The Best Books I Read in 2016

Miles Gone By: A Literary Autobiography, by William F. Buckley, Jr., 2004.

The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War, by Andrew Roberts, 2011.

The Fire Next Time, by James Baldwin, 1963.

Survival in Auschwitz, by Primo Levi, originally published in 1947, first English translation published in 1958.

Wilson, by A. Scott Berg, 2013.

King of the Night: The Life of Johnny Carson, by Laurence Leamer, 1989.

Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers, by Tom Wolfe, 1970.

The Right Stuff, by Tom Wolfe, 1979.

The Bonfire of the Vanities, by Tom Wolfe, 1987.

I read 33 books in 2016, most of which I reviewed on this blog. Here are my favorites that I read this year. The links will take you to the full reviews of these books.

Miles Gone By: A Literary Autobiography, by William F. Buckley, Jr. 2004. WFB makes the list for a second year in a row. Miles Gone By isn’t a strict autobiography; rather, it’s a collection of autobiographical writings from throughout Buckley’s long career. Miles Gone By is really about the man behind the politics, and partisans of either stripe can enjoy Buckley’s wit, joie de vivre, impressive vocabulary, and generous spirit, all of which are on full display. It’s a marvelous read, and time spent in the company of the witty, passionate, intelligent Buckley is always time well spent.  

The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War, by Andrew Roberts, 2011. Roberts also makes the list for a second year in a row, for his superb overview of World War II. Roberts brings the conflict to life, and he’s an equally good writer on military or political matters. His chapter on the Holocaust is superb and haunting. Roberts is also very strong on the Eastern front, and convincingly makes the argument that it was Russia who bled the Nazis dry. The Storm of War captures the global scope and sweep of World War II while still reminding us of the stark tragedies that each one of the 50 million deaths in that conflict represents.

The Fire Next Time, by James Baldwin, 1963. Baldwin’s searing look at race in America is still relevant today, more than fifty years after it was written.

Survival in Auschwitz, by Primo Levi, 1947. For anyone wanting to understand more about the Holocaust, Levi’s eloquent memoir is a superb place to start. Levi was a prisoner in Auschwitz for more than a year, and in Auschwitz, he saw mankind at its worst. Levi summed up the entire experience of the Holocaust with this anecdote:

“Driven by thirst, I eyed a fine icicle outside the window, within hand’s reach. I opened the window and broke off the icicle but at once a large, heavy guard prowling outside brutally snatched it away from me. ‘Warum?’ I asked him in my poor German. ‘Hier ist kein warum’ (there is no why here), he replied, pushing me inside with a shove.” (p.29)

Wilson, by A. Scott Berg, 2013. An excellent cradle to grave biography of our 28^th President. Berg paints a vivid picture of one of our most accomplished presidents. Wilson’s writings are quoted from liberally, so the reader gets a vivid sense of his personality. 

King of the Night: The Life of Johnny Carson, by Laurence Leamer, 1989. A slight change of pace from the books listed above. This summer I attempted to learn all that I could about the enigmatic Johnny Carson. While Carson’s off-camera life was sometimes quite messy, (he was married four times) on screen he was the personification of cool, and he always seemed to have the perfect quip at hand. Leamer’s diligently researched biography is a superb portrait of the Tonight Show host.

Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers, by Tom Wolfe, 1970. My new favorite author, Tom Wolfe, makes the list again, this time for three different books! Radical Chic describes a party that Leonard Bernstein threw for the Black Panthers at his thirteen-room, two-story, penthouse duplex. Wolfe’s writing is as sharp as a knife throughout the essay: “God, what a flood of taboo thoughts runs through one’s head at these Radical Chic events…But it’s delicious. It is as if one’s nerve endings were on red alert to the most intimate nuances of status.” Wolfe is always on red alert to the most intimate nuances of status! That’s his calling card! This is right up his alley! 

The Right Stuff, by Tom Wolfe, 1979. Wolfe’s chronicle of the early U.S. space program is an engaging look at the Mercury 7 astronauts. Along the way, Wolfe explores the mythic “right stuff” that test pilots and astronauts must have to remain cool under pressure. The sections where Wolfe re-creates the astronaut’s Mercury flights are superb. One of the main figures in the book is the late John Glenn, who was the most media friendly of the Mercury 7, and was also a strict moralizer who sometimes clashed with the other astronauts. 

