Robert Novak, who died today, wrote thousands of news stories and columns in his 50-plus years as a Washington journalist. In each one, he said, he broke news. That is a staggering achievement. But journalism can be ephemeral and books, even in the digital age, live on. And here Novak also made a singular contribution.

His best known book to today’s readers is his 2007 autobiography The Prince of Darkness, which I had the honor to review in the Weekly Standard. It’s a superb and unflinchingly self-revealing piece of work. For those who want to understand Washington politics and journalism over the past half-century, it is part of the very small shelf of books I would recommend, together with Katharine Graham’s Personal History, Robert Merry’s Taking on the World (a biography of Joseph and Stewart Alsop) and