TBR (To Be Read) From Faulkner to Frank O'Hara, TV series Mad Men is a world of books

There are few more depressing experiences than bingeing on American producer Matthew Weiner's portrait of middle-class, middle-aged American men and women in 1960-set television series Mad Men (2007 to 2015).

- Clement Yong

The sophisticated writing takes its time, with characters' happiness scarce and almost always stolen. Advertising maestro Don Draper, the character that made the name of the handsome Jon Hamm, has all the talent, as well as a beautiful wife, but cannot stop himself from endlessly chasing something elusive.

Yet, Mad Men's status as one of the best television series to grace the small screen is also due to its rich engagement with its 20th-century historical and cultural world - in which books play a not insignificant role.

One of the first explicit mentions comes in the third episode of the first season, when women in advertising company Sterling Cooper pass around a well-thumbed copy of English novelist D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928).