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. 

The Book was Better! - Part 1

Believe it or not, I don't spend ALL my time watching television.  I read about it too.  Here is part one of a two part post covering a few television-adjacent books I read in 2013.


A Song of Ice and Fire: Books 1-5
A Game of Thrones
A Clash of Kings
A Storm of Swords
A Feast for Crows
A Dance with Dragons
by George R.R. Martin

I started reading these almost by accident.  Having watched the first two seasons, I awaited the third.  In January I was on an excruciating bus commute home when I finished the hard copy book I had with me.  Desperate for distraction, I bought and downloaded A Game of Thrones to my Kindle app.  Within 60 seconds I had the book on my phone because we live in the future.  Originally, I planned to read one, maybe two books, and catch the rest on television.  But I found I didn't want to stop.  While reading Storm of Swords, I was watching Season Three and was shocked at the episode when Jamie gets his hand cut off.  The next day I realized the next chapter that awaited me was the first one where Jaime is short his sword hand.  From then on I was ahead on the books, but it didn't diminish the show for me.

I finished A Dance with Dragons around the time Season Three concluded.  The best element was that I no longer had to worry about spoilers.  I avoided most commentary on the show for fear of being spoiled.  Comments gave away key plot points.  Writers who read the books loved to (not as slyly as they thought) imply things, almost as if they were bragging they new something the Unsullied television viewers didn't.*  Even the titles of Youtube videos were dangerous.  It opened a door to read a lot more analysis out there without fear of spoilerdom.**

* I know something you don't know!  Congratulations, you're literate.

** The Meereneese Blot is an excellent blog and shed a lot of light on the events of Dragons for me.  Looking at all of Dany's chapters a different way, viewing characters as having different intentions enhances the series a great deal.  The author raises that the characters are purposefully misguided, but that GRRM withholds confirmation of that.  It is basically a much better execution of the Brody-Carrie dynamic in that Brody and Carrie are purposefully made to look like idiots while Dany in Dragons is (we think) purposefully made to look to be working against her own ideals.    

I do not understand the complaints about adapting the story from one medium to a differerent one.  Of course there will be concessions.  Plots will be cut, characters will be composited. * Two things Benioff and Weiss have state are important.  First, they are creating their interpretation of the story, not merely transcribing the books to video.  Second, they are adapting ASOIAF to multiple seasons of television, rather than strictly adapting Book One to Season One, etc.  **

* Game of Thrones still has the largest cast in television.

** How they plot this will be most interesting in Season Four, where they have about 300-400 pages remaining of Swords before they run into the simultaneous events of Crows and Dragons.  Mostly, I'm excited about the casting of Oberyn Martell.

Obviously the difference in medium allow for different strengths and weaknesses between the books and movies.  The most Stark* examples are the explanations of the geopolitical makeup of Westeros via background and history.  Also, nakedtime! **

 * Gahhhhhhhhhhhhhh

** Link takes you to standup comedy, not nudity.

The Late Shift
by Bill Carter
Last fall I read The War for Late Night which recounted the Conan-Leno saga.  This is the forerunner to that, by the same author, recounting the Leno-Letterman fiasco.  It includes the infamous Leno-closet-spy-session and an East Coast/West Coast war at NBC. As someone who grew up only knowing Letterman on CBS and Leno as host of The Tonight Show, it was interesting to read the prequel.

Similar to The War for Late Night, Late Shift sheds light on the executive decisions that led to the current state of late night television.  Carter tells the behind the scenes story as well as the back story of the main characters. 


The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
The Return of Sherlock Holmes
by Arthur Conan Doyle
Between watching Sherlock last fall and then becoming invested as I am in Elementary, this was a logical step.  Added bonus for preparing for the upcoming Sherlock episodes in January and spotting Conan canon Easter Eggs. Each of these include about a dozen short stories. As someone who devoured Encyclopedia Brown books to the point where I opened my own detective agency at seven years old, I find is somewhat shameful it took me nearly 30 years to read these. 

I Remember Me
by Carl Reiner
Our generation knows Carl Reiner as Saul from the Ocean's 11, 12, 13 movies where he plays an respected, old school con man who invented the game they're all playing.  In real life, Carl Reiner went from WWII veteran to a writer and director for television, stage and film, setting precedents and breaking new ground in those industries.  The memoir tells his personal stories about his time in the army, courting his wife, and his friendship with Mel Brooks, as well as his professional life including Your Show of Shows (Sid Caesar) where he was a writer and performer, and his creation of The Dick Van Dyke Show (including the discovery of Mary Tyler Moore). 

Maybe the most interesting chapter is where Reiner discusses the Red Scare and being investigated by the feds.  Two g-men came to his house, questioning him about known and possible Communists .  It's a heavy story relative to the rest of the book but still Reiner is able to inject humor in a way that shows how he's been in his business for seven decades.


Part two manana..........