Blog Tour : Super Pop!: Pop Culture Top Ten Lists to Help You Win at Trivia, Survive in the Wild, and Make It Through the Holidays by Daniel Harmon (Review -Plus awesome Giveaways)

 Book Description:

Super-Pop offers a maximum-pleasure, minimum-effort way to become smarter, happier, and more likely to survive your next family function (or a shark attack). This hilarious and wide-ranging guide sorts nearly 500 different bestsellers, blockbusters, and underappreciated gems into quirky top ten lists, like “Outwit Death: Essential Lessons in Survival,” and “Achieve Mindfulness: Movies That Will Show You the Way (With Wise Elders Now Included).”  So whether you’re looking for some motivational workout music, need help planning a July 4th double feature, or just want to pick up some knowledge without straining your brain, this book has you covered. With new insights on old classics and fresh ideas for jaded eyes, Super Pop makes sense of pop culture – and then puts pop culture back to work.

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Seth Fishman

Interview:

1. Give us 3 interesting facts about you.

1) Every year, for the past five years, I’vehosted a Christmas movie marathon party that includes, on average, five feature length films and seven to ten shorts. It is, objectively speaking, the best day of the year. (I am also, as a rule, the only one who enjoys it.)

2) I cannot play the ukulele.

3) My feet are the hottest feet in the world, all the time. I have to sleep in socks because otherwise the bed gets too hot. (My feet are my enemy; they are winning the war.)

2. Describe your book in two sentences.

Super Pop! is basically an attempt to sort some 500 different pop culture recommendations into top ten lists that (ideally) make you think, make you laugh, and make a basic kind of sense. The lists in the book are organized according to five different self-improvement themes as well, because I really do think that, with the right outlook, even our guilty pleasures have the power to make us better people.

3 What inspired you to write this book?

I’m glad you asked! I’m a huge fan of the pop culture podcasts at Slate (the “Culture Gabfest”) and NPR  (“Pop Culture Happy Hour”)—and one of the great things about both of those shows are the very personal recommendations that the hosts provide at the end of each episode. Since these shows generally try to cover timely topics as a group, the recommendations tend to be the kind of things that otherwise you wouldn’t ever hear about: so things like an old book they just rediscovered, or a small art exhibit they saw, or a band that hasn’t quite made it yet. As a result, these recommendations have the power to expand horizons and bring some new attention to things that otherwise have sort of fallen by the wayside. That’s a great service—and it’s something that’s otherwise in pretty short supply.

Most people (myself included) get their movie recommendations from Netflix and their book advice from friends, and I wrote this book do my own small part in helping readers use the things they already know about and love to find the things they want to love but haven’t really heard about yet.

That’s the long answer. The short answer is: Because I wanted to tell people to stream Tell No One, read Deliverance, download the “Hang up and Listen” podcast, and go watch Beyonce’s “Countdown” video again. 

4. Book/s you look forward to read this year?

It usually takes me a few months to get into the latest releases, so I probably won’t read any of the big 2013 books until next year. But as soon as Gillian Flynn’s next book comes out, I’m going to take it on vacation with me; as soon as David Mitchell’s next book comes out, I’ll take it everywhere I go until it’s finished; and as soon as I finish The Year of the Flood I’ll buy Margaret Atwood’s finale in the Oryx and Crake trilogy, Maddadam.

5. Favorite Starbucks drink? (If a coffee drinker)

I drink coffee the way someone dying of thirst drinks water, so a twenty oz. regular coffee is my standard order.

And just for the record, in America, this is not abnormal; but in Spain – where I went on my honeymoon last year – it is deeply not normal. After weeks subsisting on micro-cups of espresso, my wife and I both ordered ventis/twenties at a Starbucks in Madrid. The guy at the cashier told us it would be a few minutes while he (a) located the regular coffee beans and (b) actually ground and brewed these beans into hot caffeine water. Then he turned around to a co-worker and whispered, clearly in horror: “No, seriously. Forty ounces of coffee.” 

(The best forty ounces of coffee we have ever had. For the first time in a week, I was awake.)

Check out the Tour Schedule here

My thoughts:

I saw Super Pop on Zest Books' website and was fascinated. I find it unique and interesting. The topics such as: Be More Interesting, Get Smarter and Survive the Holidays gave me heaps of excitement. It’s not an ordinary book! If you want a break from long novels then you will like this.

The content of the book is hefty with cool information. There are numbers, illustrations and lists that will wiggle you neurons. Also, there are no dull moments; every page has humor, facts and tips that will surely help you “Get Smarter” or “Achieve Mindfulness”.

The humor is A+. I had many good laughs while reading Super Pop; I even highlighted my favorite comebacks from various pages. The book is also informative. It will amplify your knowledge about movies, music, television shows and many more.

Overall, Super Pop is such a fun read! I recommend this book to everyone, even for non-book worms. From old movies to The Kardashians, this book is for all ages.

I give this 4.5 POP Whales!