The Media Tourist

Behind the scenes of morning television & its personalities

Top of the Morning

By Brian Stelter

Hardcover, 312 pages ($28 / Grand Central Publishing)

Your wake-up coffee will taste a bit zestier if you sip it while reading this riveting, revealing rundown of the high-stakes world of morning television, which digs into the vicious rivalry between Good Morning America and Today, the behind-the-scenes, career-shuffling upheavals at the competing networks, and an examination of the surreal connection between audiences and the “news personalities” they invite into their homes to start every weekday morning.

—Neil Pond, American Profile Magazine

Sandra Boynton goes from greeting cards to honky tonks

Frog Trouble

By Sandra Boynton

Hardcover, 66 pages ($16.95 / Workman)

Boynton takes a break from her signature line of best-selling greeting cards, children’s book and plush toys to go honky-tonkin’ with this combo storybook and CD of songs (all of which she wrote or co-wrote) about flying pigs, junkyard dogs, troublesome frogs, loveable trucks, broken hearts, beautiful babies and other twang-worthy topics. With an all-star assist from country music’s Brad Paisley, Allison Krauss, Darius Rucker, Dwight Yoakum, Kacey Musgraves and others, music and lyrics for each tune, and info and photos on each of the artists who contributed, it’ll get both kids and grownups hoppin’ and boppin’.

—Neil Pond, American Profile Magazine

Poignant collection pays tribute to events, heroes & victims of 9/11

The Stories They Tell

By Clifford Chanin & Alice M. Greenwald

Softcover, $19.95 (Skira Rizzoli Publishing)

With a foreword by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and subtitled “a journey of remembrance,” this poignant, powerful collection of photos of artifacts and exhibits from the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, each with accompanying information from the curators about its origin and why it was chosen, honors the events, victims, heroes and emotions of the day in 2001 that changed America forever.

—Neil  Pond, American Profile Magazine