The Bonfire of the Vanities, by Tom Wolfe, 1987. Wolfe’s first novel, Bonfire was a massive study of New York City, specifically the justice system, the one part where different strata of society interacted. Wolfe captures the zeitgeist of the 1980’s in all its money-lusting glory with the character of Sherman McCoy, a wealthy bond trader. It’s a marvelous book, nearly 700 pages long, with 2,343 exclamation points.

Book Review: King of the Night: The Life of Johnny Carson, by Laurence Leamer (1989)

The paperback cover of King of the Night, by Laurence Leamer. King of the Night was originally published in 1989. This is the updated edition, published in 2005, that contains a short afterword covering Carson's life from 1989 until his death in 2005. (Photo by Mark C. Taylor.)

Johnny Carson doing what he loved best, sometime during the 1970's.

In my summer-long quest to learn everything about Johnny Carson, I read Laurence Leamer’s 1989 biography of Carson, King of the Night: The Life of Johnny Carson. Even though it was published more than 25 years ago, Leamer’s book is the definitive biography of Carson. Leamer did his homework on Carson, as he interviewed hundreds of people who knew him. 

King of the Night gives the reader a fascinating portrait of Johnny Carson, a man who was able to connect with millions of Americans every night as the host of The Tonight Show, but who found it difficult to connect with people in his private life. Carson was married four times, had difficult relationships with his three sons, and had very few longtime friends. 

Leamer dissects Carson’s life in detail, and the reader is fully immersed, for better or worse, in the various investments and lawsuits that Carson was embroiled in. King of the Night makes an interesting counterpoint to Henry Bushkin’s 2013 memoir, Johnny Carson, which I reviewed here. Bushkin, who was Carson’s lawyer for many years, also handled many of Carson’s investments, and according to Bushkin, those investments were quite successful. However, Leamer paints a different picture, and after reading King of the Night it sounds like Bushkin’s investments were not very successful at all. Now I wonder how much of Bushkin’s book was an attempt to change his image from King of the Night. 

Honestly, reading King of the Night made me a little sad for Johnny Carson. I hope he was a happy man, and yet I have the feeling, from all that I’ve read about him, that it was a challenge for him to find happiness. He brought such joy to so many people for so many years, and yet, like so many entertainers, it seems as though he had a difficult time finding a similar joy in his private life. Also, like so many entertainers, Carson was happy and fulfilled when he was doing The Tonight Show, but the other hours of the day were more difficult for him to fill.

Carson was brutally honest in a 1986 interview in which he said, “If I had given as much to marriage as I gave to The Tonight Show, I’d probably have a hell of a marriage. But the fact is I haven’t given that, and there you have the simple reason for the failure of my marriages. I put the energy into the show.” (p.352) 

One of the most insightful quotes from King of the Night comes from Jeanne Prior, who was Carson’s secretary in the 1960’s. She told Leamer, “Except for the beginning years of his life, I don’t think Johnny has ever been rejected. Just think of the fact of going around for thirty years and never being rejected by almost anybody, not waiters, not anybody. What do you think would be easier to live with, his life or the life most of us live? There is a cost, and that’s why he insulates himself.” (p.160) I think that gives the reader some idea of what it would have been like to be Johnny Carson, and why success can be so difficult to deal with. 

Whatever he was like off the screen, on screen Johnny Carson projected warmth and a likability that came through the television set. Shelly Schultz, a talent coordinator for The Tonight Show in the 1960’s, said of Carson, “I think that he is one of those rare phenomenal people who understood the medium.” (p.143) That’s very true, and Carson’s understanding of television served him well during his long career.

Johnny Carson presided over a media landscape that is totally different from 2016. King of the Night opens in 1987, as Carson is celebrating the 25^th anniversary of his hosting The Tonight Show. Yet even then, as Leamer writes, “The networks had begun to decline, viewers lost to cable networks and video recorders. It was unlikely that any other performer would ever have the same hold over the American night.” (p.2) Of course that’s even more true now, as no one on late night television has the same reach that Johnny Carson did. Carson’s career is unique in late night television history, and it will remain so. Johnny Carson is the man who set the standard; he is the late night host that all others are measured against. 

Johnny Carson was one of television’s biggest stars, and King of the Night allows us a look at his private and professional life. If you’re interested in Johnny Carson, King of the Night is the book that paints the most complete picture of Carson’s life.