Al Roker Books in Order

For television-set mysteries: The Morning Show Murders → The Midnight Show Murders → The Talk Show Murders → Murder on Demand
For weather-driven history: The Storm of the Century → Ruthless Tide
For personal stories and life lessons: Don't Make Me Stop This Car! → Never Goin' Back → You Look So Much Better in Person
For food and family cooking: Al Roker's Big Bad Book of Barbecue → Al Roker's Hassle-Free Holiday Cookbook → Al Roker’s Recipes to Live By

Al Roker was born in Queens, New York, in 1954, and grew up in New York City, with childhood memories that stretch from Queens to Brooklyn. Before weather maps became his day job, he was drawn to cartooning and illustration. He attended Xavier High School in Manhattan, then studied communications at the State University of New York at Oswego.

His route into broadcasting started while he was still a college student. A department chair helped steer him toward a weekend weather job at a Syracuse television station in 1974. Roker learned on the air, doing the practical work of explaining a forecast to a local audience before he had even finished school.

After graduating in 1976, he worked in Washington, D.C., then Cleveland, before returning to New York for WNBC in 1983. Those early stops gave him a wide view of local television, from the odd hours to the pressure of making complicated weather feel useful in a few minutes.

Then morning television came calling.

Roker joined Today as its weekday weather anchor in January 1996. His work there grew beyond the daily forecast to include interviews, travel, food, features, and live coverage when severe weather put communities in harm's way. He has stayed a familiar part of the program while also producing television and taking on projects that let him follow his interest in food, family, and weather science.

Writing has given him room to try several different kinds of books. In Don't Make Me Stop This Car! he wrote warmly and frankly about fatherhood, adoption, and the everyday chaos of raising children. Never Goin' Back draws on his own long effort to change his relationship with food, exercise, and weight. Later, You Look So Much Better in Person collected career stories and the practical, often funny lessons he has picked up along the way.

He also knows that weather stories are really people stories.

That idea runs through his history books. The Storm of the Century follows the 1900 Galveston hurricane, focusing on the people caught in one of the country's deadliest natural disasters. Ruthless Tide turns to the Johnstown Flood of 1889, tracing the damaged dam, the wealthy club connected to it, and the residents whose lives were changed in minutes. For younger readers, Al Roker's Extreme Weather explains storms and unusual weather events in clear, visual terms.

Food is another steady thread. His cookbooks include Al Roker's Big Bad Book of Barbecue, Al Roker's Hassle-Free Holiday Cookbook, and Al Roker's Recipes to Live By, created with his daughter Courtney Roker Laga. The recipes lean toward food meant to be cooked and shared, with family stories, shortcuts, and room for a busy home kitchen.

Roker also co-wrote the Billy Blessing mysteries, beginning with The Morning Show Murders. The books follow a celebrity chef whose work in television and restaurants repeatedly puts him near trouble, giving Roker and his collaborators plenty of room for newsroom politics, food, and murder.

He lives in New York City with his wife, journalist Deborah Roberts. They have three adult children, and his work still reflects the things that show up across his books: family gatherings, a good meal, a weather event worth understanding, and the ability to laugh when the plan changes.