My Mad Men Reading List

Lately, most of my days have been spent working, apartment hunting, and marathoning Mad Men on Netflix. The show has me obsessed with all things 1960's. When I wrapped up Season 5, I immediately became sad that I cannot readily watch Season 6, so I gathered a list of books that could keep me in the world of Mad Men. It was also a really good excuse to get some non-fiction books about advertising and marketing, which was my minor in school.

1) Lovely Me: The Life of Jacqueline Susann by Barbara Seaman : I shamelessly love Jacqueline Susann and her scandalous (for the time) novels that are filled with drama and men who steer clear of commitment. She's had a life close to the lives of the women in her books, so I needed to get her biography.
2) The Age of Persuasion by Terry O'Reilly : I've always been interested in how advertising influences and shapes our society, and this book is just about that.
3) The Receptionist by Janet Groth : A reminder of Peggy Olson's humble beginnings as Don Draper's secretary. Except in this memoir, Janet Groth was a receptionist at the New Yorker. Surely like the girls at SCDP, she has witnessed her fair share of scandals and love affairs.
4) Reborn: Journals by Susan Sontag : These journals of Susan take us through the 50's and the beginning of the 60's as she came to her own in New York City.
5) Rabbit, Run by John Updike : The first in a series, Harry 'Rabbit' Angstrom is trying to escape the constraints of daily life and deserts his wife and children. Sound like anyone? Basically every male character on Mad Men.
6) Summer Crossing by Truman Capote : A dangerous romance? Socialites? Truman Capote? Three key-terms to get me to pick up a book.
7) The Best of Everything by Rona Jaffe : Another scandalous for it's time read. A tale of five young women working in a publishing company with dreams outside of the typing pool.
8) The Graduate by Charles Webb : The book that inspired the Dustin Hoffman movie...and also full of inappropriate, yet saucy, affairs.
9) From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Harbor by Jerry Della Femina : Jerry Della Femina was head of his own advertising agency and actually called a 'Madman on Madison Avenue.' I've heard that this book is a hilarious and true-to-life look inside of an advertising agency back in the day.
10) Mad Women by Jane Maas : We get a good look at all of the men at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, but not too much of the ladies with exception to Peggy and Joan. Jane, like Peggy, was a copywriter at David Ogilvy, and writes this funny and sassy memoir-like perspective on being a woman in the Mad Men advertising age. I started this book already, and it's fascinating to read about the inequalities, work, and home life of a working woman in the 60's.

So that's it! Have you ever read books to stay attached to a television show?