New books tackle immigrant experience, Philip Roth, how ‘Sesame Street’ came to be

David Kamp, a writer for Vanity Fair magazine, is winning raves for his new book looking at the creative minds behind the 1970s era golden age of children’s television. | Provided

Here’s the lowdown on some of the latest must-read new books.

‘Sunny Days’ by David Kamp

Simon & Schuster, nonfiction, $27.50

What it’s about: Subtitled “The Children’s Television Revolution that Changed America,” the book by David Kamp, author of the bestselling “The United States of Arugula,” writes about the people who in the 1970s created beloved kids TV shows including “Sesame Street,” “The Electric Company,” “Schoolhouse Rock,” “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” “Zoom” and “Free to Be . . . You and Me.”

The buzz: Full of “nostalgic jolts for readers who grew up in those years,” The Wall Street Journal writes. “The book doesn’t paint a full picture of what happened, or what it all meant, but it makes the era a pleasure to revisit.”

Click to read or hear an audio excerpt from “Sunny Days” by David Kamp.

‘Brown Album: Essays on Exile and Identity’ by Porochista Khakpour

Vintage, nonfiction, $16

What it’s about: In a stirring collection of essays, Porochista Khakpour explores her life as a writer and her American experience as an Iranian immigrant.

The buzz: “Lovers of the essay and those interested in immigrant literature will be particularly delighted, but any reader can enjoy Khakpour’s passionate and enlightening work,” Publishers Weekly writes.

Porochista Khakpour’s “Brown Album: Essays on Exile and Identity.”

‘Here We Are: My Friendship with Philip Roth’ by Benjamin Taylor

Penguin Books, nonfiction, $26

What it’s about: Benjamin Taylor — best friend and confidant of Philip Roth — was at his side when the best-selling author died of congestive heart failure in 2018 at 85. Now, Taylor, a noted author himself, is out with a moving memoir of what it was like to be an intimate of one of the towering figures of 20th century American literature in a book that’s an ode to the power of friendship.

The buzz: “In eight lyrical chapters, Taylor moves back and forth in time, presenting a series of vignettes and remembered conversations that offer an unvarnished view of a brilliant, driven man who was controversial almost from the start of his career, largely for his portrayal of his fellow Jews and women,” The Associated Press writes.

Click here for an excerpt from Benjamin Taylor’s “Here We Are: My Friendship with Philip Roth.”