As part of the Blue Hill Public Library's annual Robert K. and Linda B. Slaven lecture series, all are invited to a talk with author and television critic Emily Nussbaum for her book Cue the Sun! The Invention of Reality TV, an ambitious cultural history of America’s most influential and divisive artistic phenomenon, on Thursday, August 14 at 7:00PM in the library's Howard Room.

Who invented reality television, the world’s most dangerous pop-culture genre? And why can’t we look away? In this revelatory, deeply reported account of the rise of “dirty documentary”—from its contentious roots in radio to the ascent of Donald Trump—Emily Nussbaum unearths the origin story of the genre that ate the world, as told through the lively voices of the people who built it. At once gimlet-eyed and empathetic, Cue the Sun! explores the morally charged, funny, and sometimes tragic consequences of the hunt for something real inside something fake.

Emily Nussbaum is a staff writer for The New Yorker, and previously, was the magazine's television critic. She worked as an editor and a writer at New York Magazine, where she created The Approval Matrix. She's also written for Slate, The New York Times, Lingua Franca and Nerve, among other publications. In 2016, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. She is the author of I Like to Watch: Arguing My Way Through the TV Revolution, which was a finalist for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay.  She doesn't have a favorite television show, but under pressure, she'll choose "Slings and Arrows."

The Robert K. & Linda B. Slaven Lecture Series seeks to bring distinguished speakers with expertise in a wide array of subjects to Blue Hill to share their knowledge on topics of importance to the community and the world. It is supported by a generous gift from the Anahata Foundation. This program is free and open to the public. For more information, please contact Assistant Director Kayleigh Thomas at kayleigh.thomas@bhpl.net or call the library at 374-5515. Blue Hill Books will be onsite with copies of the book available for purchase.