE ORIGINAL. In Lucas Mann's trademark vein--fiercely intelligent, self-deprecating, brilliantly observed, idiosyncratic, personal, funny, and infuriating--Captive Audience is an appreciation of reality television wrapped inside a love letter to his wife, with whom he shares the guilty pleasure of watching "real" people bare their souls in search of celebrity. Captive Audience resides at the intersection of popular culture with the personal; the exhibitionist impulse, with the schadenfreude of the vicarious, and in confronting some of our most suspect impulses achieves a heightened sense of what it means to live an authentic life and what it means to love a person.

Named a Best Nonfiction Book of 2022 by Esquire A sociological study of reality TV that explores its rise as a culture-dominating medium—and what the genre reveals about our attitudes toward race, gender, class, and sexuality What do we see when we watch reality television? In True Story: What Reality TV Says About Us, the sociologist and TV-lover Danielle J. Lindemann takes a long, hard look in the “funhouse mirror” of this genre. From the first episodes of The Real World to countless rose ceremonies to the White House, reality TV has not just remade our entertainment and cultural landscape (which it undeniably has). Reality TV, Lindemann argues, uniquely reflects our everyday experiences and social topography back to us. Applying scholarly research—including studies of inequality, culture, and deviance—to specific shows, Lindemann layers sharp insights with social theory, humor, pop cultural references, and anecdotes from her own life to show us who we really are. By taking reality TV seriously, True Story argues, we can better understand key institutions (like families, schools, and prisons) and broad social constructs (such as gender, race, class, and sexuality). From The Bachelor to Real Housewives to COPS and more (so much more!), reality programming unveils the major circuits of power that organize our lives—and the extent to which our own realities are, in fact, socially constructed. Whether we’re watching conniving Survivor contestants or three-year-old beauty queens, these “guilty pleasures” underscore how conservative our society remains, and how steadfastly we cling to our notions about who or what counts as legitimate or “real.” At once an entertaining chronicle of reality TV obsession and a pioneering work of sociology, True Story holds up a mirror to our society: the reflection may not always be pretty—but we can’t look away.

Reality television is shown worldwide, features people from all walks of life and covers everything from romance to religion. It has not only changed television, but every other area of the media. So why has reality TV become such a huge phenomenon, and what is its future in an age of streaming and social media?

From the host of MTV's #1 show Catfish comes the definitive guide about how to connect with people authentically in today's increasingly digital world. As the host of the wildly popular TV series Catfish,which investigates online relationships to determine whether they are based on truth or fiction (spoiler: it's almost always fiction), Nev has become the Dr. Drew of online relationships. His clout in this area springs from his own experience with a deceptive online romance, about which he made a critically acclaimed 2010 documentary (also called Catfish). In that film Nev coined the term "catfish" to refer to someone who creates a false online persona to reel someone into a romantic relationship. The meme spread rapidly. Now Nev brings his expertise to the page, sharing insider secrets about: -what motivates catfish -why people fall for catfish -how you can avoid being deceived -rules for dating -- both online and off -how to connect authentically with others over the internet -how to turn an online relationship into a real-life relationship ...and much, much more. Peppered throughout with Nev's personal stories, this book delves deeply into the complexities of online identity. Nev shows us how our digital lives are affecting our real lives, and provides essential advice about how we should all be living and loving in the era of social media.

A hilarious, scathing send up of the self-help genre in the bestselling tradition of The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck from social media mogul and The Bachelor producer Elan Gale. I am addicted to positivity. I am addicted to positivity. I am addicted to positivity. I care more about feeling great than being great. I am NOT THAT GREAT. The self-help industry tells you that if you're positive, if you put your best foot forward and if you just believe in yourself that you will find happiness. Let's be real, you can read all the inspirational quotes you want. You can spend your days giving yourself affirmations in your heart-shaped mirror and trying to learn to love yourself. You can say your mantra over and over again while sitting cross-legged on a yoga mat in a Whole Foods parking lot. But the truth is, you're not a badass and you still don't have the life you want. That's where You're Not That Great (but neither is anyone else) comes in. This book teaches you how to harness all the negativity in the world and use it to improve your life, taking everyday feelings like self-loathing, regret and shame and making them work for you. Positive thinking is for assholes. Negative thinking is for winners.

A collection of essays, which provide a comprehensive picture of how and why the genre of reality television emerged, what it means, how it differs from earlier television programming, and how it engages societies, industries, and individuals.

Millions know Emily Maynard Johnson from her appearances on both The Bachelor and The Bachelorette. At the end of a long, fruitless search for a husband, Emily found that waiting right in front of her all along was the truest love of all: the unconditional love of the Lord. Overcome with embarrassment following her nationally televised heartbreaks, Emily finally committed herself to the only one she knew would never leave her empty and alone. Abandoning her need to be chosen by men and finding peace in the fact that she was already chosen by God, Emily found the joy she had been looking for in serving God. I Said Yes chronicles Emily's experiences on both The Bachelor and The Bachelorette and the way that God turned her life upside down through the knowledge and acceptance of His true love. As Emily sheds light on her life as a believer in the spotlight, she teaches us: How to embrace the gift of true redemption What it means to fully surrender your heart to God How to say yes to God's ways, God's love, and God's timing In I Said Yes, Emily tells the story of her life before and after reality TV fame, describing the profound new reality she discovered when she traded fame in favor of the Lord--and to that unconditional love, Emily said yes.

Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings: They were on a first-name basis with the country for a generation, leading viewers through moments of triumph and tragedy. But now that a new generation has succeeded them, the once-glittering job of network anchor seems unmistakably tarnished. In an age of instantaneous Internet news, cable echo chambers and iPod downloads, who really needs the evening news? And, by extension, who needs Katie Couric, Brian Williams, and Charlie Gibson? But the anchors still have a megaphone capable of cutting through the media static. Their coverage of Iraq helped turn the country against that bloody war, and they are now playing a leading role in chronicling the collapse of George Bush's presidency and the 2008 race to succeed him. Yet, even as the anchors fight for ratings supremacy, the mega-corporations they work for have handed them a bigger challenge: saving an American institution. In this freewheeling, intimate account of life atop the media pyramid, award-winning bestselling author Howard Kurtz takes us inside the newsrooms and executive suites of CBS, NBC, and ABC, capturing the deadline judgments, image-making, jealousies, and gossip of this high-pressure business. Whether it is Couric trying to regain her morning magic while coping with tabloid stories about her boyfriends, Williams reporting from New Orleans and Baghdad while worrying about his ailing father, or Gibson weighing whether to follow his wife into retirement while grappling with having to report the explicit details of sex scandals, Kurtz brings to life the daily battles that define their lives. The narrative reflects an extraordinary degree of access to such corporate chieftains as Jeff Zucker and Les Moonves, star correspondents, and the anchors themselves. Their goal: create an on-screen persona that people will tune in to and trust. Yet they are faced with a graying, shrinking audience as younger viewers flock to Jon Stewart, whose influence on the real newscasts is palpable. Here is the untold story of what these journalistic celebrities think of their bosses, cable competitors, bloggers, and each other.