Recommended Books

Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live
Author:
Susan Morrison
ISBN 13:
978-0812988871
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The definitive biography of Lorne Michaels, the man behind America’s most beloved comedy show “The kind of biographical monument usually consecrated to founding fathers, canonical authors and world-historical scientific geniuses.”— The New York Times (Editors’ Choice) “Readers are treated to the Holy Grail for any journalist hoping to crack the show: a warts-and-all week in the life of SNL, where Morrison gets to see the real process of putting the thing together.”— Variety Over the fifty years that Lorne Michaels has been at the helm of Saturday Night Live, he has become a revered and inimitable presence in the entertainment world. He’s a tastemaker, a mogul, a withholding father figure, a genius spotter of talent, a shrewd businessman, a name-dropper, a raconteur, the inspiration for Dr. Evil, the winner of more than a hundred Emmys—and, essentially, a mystery. Generations of writers and performers have spent their lives trying to figure him out, by turns demonizing and lionizing him. He’s “Obi-Wan Kenobi” (Tracy Morgan), the “great and powerful Oz” (Kate McKinnon), “some kind of very distant, strange comedy god” (Bob Odenkirk). Lorne will introduce you to him, in full, for the first time. With unprecedented access to Michaels and the entire SNL apparatus, Susan Morrison takes readers behind the curtain for the lively, up-and-down, definitive story of how Michaels created and maintained the institution that changed comedy forever. Drawn from hundreds of interviews—with Michaels, his friends, and SNL’s iconic stars and writers, from Will Ferrell to Tina Fey to John Mulaney to Chris Rock to Dan Aykroyd— Lorne is a deeply reported, wildly entertaining account of a man singularly obsessed with the show that would define his life and have a profound impact on American culture.

Hitler's People: The Faces of the Third Reich
Author:
Richard J Evans
ISBN 13:
978-0593296424
Named a Best Book of the Year by Kirkus Reviews and Air Mail “A fascinating and instructive book . . . elegantly written and perceptive.” — Wall Street Journal “Kaleidoscopic . . . A fascinating exploration of individual agency that never loses sight of the larger context . . . Just the kind of probing, nuanced and unsparing study to help us think things through.” — The New York Times Through a connected set of biographical portraits of key Nazi figures that follows power as it radiated out from Hitler to the inner and outer circles of the regime’s leadership, one of our greatest historians answers the enduring question, how does a society come to carry out a program of unspeakable evil? Richard Evans, author of the acclaimed The Third Reich Trilogy and over two dozen other volumes on modern Europe, is our preeminent scholar of Nazi Germany. Having spent half a century searching for the truths behind one of the most horrifying episodes in human history, in Hitler’s People , he brings us back to the original site of the Nazi movement: namely, the lives of its most important members. Working in concentric circles out from Hitler and his closest allies, Evans forms a typological framework of Germany society under Nazi rule from the top down. With a novelist’s eye for detail, Evans explains the Third Reich through the personal failings and professional ambitions of its members, from its most notorious deputies—like Goebbels, the regime’s propagandist, and Himmler, the Holocaust’s chief architect—to the crucial enforcers and instruments of the Nazi agenda that history has largely forgotten—like the schoolteacher Julius Streicher and the actress Leni Riefenstahl. Drawing on a wealth of recently unearthed historical sources, Hitler’s People lays bare the inner and outer lives of the characters whose choices led to the deaths of millions. Nearly a century after Hitler’s rise, the leading nations of the West are once again being torn apart by a will to power. By telling the stories of these infamous lives as human lives, Evans asks us to grapple with the complicated nature of complicity, showing us that the distinctions between individual and collective responsibility—and even between pathological evil and rational choice—are never easily drawn.

The Holy Roller
Authors:
Andy Samberg
,
Joe Trohman
,
Rick Remender
ISBN 13:
978-1534397323
Everyone was sitting around wondering when comedy legend ANDY SAMBERG (SNL, Palm Springs) would join super-star writer RICK REMENDER (DEADLY CLASS, LOW) and Fall Out Boy's multi-talented JOE TROHMAN to write a comic about a vigilante hero who smashes people's faces with a bowling ball—and everyone’s dreams have come true! To care for his ailing father, pro bowler Levi Coen is forced to quit his dream job and return to his hometown, which he soon discovers has been overrun by Neo-Nazis! With only his bowling ball collection to defend himself, Levi becomes THE HOLY ROLLER, a trick bowling ball-wielding superhero battling to liberate his home and bowl a perfect game against crime! Kingpin meets Inglourious Basterds meets Batman (that old chestnut) with equal parts action and humor! Collects all nine issues of THE HOLY ROLLER. Select praise for THE HOLY ROLLER: "Balances humor and heart to deliver the hero we just might need right now." — Graphic Policy "Needs to be turned into a film immediately - witty, fun, insane!" — Monkeys Fighting Robots "A wholly unique take on a superhero origin story that mixes comedy, drama, and action in a cinematic way." — Comic Watch