Everything I Need to Know I Learned in the Twilight Zone

Now with important life lessons from the Jordan Peele reboot, the earlier TV reboot, and the 1983 movie. Can you live your life by what The Twilight Zone has to teach you? Yes, and maybe you should. The proof is in this lighthearted collection of life lessons, ground rules, inspirational thoughts, and stirring reminders found in Rod Serling’s timeless fantasy series. The notion that “it’s never too late to reinvent yourself” soars through “The Last Flight,’’ in which a World War I flier goes forward in time and gets the chance to trade cowardice for heroism. A visit from an angel blares out the wisdom of “follow your passion” in “A Passage for Trumpet.” The meaning of “divided we fall” is driven home with dramatic results when neighbors suspect neighbors of being invading aliens in “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street.” The old maxim about never judging a book by its cover is given a tasty twist when an alien tome is translated in “To Serve Man.”An unauthorized tribute, Everything I Need to Know I Learned in the Twilight Zone, written by veteran TV critic Mark Dawidziak, is a celebration of the classic anthology show; but also, on another level, a kind of fifth-dimension self-help book, with each lesson supported by the morality tales told by Serling and his writers.

USA Today

"Many of the chapter lessons may be familiar ― "Count Your Blessings," "Don’t Live in the Past," "Be Your Own Person" ― but they are accompanied by engaging episodic parables from the five-season series, whose stories of fantasy and science-fiction, mostly dramatic but often leavened with humor, still wear well today."

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"For 'The Twilight Zone' fans, 'Everything I Need to Know' is an absolute treasure trove of bite-sized analyses of favorite episodes and situations."

Newsday

"[An] illuminating book."

About the Author

Mark Dawidziak is the author or editor of about 25 books, including three studies of landmark television series: The Columbo Phile: A Casebook, The Night Stalker Companion and Everything I Need to Know I Learned in The Twilight Zone, his lighthearted 2017 tribute to Rod Serling’s classic anthology series. He also is an internationally recognized Mark Twain scholar, and five of his books are about the iconic American writer. He spent 43 years as a television, film and theater critic at such newspapers as the Akron Beacon Journal and the Cleveland Plain Dealer. His work on the horror side of the street also includes the novel Grave Secrets, The Bedside, Bathtub & Armchair Companion to Dracula, short stories, and comic book scripts. He lives in Ohio.

Reviews

News