"the Sopranos"

Show creator David Chase, director Martin Bruestle, and executive producer Brad Grey are credited with this rich, cross-genre, multigenerational collection, but they tellingly thank a few score others. The contributions from usual suspect vets like Frank Sinatra, Dylan, Elvis Costello, Otis Redding, Van Morrison, the Kinks, Keith Richards (and the Stones), the Pretenders, and Ben E. King contain more than their fair share of musical and contextual surprises. But the collection's true appeal lies in its artistically oblique corners, which somehow embrace alt-rock (R&B tinged and straight up, courtesy of Pigeonhed and Cake, respectively), nouveau Aussie country (Kasey Chambers), traditional gospel and swampy blues (the Campbell Brothers with Katie Jackson, R.L. Burnside), Vivaldi (Cecilia Di Bartoli), and contemporary Neopolitan pop (Madreblu, Lorenzo Jovanotti). Even budding star Uncle Junior chimes in, with Dominic "Goldenthroat" Chianese lending a spare, heartfelt rendition of the traditional "Core'ngrato"; hang onto your kneecaps, 'N Sync!

(If You Like). The best-loved crime family in America is just part of a grand tradition of mob movies, gangster flicks, great television dramas, and a sensibility that is part Sicily and part New Jersey. If You Like the Sopranos… is the first book that starts with Tony and the gang in their humble homes in the Garden State and explores the astonishing amount of great films, TV shows, and other pop-culture wonders that any fan of the Sopranos will love.

On January 10, 1999, a mobster walked into a psychiatrist’s office and changed TV history. By shattering preconceptions about the kinds of stories the medium should tell, The Sopranoslaunched our current age of prestige television, paving the way for such giants as Mad Men, The Wire, Breaking Bad, and Game of Thrones. As TV critics for Tony Soprano’s hometown paper, New Jersey’s The Star-Ledger, Alan Sepinwall and Matt Zoller Seitz were among the first to write about the series before it became a cultural phenomenon.