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I love The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, but I might like books about Douglas Adams and H2G2 even more. During a teenage obsession with the series, I read a stack of Douglas Adams biographies, along with the H2G2 radio scripts. They say don’t meet your heroes, but learning more about the author made me love the series even more. (RIP, Douglas Adams.)
That’s why task #7 of the 2025 Read Harder Challenge is “Read a book about a piece of media you love (a TV show, a movie, a band, etc).” Doing a deep dive into media you already enjoy can help you appreciate it even more. And let’s be honest, it’s fun to geek out every once in a while and immerse yourself in your interests.
There are so many options for this task. You can go narrow, looking at a specific movie or album, or you can interpret it more broadly to learn about a genre you love. Feel free to pick up a memoir or biography of an author or creator whose work you enjoy—that definitely counts. To keep this from just being a list of Douglas Adams biographies, I reached out to Book Riot writers and staff for their recommendations, and I ended up with more than I could write about here, but I included a bonus list of even more at the end.
From podcasts to movies to bands and more, here are seven books celebrating our favorite media…plus nine more bonus recommendations.
Slayers, Every One of Us: How One Girl in All the World Showed Us How to Hold On by Kristin Russo and Jenny Owen Youngs (April 8)
Personally, this is the book I’ll be completing task #7 with, because it’s two pieces of media I love in one: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the TV show) and Buffering the Vampire Slayer (the podcast). In this joint memoir, Kristin Russo and Jenny Owen Youngs talk about the lessons they learned from Buffy while doing their podcast together. They also discuss the challenges of doing the podcast while they were going through a very public divorce (from each other). It’s about chosen family, queer love, and—of course—our favorite vampire slayer.
She Begat This: 20 Years of the Miseducation of Lauryn Hill by Joan Morgan
In third grade, I memorized this entire album. Did I understand most of it? Nah. Did it contribute to my identity as a feminist? Probably. Can I still sing and rap it all by heart? Sadly no, but I’m working on it. Lauryn Hill’s solo debut blew everyone away because of its incisive and hard-hitting lyrics, paved the way for other female rappers, and surprised the music industry with its economic, popular, and critical success (ten Grammy nominations! Five wins!). This history, analysis, and celebration of Hill’s groundbreaking album is a great entry point for younger listeners who haven’t heard it yet and a fun throwback or second look for those who haven’t listened for awhile. —Sarah Hannah Gómez
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