Andy Rooney: A Lucky Life author talk and book signing with Paul Grondahl
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About
Andy Rooney: A Lucky Life author talk and book signing with Paul Grondahl
November 8, 2026, 2:00–3:30 p.m.
Free with museum admission. Books will be available for purchase and signing.
“Paul Grondahl has given us the biography that Andy deserves.” — Steve Kroft
A hilarious and heartbreaking biography of one of America’s most popular commentators and beloved curmudgeons, whose biting wit and homespun humor earned him comparisons to Mark Twain and Will Rogers.
About the book
Andy Rooney carries readers through the life of a true American original and one of the country’s most popular television and newspaper commentators. Award-winning journalist and biographer Paul Grondahl traces Rooney’s transformation from smart-aleck prankster to World War II correspondent for Stars and Stripes, whose first-person dispatches rivaled the reporting of Ernie Pyle, Edward R. Murrow, and Walter Cronkite. After narrowly avoiding death in the war, Rooney found early success as an author and Hollywood screenwriter, followed by years of rejection as a freelancer, unfulfilled literary aspirations, and financial struggles.
Eventually, he found his niche as a gag writer with Arthur Godfrey, an essayist for Harry Reasoner’s CBS News specials, and, in a stroke of luck, the writer and presenter of the wildly popular 60 Minutes segment “A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney.”
Drawing on interviews with Rooney, his family, childhood friends, and 60 Minutes colleagues, as well as archival research and Rooney’s unpublished writings, personal letters, and work, the book explores new truths about his long-term extramarital affair, academic failures, and behavior that alienated close friends. It also recounts his deep loyalty, acts of kindness, and encouragement of young journalists.
Here is the extraordinary life story of a man who contained multitudes.
About the author
Paul Grondahl is the Opalka Endowed Director of the New York State Writers Institute at the University at Albany. His previous books include Mayor Corning: Albany Icon, Albany Enigma, and I Rose Like a Rocket: The Political Education of Theodore Roosevelt.
Grondahl was a staff writer at the Albany Times Union from 1984 to 2017, winning local, state, and national writing prizes. His reporting took him around the world and across New York State. His in-depth projects on domestic violence, death and dying, mental illness in state prisons, and issues facing sub-Saharan Africa have won journalism awards.