Live from New York

The Complete, Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live as Told by Its Stars, Writers, and Guests

By: James Andrew Miller, Tom Shales

Narrated by: Christina Delaine, Paul Woodson

Length: 28 hrs and 18 mins

Publisher's summary

When first published to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Saturday Night Live, Live from New York was immediately proclaimed the best book ever produced on the landmark and legendary late-night show. In their own words, unfiltered and uncensored, a dazzling galaxy of trail-blazing talents recalled three turbulent decades of on-camera antics and off-camera escapades. Now a fourth decade has passed - and best-selling authors James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales have returned to Studio 8H. They raucously and revealingly take the SNL story up to the present, adding a constellation of iconic new stars, surprises, and controversies.

©2002 Thomas W. Shales and Jimmy the Writer, Inc.; material new to the 2014 edition copyright 2014 by Jimmy the Writer, Inc.; preface to the 2015 edition copyright 2015 by Jimmy the Writer, Inc. (P)2017 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Great insights to the whole SNL, but...

The whole book is made up of quotations from everyone involved, credible but no point of view. Very interesting story, lots of anecdotes, and a sense of the timeline and highs and lows of the arc of the show and it’s varied casts that you miss even as a longtime viewer. The stories of the cast members, shows and characters is the best, but a third of the book and especially the last chapters spends way too much time trying to figure out the enigma that is Loren Michaels. Excellent, but a third too long.

Everything you ever wanted to know about Saturday Night Live and Lorne Michaels

Once I got used to the format of bits of interviews from many people throughout the history of the show , I enjoyed it. There were anecdotes, including details about every performer from the beginning. It also delved into the personality of Lorne Michaels, which was very revealing and interesting.

A book that covers the entire 44 years so far.

Great book with interviews from writers and performers and guest host. A long but very good interesting read.

great book

This book was really interesting. I learned a lot about the history of SNL. It takes time to go through all the era's. SNL is 1 of my favorite shows of all time! great voice narration too

Live from audible, its Saturday Night!

Great read for fans of the show, insightful and often overtly informative. Might be hard to get through for those who did not grow up with the show or are not devout fans.

Great content. Poor performance. Maybe too much like SNL in that respect.

This was a great walk down memory lane and it was really fun being re-introduced to so many talented performers that were featured on SNL. As they were introduced, I could imagine seeing them back in Studio 8H.

Unfortunately, as an audiobook, this was challenging to listen to. The book is essentially a very long series of excerpts captured from SNL performers. However, because the dozens (hundreds?) of performers are voiced by the same few speakers, it’s impossible to keep up with each 30 or 60 second vignette.

On the written page, it would say “Dan Akroyd” and then his story. And then “Chevy Chase” and his. And if you ever forgot who was relating the story you could just glance up the page. On Audible, the speaker would say the performer’s name and then recite their story. But with so many cast members, it was really easy to lose track of which performer was relaying their story. And no way to easily “glance” at who was reciting the excerpt.

This would have been 1000 better if the actual performers would have participated. :(

Great job

Loved every minute of this trip down memory lane.
Great distraction from the political audiobooks that I’ve been listening to

Great story, uneven performance.

If you are a fan of comedy, this book is a must-read or must-listen. My only complain is that the famale narrator, Christine Delaine speaks... too... deliberately... She almost seems as if she's trying to speak in slow motion. I played the book on 1.5 speed for this reason.

What a fun listen

I got this book in 2002 or 2003 and listening to it again in audio form was an absolute blast. What a great listen and adventure. The performers are great and do a great job differentiating without doing poor imitations.
Thank you

Excellent

Great read (listen) for any fan of SNL/pop culture. My only complaint is that because it’s essentially snippets from various cast members, writers, and execs, it can be confusing who is talking/sharing their experience (a lot of rewinding...there’s a dated term 😂). Highly recommended!