INTRODUCTION

There are a lot of things going on in this book. There are words, there are numbers, there are lists, there are illustrations, and there are probabably some typoos, too, but there is also, beneath and above all that, a genuine desire to turn readers on (. . . keep reading) to exciting new things and underappreciated old things and to make entertainment edifying. But before beginning, I wanted to take a moment to explain where this book came from, what it’s meant for, and where it falls on the Arbitrary Spectrum. Why? Because a book without an introduction is like a movie without an overture—and I miss overtures in movies. So without further ado or explanation, I give you the first of many top ten lists . . .

THE TOP TEN THINGS TO BEAR IN MIND WHEN READING THIS BOOK

Things are a lot less fun when you feel terrible after they are over (cf. Mardi Gras, warfare, New Year’s Eve, and celebratory cigars on all occasions). That’s the problem with a lot of pop culture: It goes down way too easy, and four seasons of Real Housewives later, you wonder where your humanity ran off to and why it has your credit cards. The lists in this book are organized into five different self-improvement categories—”Be More Interesting,” “Get Smart(er),” “Stop Doing It Wrong,” Find Happiness,” and “Survive the Holidays.” Not every item in every list is equally instructive, but there really is a lot of value in the things that entertain us, and sometimes, by just paying attention to that fact, we can remove a lot of the guilt from our “guilty pleasures.” Not always, Top Gun, but sometimes.

I’m serious! This is the way I, for one, actually relate to pop culture. I have a very hard time enjoying a book or a movie unless I feel it’s in the service of some greater good— sounding informed, for example, or feeling better about myself, or actually learning something new. And with a little planning and ambition, I am convinced that pop culture can lead to a more fulfilling existence. But even if this were not my real belief— even if this were a giddy contrivance—it would still have some value here; because if you can find a way to connect ten different pop-cultural phenomena under a single coherent category—no matter what that category may be—then even the most debased of those ten items will gain something by its connection to everything else. That’s the theory, anyway. (This theory brought to you by The Weakest Link.)

Very arbitrary! This is a book of “top ten” lists in the most literal sense only. Each of the 40+ lists included here begins with the number ten and ends at the number one, but the order of the entries is 96 percent arbitrary at least 50 percent of the time. The point here isn’t to dictate what the best revenge movie is or what the most magical fantasy landscape may be, but rather to consolidate and organize the best, most popular, and most exciting stuff from pop culture.

Ten is a totally arbitrary number that’s nicely round. It’s big enough to let some fun outliers in, and yet not so big that the lists lose their coherence. Ten is a starting point and nothing more. (Ten is also net spelled backwards. For what it’s worth.)

The rules aren’t arbitrary at all, because there are no rules. If something is good and it’s relevant to a list that I thought had some merit, then I tried to include it. If that something was first a book but was then turned into a movie that was then further adapted into a video game (like, say, The Great Gatsby), then I tried to either pick the best of all these versions or, short of that, pick the shortest and most consumable iteration. If you feel like there are things that should be in these lists but aren’t, perhaps you are a gumshoe. Or some other more modern form of detective. I don’t know, but whatever the case, you definitely have a nose for the truth, and I could not agree with you more. A surprising amount of material was left on the cutting room floor. But everything that is in here is intended as a sincere recommendation (with the single exception of item ^#4 in the “Sleep with the Fishes” list).

The answer to almost every question is, of course, “the internet.” I am aware of this, but the fact remains that, with a very few exceptions (A.V. Club’s “Inventory” series, for instance, or the Criterion Collection’s “Top 10s”), most lists and recommendations on the internet are pretty unsurprising. In December you get the Christmas movie lists, on Valentine’s Day you get the romantic movies lists, and on every other day of the year you see the same basic set of books, movies, games, and songs, no matter where you read your news. Some of the titles may change, but it’s hard to find anything that’s really going to open your eyes.

