1967 · Ira Levin · 245 pages · Horror
Rosemary's Baby is a masterclass in paranoia, a novel that traps its protagonist inside a conspiracy she can't prove and a pregnancy she can't trust. Levin's genius was making the horror domestic and intimate, turning the experience of a young wife being dismissed and controlled into something genuinely terrifying. It's short, relentless, and hasn't lost a step.
2010 · Patti Smith · 304 pages · Memoir
Patti Smith's memoir of her years with Robert Mapplethorpe is a love story, an artist's origin story, and a portrait of a vanished New York all at once. Her prose has the same directness and rhythm as her music, and her account of two young people making art out of nothing in late-1960s Manhattan is both specific and universal. The book's narrow focus means it says little about Smith's later career or her life beyond Mapplethorpe's orbit, and some readers wish she'd gone deeper into the darker periods rather than maintaining a tone of tender remembrance throughout. But as a memoir about the making of an artist, and the particular bond between two people who helped each other become who they were, it's uncommonly beautiful.
2014 · 5 Seasons · Comedy Central · Comedy
Broad City turned two broke best friends stumbling through New York into one of the defining comedies of its generation, powered by the rare on-screen chemistry between its creators and a willingness to be both fearlessly gross and surprisingly tender.