In this humorous, anecdotal account, King at 75-plus marvels good-naturedly at his staying power for a half-century as a talk-show host for radio and TV. Born in Brooklyn in 1933 to Jewish immigrant parents, young Larry Zeiger was profoundly influenced at age nine by the untimely heart-attack death of his father and by the medium of radio. Rejected by the army for bad eyesight and uninterested in going to college, he got his break filling in for a deejay at a radio station in Miami, where he took the name King in a pinch. His early scrapes are hilarious, especially with women (he married eight times), and he had an uncanny ability to snag famous personalities like Jackie Gleason, Frank Sinatra and Richard Nixon to be interviewed on air. By simply being curious and unassuming, King could make anyone seem fascinating, from a plumber to the famously laconic Robert Mitchum. Despite being fired in 1971 for financial shenanigans, King swept back on the air in Washington, D.C., before being hired to host a show for Ted Turner's fledgling CNN in 1985, where he has been following current affairs for the past 25 years. King, writing with Fussman (After Jackie), has produced a cultural history as much as a personal testimony, touching on world-shaping events over the last 50 years and sharing, with inimitable humor and grace, some quirky POVs from King's family and friends. (May)

The legendary broadcaster on his eventful life and times, assisted by Esquire writer at large Fussman (After Jackie: Pride, Prejudice, and Baseball's Forgotten Heroes, 2007, etc.).

King (How to Talk to Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere, 2004, etc.) discourses entertainingly on his antic life and storied career, vividly evoking his Brooklyn boyhood and adventures in broadcasting in that familiar, avuncular voice, which is practically audible on the page. He admits to restlessness and a short attention span, evincing a passionate, devil-may-care attitude toward life that precludes deep introspection. In lieu of revealing insights into his character or his talent, King breezily states that he is who he is, and maintains that being true to that immutable "Larryness" is the secret of his immense success. As such, he releases a torrent of well-rehearsed anecdotes, corny jokes, dropped names and baseball trivia. It's an enjoyable ride through an archetypal American life-the Jewish boy made good, a regular neighborhood guy who rises to the top through sheer gumption and force of personality. The most enjoyable sections concern King's boisterous, Depression-era Brooklyn exploits with a cast of well-drawn characters, some of whom add their own perspectives to King's version of events in funny sidebars. The author is unfussily candid about the less savory aspects of his life: the many marriages, his tendency to womanize, his serious health problems, the children he fathered but didn't raise and the financial indiscretions that led to his high-profile arrest for grand larceny in 1971. King's thoughts on the many celebrities and world leaders he has interviewed tend toward the trite and familiar, and his defense of his famous lack of preparation for these sit-downs is unconvincing. But it clearly works for him, and his autobiography is vintage King-lightweight but compulsively engaging. The man's a pro.

A genial little tome, short on substance but with personality to spare.