At midcentury, everyone knew Bennett Cerf: the witty, beloved, middle-aged panelist on “What’s My Line?” whom TV brought into America’s homes each week. But they didn’t know that the handsome, driven, paradoxical young man of the 1920s had vowed to become a great publisher and, a decade later, was. By then, he’d signed Eugene O’Neill, Gertrude Stein and William Faulkner, and had fought the landmark censorship case that gave Americans the freedom to read James Joyce’s ULYSSES. Using interviews with more than 200 individuals, deeply researched archival material, and letters from private collections not previously available, NOTHING RANDOM brings Bennett Cerf to vibrant life, drawing book lovers into his world, finally laying open the page on a quintessential American original.