The Office by Andy Greene

I am reading in fits and starts these days. Most books don’t stick very well, which means that I end up slowly getting through them while wishing I was reading something else. Such is life during pandemic. One book that stuck, though, was The Office: The Untold Story Of The Greatest Sitcom Of The 2000s by Andy Greene. This oral history of one of my favorite sitcoms was entertaining all the way through.

The Office was a sitcom on NBC that aired from 2005 to 2013. Set in the Scranton branch office of a failing paper company, its motley crew of characters combined with single camera setup and a documentary-style production to create must-see-TV in an era when most people time-shifted or ultimately downloaded shows. I watched it when it aired, and then watched it again when my daughters discovered it a few years ago on Netflix, just as many of their Gen Z friends have. It’s a very, very funny show that made Steve Carell, John Krasinski and Rainn Wilson, among others, household names and earned trademarks like “That’s what she said”, The Dundies and Jim and Pam’s first kiss well-deserved spots in TV history.

The Office (the book) is an oral history of the show, told through the perspectives of its creator, Greg Daniels and many of the show’s writers, cast and crew. Starting with the ill-advised decision to recreate the hit British version of the show in the U.S., The Office chronicles the show’s early days when ratings and budgets were low and runs through the nine seasons in which it aired. Greene devotes individual chapters to a few seminal episodes as well, sprinkling in the backstory behind “Diversity Day”, “Casino Night”, “Dinner Party”, “Niagara” and others of The Office‘s most memorable episodes. You’ll learn a lot about the creative process behind the show, the history of its brilliant casting and the legacy it left on television.

You probably already know whether you want to read this book. If you’ve never seen the show, or watched only a few episodes, The Office shouldn’t be on your TBR. But if you watched the whole run (even the dreadful James Spader era), cried when the wedding guests danced down the aisle to “Forever” at Jim and Pam’s wedding, gasped when Michael Scott reappeared in the finale and can’t resist your own well-placed “That’s what she said,” then this is the book for you. Things are pretty dark right now, but The Office provided 14 hours, 20 minutes of escapist entertainment for me at a time I really needed it.

I listened to The Office on audio, which I think is the way to do it. It’s an oral history (the people reading the parts aren’t actually the actual cast and crew) and I liked that I could recognize the different contributors by the narrators’ voices. Plus, Therese Plummer performs the Jenna Fischer sections – score! So if you’re thinking about picking up The Office, give strong consideration to the audiobook.

I’ll finish this post with a list of my favorite Office episodes: