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Prime Times: Writers on Their Favorite Television Shows

Edited and with an introduction by Douglas Bauer

Crown, 223 pages, $23, $12.95 paper

Nick Hornby on “The West Wing,” Elizabeth McCracken on “America’s Funniest Home Videos,” Henry Louis Gates Jr. on “Amos ‘n’ Andy” and Nora Ephron on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” are just some of the 23 essays in this anthology that looks at the last half-century through the prism of TV. The result is entertaining and enlightening, despite one sinful omission: “Law and Order.”