Brian Abrams is the author of "You Talkin' to Me?”: The Definitive Guide to Iconic Movie Quotes and many best-selling oral histories, tackling the subjects of Late Night with David Letterman, Gawker, Die Hard, and the Obama presidency. Upon publication of his first book, Party Like a President: True Tales of Inebriation, Lechery, and Mischief from the Oval Office, he was dubbed “the Ken Burns of presidential alcoholism.”
His most recent book, "You Talkin' to Me?”, is an endlessly fascinating examination of classic Hollywood dialogue from “Here’s looking at you, kid” to “I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse” to “Bye, Felisha.” Upon the second week of release, CNN’s resident Die Hard fanatic Jake Tapper discussed the book at length in a news segment that soared the title to the top of Amazon’s best-selling charts. In a matter of hours, the online juggernaut literally ran out of stock! Fortunately, those shelves have since been replenished. You can buy several copies of your very own here.
Previously, Brian wrote Obama: An Oral History, 2009–2017 and the best-selling Kindle Singles AND NOW...An Oral History of "Late Night With David Letterman," 1982–1993, Gawker: An Oral History, and Die Hard: An Oral History. His first book, Party Like a President, was featured on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and NPR: Morning Edition.
The New York Times Book Review recognized Obama as the first oral history of its kind, a colossal undertaking that spans an entire presidency. The book was unauthorized—as were all of Brian’s oral histories—meaning that zero sources had been cultivated before beginning each grand narrative. They required an approach from the outside in: to get participants on record one by one, and speaking to dozens upon dozens of individuals in their orbit. Such persistence was learned at an early age, e.g. when the author was eight years old and refused to let Mel Brooks work in peace.
Having spent years covering the cultural apocalypse while in the mines of digital media, Brian is classically trained in identifying hot content and understanding the angles to make those stories fly. He ran audience-development programs for media giants such as Dennis Publishing and MTV. For four years at the satirical quarterly Heeb Magazine, he produced tongue-in-cheek ad campaigns, wrangled celebrities such as Jonah Hill and Roseanne Barr for headline-grabbing photo shoots, and managed live events in multiple cities.
Brian was also editor in chief of SpinMedia’s politics site Death and Taxes Magazine and before then served as BuzzFeed’s first-ever weekend editor. He has written for the Washington Post Magazine, Time, Fangoria, High Times, and the Lowbrow Reader.
He lives in New York City and spends far too much time on Letterboxd.