Tag / Adam Nedeff

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2022: The Year In Books

As we wrap up 2022, my second full year of remote working, I managed to surpass my previous records by completing a whopping 55 books, an increase of one book over last year and my second consecutive year completing the 52 books in 52 weeks challenge.  I surpassed last year’s total with a mere three days remaining in 2022.  I read (or listened) to 19,328 pages, by far my highest total of all time and only the third time I’ve passed 10,000.

Of those books, fifteen were non-fiction and, of the remaining 40 novels, only two were tied to a TV show, either as the source material or as a tie-in.  None of the books came out of my dwindling “to-read” drawer, with 44 e-books and three audiobooks.  I continued to take advantage of my library card, which helped me procure 37 of the books I consumed throughout the year.

A little more than half of the books I read this year were by authors I had read before. The 31 authors that I read for the first this year were:

Adam Nedeff Kelsey McKinney Simone St. James Laura Dave
Jeff Warren Carlye Adler Matt Paxton Jordan Michael Smith
Alyssa Milano Alex Finlay Taylor Jenkins Reid Emily Ratajkowski
Samantha Downing Dave Grohl Mary Lynn Rajskub Stephanie Perkins
Michael Schur Joseph Henrich V.E. Schwab Brianna Madia
Jimmy Piersall Richard Whittingham Richard Osman Colleen Hoover
Jenette McCurdy Sally Rooney Josh Malerman Alice Sebold
Katie Mack Penn Jillette Elin Hilderbrand Nita Prose

Alex Finlay, Simone St. James, Karin Slaughter, Megan Goldin, Jeffery Deaver, and Richard Osman were the only authors that I read multiple titles from during 2022.

16 of the books I read were released this year, while only two of them were released last century, with the oldest first published in 1953.

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Book 3 (of 52) – The Life (And Wife) Of Allen Ludden

The Life (and Wife) of Allen Ludden – Adam Nedeff

100 years ago today, in the town of Oak Park, Illinois, the only child of Horace and Tess White, named Betty, was born.  The next year, the family moved to California, where young Betty would grow up and find her way into show business, first on radio and then, in 1949, moving to television, first as a co-host with Al Jarvis on his daily show and, eventually, on her own once he left, before moving on to the syndicated sitcom Life with Elizabeth in 1953.

A little further north, in Wisconsin, a youngster named Allen Ludden moved from town to town with his family.  The Ludden’s eventually landed in Texas, where Allen majored in English and drama at the University of Texas.  During WWII, Allen served as an officer in charge of entertainment, moving east after the war.  He continued to entertain, hosting a radio show and writing advice columns for teen magazines.  He moved to television in 1959, when the G.E. College Bowl debuted on CBS.

In 1961, their path’s crossed for the first time, thanks to the game show Password.  Ludden, named the host of the new show, didn’t remember meeting White the first time she guested, as his concentration was torn from the show by his dying wife.  When White returned a second time after the death of Ludden’s wife, the impression stuck, and Ludden knew who would be the next Mrs. Allen Ludden.  Convincing Betty, however, took a while, but they eventually married in 1963.  They continued to work and live together, feeling the ups and downs of Hollywood life, until Ludden’s 1981 death at the age of 63.  Betty White never married again, though she ultimately became an even bigger star thanks to her 7-year run on The Golden Girls.

I don’t even know if I had heard of Allen Ludden before discovering the Buzzr channel a few years back.  Since then, I’ve watched my fair share of the original Password and the late 70s revival Password Plus, which Ludden was hosting until he fell ill.  It seemed like the world was prepping to celebrate Betty White’s 100th birthday today until her surprising death, or as surprising as a death can be when someone is 99 years old, on New Year’s Eve, less than three weeks before the big bash.  It was in honor of them both that I found this biography from Adam Nedeff, who seems to have made a cottage industry looking back at old time game show hosts.  I might just have to take a look at one of them down the line.