Declare Books Supposing Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life
Original Title: | Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life |
ISBN: | 1416553649 (ISBN13: 9781416553649) |
Edition Language: | English |
Characters: | Steve Martin |
Literary Awards: | Grammy Award Nominee for Best Spoken Word Album (2009) |
Steve Martin
Hardcover | Pages: 207 pages Rating: 3.87 | 79460 Users | 5048 Reviews

Present Appertaining To Books Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life
Title | : | Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life |
Author | : | Steve Martin |
Book Format | : | Hardcover |
Book Edition | : | First Edition |
Pages | : | Pages: 207 pages |
Published | : | February 29th 2008 by Scribner Book Company (first published November 20th 2007) |
Categories | : | Nonfiction. Biography. Autobiography. Memoir. Humor. Comedy |
Relation Concering Books Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life
In the midseventies, Steve Martin exploded onto the comedy scene. By 1978 he was the biggest concert draw in the history of stand-up. In 1981 he quit forever. This book is, in his own words, the story of "why I did stand-up and why I walked away."Emmy and Grammy Award winner, author of the acclaimed New York Times bestsellers Shopgirl and The Pleasure of My Company, and a regular contributor to The New Yorker, Martin has always been a writer. His memoir of his years in stand-up is candid, spectacularly amusing, and beautifully written.
At age ten Martin started his career at Disneyland, selling guidebooks in the newly opened theme park. In the decade that followed, he worked in the Disney magic shop and the Bird Cage Theatre at Knott's Berry Farm, performing his first magic/comedy act a dozen times a week. The story of these years, during which he practiced and honed his craft, is moving and revelatory. The dedication to excellence and innovation is formed at an astonishingly early age and never wavers or wanes.
Martin illuminates the sacrifice, discipline, and originality that made him an icon and informs his work to this day. To be this good, to perform so frequently, was isolating and lonely. It took Martin decades to reconnect with his parents and sister, and he tells that story with great tenderness. Martin also paints a portrait of his times-the era of free love and protests against the war in Vietnam, the heady irreverence of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in the late sixties, and the transformative new voice of Saturday Night Live in the seventies.
Throughout the text, Martin has placed photographs, many never seen before. Born Standing Up is a superb testament to the sheer tenacity, focus, and daring of one of the greatest and most iconoclastic comedians of all time.
Rating Appertaining To Books Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life
Ratings: 3.87 From 79460 Users | 5048 ReviewsCommentary Appertaining To Books Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life
I should have listened to this on audio, as Martin would've been the perfect narrator, I'm sure. Still, the memoir was very well done -- not too sentimental, just the right mix of comedy and poignancy. Martin writes with a light touch, and comes across as a very centered, reflective, and well-grounded person, anything but wild and crazy. Of course, I grew up on Saturday Night Live and Steve Martin was my idol in middle school, so this had a lot of nostalgic value for me. I also liked it for itsThis is a very enjoyable read. I like Steve Martin's writing, especially his novels Shopgirl and The Pleasure of My Company, and this memoir is a good behind-the-scenes look at how he came to craft his hyper-silly comedy routine of the 1960s and '70s. I was interested to learn how much philosophy Steve had studied and how he evolved his brand of comedy. Rather than cue the audience for a punchline, he got rid of the punchline altogether and went on with another bit, waiting for the audience to
Whimsical anecdotes of how an artist became one huge superstar by honing his skills of wit & comedyfunny & observant. Great autobiography. This one is possibly on par to Bob Dylans "Chronicles." It's pretty inspiring, to say the least.

I usually avoid these types of books like the Plague. Celebrity autobiographies---ego unchained, coupled with a "Then I went here, then I did this, then I went there and did that. . ." boring-ass format. Nine times out of ten, books like these put me to sleep.Not so, Steve Martin's BORN STANDING UP. First of all, it's more focused than most celeb tell-alls. It centers around Martin's life leading up to and including his career as a standup comedian, not as an actor/filmmaker. So "Three Amigos"
Steve Martin, one of the most obviously intelligent comedy artists of his generation, has written a genial and serious book about the art of stand-up comedy as he saw it during his development in the 1960s and his enormous success in the 1970s. The book is charming and funny, yet it trades easy laughs for a real look at what went into the building of a spectacular career. Martin is authentic in his description of his upbringing in a family that didn't discover closeness until almost too late.
I watched a show in Netflix recently called Steve Martin and Martin Short: An Evening You Will Forget for the Rest of Your Life, it was hilarious. Martin Short was really the star turn but it reminded me how much I always liked Steve Martin. And what happened to him, where did he go? Some of the answers were provided by another show I tracked down in which Steve chatted to fellow comedian Jerry Seinfeld, but I wanted more and this book was referenced by Seinfeld in the interview so I decided to
I count my idols on one hand. When I was 18 I took a cross country road trip with my father during which we listened to Martin's LET'S GET SMALL on repeat for the entire length of New Mexico. The trip confirmed a few beliefs, yes my father was the greatest man on the planet, and yes Steve Martin was a close second. Martin's stand-up has still never been rivaled, a perfect blend of absurd with a straight face, as if his goal was to make the joke fly over the audience's heads. Many times there
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