Tom Shales & James Andrew Miller, 2002

Live from New York provides the most comprehensive history of the show you can find as told directly by the players who lived it.  It’s an oral history so reads very quick with lots of laughs (shocker).

I started watching SNL in the Will Ferrell, Rachel Dratch, Jimmy Fallon years.  I was also familiar with the era before them of Sandler, Chris Rock, David Spade, etc. because they were the movie stars of that same time.  Because I was already familiar with their stories, I found the chapters on the dark days of the 80’s that I knew far less about to be the most interesting.

While the actors are as entertaining as you would expect, it’s the writers who really shined as the stars of the book.  They were the constant through never ending cast changes and are way less filtered in their recollections than the publicly known actors.

If you bring this one on vacation make sure you bring a second book as this will be done after a day or two on the beach.

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