The fourth season of Mad Men has begun, drawing fans back into its detailed mockup of life among ad executives in the early sixties. If you want to read like a Mad Man, or to delve deeper into the period’s style, check out one of these items.

We often see characters in Mad Men reading. Here are some of titles read by the denizens of Sterling Cooper and their families:

• The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone (Peggy's devoutly Catholic mother is seen reading this fictionalized biography of Michelangelo.)
• Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (Burt Cooper is a devotee of Ayn Rand.)
• Exodus by Leon Uris (When trying to find inspiration on advertising Israeli tourism, Don picks up this novel.)
• The Group by Mary McCarthy (Betty reads this during Season Three.)
• The history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon (Sally Draper reads passages from this massive text to her grandfather.)
• Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence (Joan and the other secretaries pass a copy of this around the office.)
• The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit by Sloan Wilson (Jimmy Barrett compares Don to the titles character of this book in Season Two.)
• Ship of Fools by Katherine Anne Porter (Betty reads this during Season Two.)
• Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald (Includes the short story "A Diamond as Big as the Ritz," read by Betty in Season One.)
• Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner (During Season Two, Don's lover Joy reads this in bed.)

Some titles that might give more insight into the culture of the time:

• A Big Life in Advertising by Mary Wells Lawrence
• The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan
  
• The Golden Age of Advertising: The 50s by Jim Heimann
• The last innocent year : America in 1964 : the beginning of the "sixties" by Jon Margolis
• Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy

Filled with colorful photographs, these items give more visuals of fashion and design in the fifties and sixties:

• ‘50s & ‘60s Style by Polly Powell
• Fashions of a Decade: The 1950s by Patricia Baker
  
• Fashions of a Decade: The 1960s by Yvonne Connikie
• The Sixties: Decade of design revolution by Lesley Jackson
• The New Look: Design in the fifties by Lesley Jackson

And of course, we have the first three seasons of Mad Men available to check out or place on hold.

• Season One
• Season Two
• Season Three