Yehia Shehata's Reviews > The Late Shift: Letterman, Leno & the Network Battle for the Night

This book gives a great insight into one of my favorite subject: American Late Night. I used to enjoy David Letterman's work immensely. I also love me some Craig Ferguson and Conan O'Brien. While I'm not a big fan of Jay Leno *ahem*, this book gave me a bit of a look into the man's career and motives, and made me more sympathetic to him as a person.

Turns out there was a lot I didn't know about the so-called late night wars, I never watched Carson before, but in my mind he was this legendary figure, I just never realized the power the man had over late night, it was scary whenever somebody incurred the wrath of Johnny.

In this book, you will find a look into how Jay and Dave started, and the ups and downs of their early late night turf wars, as well as some stupid network tricks, shady executives and some great writing on Bill Carter's part. Never a dull moment in this book.

I gotta say that I relate to Dave more as a person, we share some of the same characteristics and flaws, he's still my all time top late night host.

I'm definitely going to pick up the follow-up to this book, for more late night shenanigans.