In 1997, Emily Nussbaum was a PhD student at NYU, studying literature and "foggily planning on becoming a professor," when an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer changed her life.

At the turn of this century, television was still considered unserious, "a disposable product, like a Dixie Cup," Nussbaum writes. It was also bad for you — in "the much-quoted (although possibly apocryphal) words of nineties comic Bill Hicks," it was "a spiritually harmful act, like 'taking black spray paint to your third eye.'"

El Salvador's new president ran his campaign largely on social media and his first actions as president have been made through tweets. His supporters love it. His detractors describe it as autocratic.

Claire Lombardo's The Most Fun We Ever Had probably won't be the most fun you'll ever have (I hope not, for your sake), but it's a wonderfully immersive read that packs more heart and heft than most first novels. Lombardo, a Chicago native and recently minted University of Iowa MFA graduate, has crafted an intricate multigenerational saga about the vicissitudes of a passionate but not perfect marriage over a 40-year span.