Lorne

 Book 51 of my 2025 Reading Challenge

read from May 4 - July 6

Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live

by Susan Morrison

published 2025

My Opinion

3 stars

The lore and longevity of Saturday Night Live is one of my niche topics of interest and the book Live From New York by James Andres Miller and Tom Shales is one of my favorite "behind-the-scenes" books.  So when I saw this book while browsing at the library I immediately grabbed it, thinking I would love it.  I didn't love it.

Issue 1 (personally mine): turns out I'm not as interested in the man behind SNL as I am in the show itself.  

Issue 2 (not personally mine): now that I've read 644 pages, I'm still not sure I can say much about Lorne Michaels other than what was already known.  There was dishy information in the book which made me feel like the author had access but upon reflection, the dishy information was always about other people, and was usually given by someone in Lorne's orbit, not he himself saying it.  So it felt deceptively "real" when it was mostly superficial.

It was interesting but not overly informative.