Customer Reviews

The Soap Opera Encyclopedia

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This book gives you a complete detailed history of such soaps on today such as All My Children, Another World, As The World Turns, The Bold and the Beautiful, Days of Our lives, General Hospital, Guiding Light, One Life to Live, Port Charles, Sunset Beach, and The Young and the Restless. An extenshive history of off the air soaps like Capitol, Generations, Love of Life, Loving, Ryan's Hope, Santa Barbara, and Search for Tomorrow. It also includes previous award winners of the emmy's and the digest awards. With biograhies on certain soap opera legends and 46 years of Neilsen ratings of all the soaps. It is absolutely any soap opera fans dream.

All you ever wanted to know about soaps, past and present, can be found in this wonderful book. I have flipped through it for facts so many times that the book is beginning to fall apart. I can't wait til another info.-packed book by this author comes out!

For lovers of one of the most cherished TV institutions of all-time, "The Soap Opera Encyclopedia" is a must-have for those who adore serials. Before the advent of the internet soap opera researchers only had this excellent book to study upon written by Gerard Waggett, a soap critic and follower widely known as being one of the biggest authorities on television soap operas. This book was obviously based on the original "Soap Opera Encyclopedia" written by Christopher Schemering back in 1985. Sadly, Mr. Schemering died in the early '90s, but luckily for us all Waggett continues what Chris did which was to document the events of soaps, review particular plots, detail the comings and goings of soap stars, and go behind the scenes. The book contains a wonderful Nielsen ratings index and lists the top rated shows for every TV season in its entirity from the early '50's to the late '90's. There is an Emmy Award section with Emmy winners and Emmy nominees, but the best chapter is called "The Soap Opera 100" in which Gerard writes on a who's who in soap opera from the genre's best writers like Agnes Nixon and Bill Bell to the format's most well-known actors like Jacqueline Courtney, Judith Light, Douglas Watson, Genie Francis, and Beverlee McKinsey. It has been 12 years since another edition of "The Soap Opera Encyclopedia" has been released so I am hoping Mr. Waggett will write another since so much in the soap opera industry has changed from dramatic ratings slides on every serial to the cancellation of "Another World" and "Guiding Light".

The Soap Opera Encyclopedia is an easily accessible overview of daytime soap operas. Major storylines are summarized for each soap as well as some backstage trivia. The book also includes profiles on important people in daytime, lists for the Daytime Emmy Awards and Soap Opera Digest Awards, and Nielsen ratings. Great if you want basic, quick info on the daytime soaps.

The reviewer below seems to blame the author for having no respect because he has done a followup to a book by a man who died. I loved Schemering's book too. But the man died. If he did a third soap opera encyclopedia, I would have loved it. But he couldn't. I was glad someone did. And he did a great job of it. It seems he has plenty of respect for the soaps as well as the readers who have been waiting for a new encyclopedia for years. As for Schemering having a right to the title, I don't know how that works after a person dies, but I do know that there are plenty of books here on Amazon with the same titles.

Mr. Waggett churns these trite books out to hear the sound of his own voice. He has little to add to what we already know about daytime drama and this book is no exception.

The author has no respect. This book shows no recognition of the hard work of the original author, the late Christopher Schemering. Schemering wrote the first two editions and might still have control of the titled name of the book.