Seinfeldia by Jennifer Keishin Armstrong

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Seinfeldia: How A Show About Nothing Changed Everything
Seinfeldia: How A Show About Nothing Changed Everything
Author: Jennifer Keishin Armstrong
ISBN-13: 9781476756103
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Guideline Price: £16.99

Seinfeld, perhaps the best ever "show about nothing", ran from 1989 to 1998, in which time it surveyed low talkers, parking spaces, scofflaws and soup, with a group of four narcissistic, selfish misfits as brilliantly funny as they were quotable. This book is a forensic analysis of the show's evolution, how it came about through the riffing friendship of Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld in a Korean deli, and how it changed the face of US comedy. It is a treasury of details, such as how Stanley Kubrick was a big fan and how, in Seinfeld's words, "the show spiralled off into this whole other entity that I knew I had to serve because it had its own desire to be something". This book is a fitting testament to that desire and to the show's influence on work from The Sopranos to 30 Rock.

Siobhán Kane

Siobhán Kane is a contributor to The Irish Times specialising in culture