Brian Abrams is an author of books and long-form nonfiction who posts the occasional TikTok and, lucky you, resurfaces in the podcast world from time to time.
He has written "You Talkin' to Me?": The Definitive Guide to Iconic Movie Quotes and four best-selling oral histories, tackling the subjects of Late Night with David Letterman, Gawker, Die Hard, and the Obama presidency.
His most recent book, "You Talkin' to Me?”, is an obsessive investigation into classic Hollywood dialogue—from “Here’s looking at you, kid” and “I’ll have what she’s having” to “Always do the right thing” and “Nooooo! Wiiiiiire! HANGERRRRRRRS!” Upon release, Jake Tapper discussed the title at length in a CNN segment that helped propel it to the top of Amazon’s best-seller charts. “For those master screenwriters whose lines from their scripts are remembered forever,” Tapper observed, “perhaps such immortality is its own reward. But, if not, maybe Brian’s book will help.”
He has written "You Talkin' to Me?": The Definitive Guide to Iconic Movie Quotes and four best-selling oral histories, tackling the subjects of Late Night with David Letterman, Gawker, Die Hard, and the Obama presidency.
His most recent book, "You Talkin' to Me?”, is an obsessive investigation into classic Hollywood dialogue—from “Here’s looking at you, kid” and “I’ll have what she’s having” to “Always do the right thing” and “Nooooo! Wiiiiiire! HANGERRRRRRRS!” Upon release, Jake Tapper discussed the title at length in a CNN segment that helped propel it to the top of Amazon’s best-seller charts. “For those master screenwriters whose lines from their scripts are remembered forever,” Tapper observed, “perhaps such immortality is its own reward. But, if not, maybe Brian’s book will help.”
Portrait of the author in his youth, probably sending fan mail to Ernest Borgnine.
Abrams also assembled four oral histories that each drew outsized attention: three deeply reported accounts of pop-culture institutions and one chronicling a modern political era. All were unauthorized projects, requiring an outside-in approach to secure on-the-record interviews with participants one by one and build enough critical mass that even the most insulated figures eventually agreed to speak.
In 2014, AND NOW… An Oral History of “Late Night with David Letterman,” 1982–1993 held the number-one spot on the Kindle Singles best-seller list for eight weeks, garnering broad interest for its deep dive into the ironic late-night show that kept viewers up well past their bedtimes.
Similarly, in 2015, Gawker: An Oral History amassed all the delicious bits of gossip and lore behind Manhattan’s first commercially successful blog network. Long before algorithmic feeds fractured the internet into countless niches, a more centralized digital culture was narrated and curated by the whip-smart, deeply dysfunctional writers working under Nick Denton’s tabloid vision.
The following year, Die Hard: An Oral History offered the first in-depth examination of the unlikely blockbuster that helped redefine the action genre—and revealed the internal negotiations over Bruce Willis’s unprecedented $5 million fee, a deal that permanently altered Hollywood’s financial ecosystem.
Then, in 2018, Obama: An Oral History, 2009–2017 arrived amid renewed public interest in political publishing after the stunning election of Donald Trump. The New York Times Book Review recognized Obama as the first oral history of its kind—a colossal undertaking that spans an entire presidency and features a number of insider revelations, including senior advisor David Plouffe’s admission of deliberately “lifting up Trump” as an opposition figure during the 2012 cycle.
More recently, Abrams has taken his masochism public as co-host of It Gets Better!, a movie podcast in which his friend Liz Charboneau attempts to cure his devotion to esoteric Euro-trash cinema by forcing him to binge aggressively mainstream franchises like the Twilight saga. He grumbles through each installment; she clings to hope.
In a previous life, Abrams was editor in chief of SpinMedia’s politics site Death and Taxes Magazine, and before that BuzzFeed’s first-ever weekend editor. In 2015, upon publication of his debut 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.”
Abrams 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.