Nothing has replaced “The Sopranos.”

Question: What's your main guilty pleasure?

David Remnick: There are so many.

I guess I don’t read crappy books because I don’t have time. I feel that every ounce of my reading energy is to be either reading pieces in the New Yorker that are going to be published; pieces that might potentially be published, manuscripts. And then I try to keep one or two books of real heft going. That’s enough reading.

I watch far too much television and it’s absolutely good for me. And I see most every movie that you can imagine that comes out. I’m not entirely proud of it, but there it is. And I don’t consider music a guilty pleasure, and I listen to a lot of that, of all different kinds.

Nothing, nothing has replaced “The Sopranos” for pure sublimity. And I’m perfectly aware that there’s snobbery even in that.

“Mad Men” has potential, but I’m a little worried about its jumping the shark with that plot about his child. I think that might not entirely work out for the best. But we’ll see.

Recorded on Jan 7, 2008