David letterman biography book

During his time on air, David Letterman was aware that he was comedy establishment, but this knowledge fueled him, becoming fodder to satirize the fanfare and spectacle that now consumes the late night landscape. Jason Zinoman’s recently released biography, Letterman: The Last Giant of Late Night, manages to capture this, and Letterman, in his cutting-edge, subversively comedic entirety. It’s an intimate yet objective portrait of someone who built a career by being at once “aggressively disinterested” and also the man who cared too much.

The “On Comedy” columnist for The New York Times, Zinoman strings the book together by what he refers to as Letterman’s three distinct artistic periods, comprising his brief stint as a morning talk show host followed by his more than three decades in late night television. A majority of the book is spent on Letterman’s time at NBC’s La

david letterman biography book4

New York Times comedy critic Jason Zinoman delivers the definitive story of the life and artistic legacy of David Letterman, the greatest television talk show host of all time and the signature comedic voice of a generation.