For me, this phenomenon became most frustrating when I was looking for a few new movies to add to my annual Christmas movie marathon party (a twelve-hour “party” which, according to tradition, only I am able to enjoy). It was almost impossible to find any list that went much further than all the old standards and a few new staples. The fact that it was so hard to search for Christmas movies that went beyond the classics was, on the one hand, frustrating, but on the other hand, kind of exciting. Because there are a lot of great movies about snow and dysfunctional families—so where was that list!? That is Christmas! And what’s true for Christmas is doubly or triply true for Mother’s Day, for instance.

I wanted to write a book of lists that took recognizable occasions (like holidays) and genres (like historical fiction, say, or survival books) and offered some new ideas. I relied heavily on said internet in order to populate these lists with relevant entertainment options, but my goal was always to create lists that would resonate with people, but which the internet would not be able to populate on demand.

“I” am a guy who grew up craving pop culture but consuming very little of it. I read a lot as a young person, but most of what I read was written by the white and the dead—and not in a fun, zombie way. Luckily, I was also sick a lot, and in the course of my sick days, I got sick unto death of entertainment that was not actually entertaining. At the time (pre-Google), I was at a loss. But then I realized that someone at my local library cared enough to get old movies that were actually good, and I was officially back in business. From curated library collections I moved on to curated internet recommendations and podcast endorsements, and although I don’t have any shortage of recommendations these days, I still feel like the more lists there are, the better. Especially if they’re even just a little bit different. (I use the word “different” here in both the complimentary and the insulting sense.)

“I” has a tendency to be kind of intrusive in nonfiction books, so I tried to keep me out of it for the most part. I pop up when occasion demands, but the recommendations included here are not just things that I like. In fact, very few of the books on my shelves or the movies in my Netflix history even appear in this book. I have consumed at least some significant part of every item included in this book, and I heartily recommend them all, but I also made sure that I was not the only one who was a fan. I used online review forums, the advice of friends, and, of course, any number of canonical lists—from IMDB’s Top 250 to Rolling Stone’s Top 500 to the Modern Library’s top 100 novels list—to ensure that this wasn’t simply a listing of things that I had once crushed on in the privacy of my own home. Because that list would be embarrassing in the extreme.

By “pop culture,” I mean whatever is convenient for me at any given time. We know it when we see it, so I don’t see much benefit in worrying about it. There’s some very high culture in here and some very low culture, too, but basically what I’m going for, with every item in every list, is something that people can reasonably expect to consume for fun.

Once upon a time, before discs began popping out to us from mailboxes and before videos came streaming into our homes through internet tubes, we had to rely on actual, physical stores. And since these stores had limited space—and since Block-buster had all the new releases on lockdown—the mom and pops of the world had two ways of keeping their customers interested: They could either carefully curate their collections and rotate their titles into and out of different categories (“Flemish Neo-Noirs,” “Musical Westerns,” and “ALF-inspired Space Comedies,” for instance), or they could just say to hell with it and let the movies fall into a general state of chaos.

Curation is great, but there’s still an order to it; only in the chaos shops did you feel that anything was possible. It wasn’t like the good movies were over here and the bad movies were over there and the rated x movies were behind that curtain; instead, everything was everywhere, so you really had to look. Nothing could be dismissed out of hand. Hopefully this book can be read in the same way that those old video stores were browsed. Hopefully you can open up to any page and find something of interest. (Or, short of that, at least something to laugh at.)

Where? Oh, just all manner of places. Just all manner. If there is a bookshelf or a computer or a television or even a smartphone available, then this book should come in very handy indeed. So I guess the real question is, where does it not come in handy? Aha! That list is much shorter: in space (especially when plummeting through it), under water (unless in a submarine vehicle of some kind), in any kind of vehicle, whether sub- or super-marine (because focus on the road!), and in the future when the machines turn against us.

When? Well, my hope is that this book will have something to offer whether you’re looking for a new recommendation or just hoping for a new take on an old favorite. My hope is that if you haven’t heard of the given thing before, that you’ll want to check it out, and that if you have, then you’ll want to check it out again.

Approximately zero. But now that it’s over, I hope you enjoy the book! (Also, “bear in mind” is a terrifying phrase.)