The Book was Better! - Part 2

Part two of my 2013 reading list of television-adjacent books.  Part one is posted here.

Top of the Morning: Inside the Cutthroat World of Morning TV
by Brian Stelter
Never having watched morning television before, or even been aware of much of the drama at the Today Show, I started from zero on this.  In the way The War for Late Night integrates the stories of all the late night hosts, including cable, Top of the Morning tells the stories of different mornign shows including the history of Today, Good Morning American, CBS This Morning, and Morning Joe. 

The Revolution was Televised: The Cops, Crooks, Slingers and Slayers Who Changed TV Drama Forever
by Alan Sepinwall
Full disclosure: I skipped chapters on Buffy and Battlestar Gallactica.  Having never seen those shows, I wanted to remain spoiler free in case I ever want to enjoy them.

Sepinwall is the dean of television bloggers.  He practically invented the sport.  From the timing and title of the book, you can probably guess it covers the original obvious greats of the current era, The Sopranos, Deadwood, The Wire and The Shield.  But it also pays homage to their forerunners, NYPD Blue, Hill Street Blues, Homicide, Cheers, The X-Files, and Twin Peaks.

Combining the background of the showrunners, the development history of the shows, and the creative reasoning behind the shows, Sepinwall provides insight that is incredibly interesting for fans of these shows, and that should be required reading for critics of Lost*.

* Even the most loyal Lost fans like myself acknowledge the show lost its way mid second season and into the third until the ramp up to the third season finale "Through the Looking Glass".  Earlier that year, ABC announced and end date (several years down the line) for Lost.  The re-discovery of how good Lost could be and the end date announcement have a positive correlation and the chapter on Lost here confirms why*.

* Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof were a hot second from walking unless they could focus their creative efforts.  And they couldn't focus their creative direction without an end date.

Raylan
by Elmore Leonard
Raylan is one of the last books by Elmore Leonard and picks up with Deputy U.S. Marshall Raylan Givens after the events of Pronto and Riding the Rap.   Shorter than a novel but longer than short stories, the book is divided into three sections about 100 pages each.

It takes an interesting approach of original material and material inspired by or taken directly from the show.  Some was drawn from episodes of Justified, and some of the material showed up in Justified after the book was published, so it does not exactly align with a canon timeline of the show, but exists in some parallel universe with a version of Raylan who is about ten years older than Timothy Olyphant.  There's not much more that can be said about the great Elmore Leonard, except to say if you like Out of Sight or Justified or any of his books, Raylan is written directly in that vein.

UPDATE - 1/13
52 Pickup 
by Elmore Leonard
Leonard is the opposite of GRRM, he's able to tell a story using a very small main cast.  Nonetheless, he's still able to give color and life to the one off characters throughout the novel.  52 Pickup is about a factory owner who is blackmailed for having an affair.  Rather than pay off the (not too smart) blackmailers, he fights back by being honest with his wife and indignant towards the blackmailers.  Everything about it screams Leonard, but it in no way seems repetitive from other novels.  I read Swag the year before and plan on reading another this year. 


Live from New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live
by Tom Shales and James Andrew Miller
 One of the things I like about the oral histories is you learn just as much from the tone and storytelling of a subject when they speak as you do when others are speaking about that particular person.

A few years ago I read the history of ESPN, also by James Andrew Miller.  That book was a bit disorganized, but the nature of this, focusing on a single show, allowed it to tell a better and more easily followed story.

I think the book is sold on the basis of talking about drugs and drinking and death from those, but I enjoy it more because it talks about the workplace dynamic of SNL.  I'm less concerned with the fact that Garret Morris freebased in his office* so much that the cleaning staff at 30 Rock were afraid to enter, and more with the fact that Lorne Michaels is incredibly conflict averse and the effects that has on decisions, personnel, and the relationships between people at SNL.

* Not to say the drug parts aren't funny/interesting.  Particularly about how Dan Akroyd came up with "Coneheads"

Dick Ebersol, the third* executive producer of SNL is one of the most interesting characters.  There's a lot of respect paid to him from nearly everyone involved and a lot of color added in those descriptions.  He's a television professional who produced an acceptable if not good show (pulling it up from arguable its worst time in history) but without having a comedy background had a lower ceiling on how "great" the show could be.

* Between a woman referred to as "Ayatollah" Doumanian which should tell you all you need to know, and the second Lorne Michaels run

Anyways, if you're taking a holiday break and looking for something to read, try one of these.