Goodreads Mobile | see what your friends are reading

Jan 04, 2008

J.P. rated it:

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/film More...

5 comments like (18 people liked it)

Jan 03, 2008

Patrick rated it:

If, before I read this, someone were to tell me that I would only laugh one time in the whole book, I would be like, “No way,” and he would be like, “Seriously, at one point a bird craps on Steve Martin’s head and that's literally the only time you’ll laugh in the whole book,” and I would be like, “Come on, really?” and he would be like, “Well, think about it: think about his material during this period and try to imagine how it would translate onto the page, and then think about where he is now More...

4 comments like (20 people liked it)

Jul 18, 2008

Jason rated it:

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)

I hope this isn't too embarrassing a thing to admit, but when I was a kid I used to have Steve Martin's old comedy albums literally memorized; and I mean, literally, back in the late '70s and early '80s when he was at his commercial height, back when I was ten, eleven, twelve years old, I More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Mar 24, 2008

Trebro rated it:

I am a huge fan of Steve Martin, to the point that even though I was probably a bit too young for it, Mom took me to see Roxanne in the theater. His SNL work and standup and early movies were a big part of forming the peculiar sense of humour that I have today.

So next time *I* am laughing hysterically while the rest of the room looks on in silence, remember kids, it's all Mr. Martin's fault.

This book, which I listed to as read by the author (I think it would have been funny More...

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Mar 11, 2008

James rated it:

This probably gets an extra star for my undying love for Steve Martin.

When I was a kid, I had three heroes: Han Solo, Kermit the Frog, and Steve Martin. Two of them are fictional, so only one can tell his life story, and damn, he f'n did it. It's a story of perseverance, and how to persevere under what I would call whelming odds. Not overwhelming, but enough that you might see where he would want to pack it in. Sometimes.

I love his approach to this book. He doesn't reall More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jan 04, 2008

CJ rated it:

I heard Steve Martin talk about this book a couple of weeks ago on NPR and he was brilliant. He's so low key about his celebrity it makes me want to sit and have a cup of coffee with him.

In Martin's own words this book is "a biography, because I am writing about someone I used to know." It chronicles his childhood entrance into show business and follows him all the way through playing stadiums in the 1980s.

What interested me most is his approach to doing stan More...

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

May 23, 2008

Michelle rated it:

I enjoyed reading Steve Martin's memoir of his years in stand-up comedy. His job handing out guide books in Disney Land as a pre-teen led him to a love of magic, then to a love of performing on stage. I loved the hard work and thought he put into his act; honing it after years of trial and error.

I think so many people today break into "the business" because of nepotism, but Martin did it by persevering. I first knew of him as the guy in the movie The Jerk, but he was a More...

4 comments like (5 people liked it)

May 27, 2008

Maggie rated it:

I was born in 1978, a particularly good year for comedian Steve Martin. That was the year he won a Grammy for Best Comedy Album with Let's Get Small, the year he released "King Tut" on 45, the year he appeared in the movie Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, made so many appearances on SNL that he seemed more like a regular fixture than a guest host, and was basically as successful as any comedian can hope to be. But since I wasn't exactly cognizant in 1978, all this was lost on m More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

May 31, 2008

Rebecca rated it:

for me, this book read just as if it were a one-sided, long conversation with the only thing forcing story progression being when steve would remember his original point and refocus on the story. he veered off on related tangents and then would jump back into the plot very quickly.

that sounds much more critical than it should. the man has done a lot in his lifetime and i'm sure it's hard to put all of that into a book cohesively. even thought it was a bit scattered, i would still re More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

May 04, 2008

Patrick rated it:

I'm not the biggest Steve Martin fan, but I watched "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid" a few months ago and my brother gave me his book "Cruel Shoes" in college, so I was interested to read his take on his stand-up years, which were a kind of anti-comedy that employed the banjo and purposely bad magic tricks. The book is only 200 pages, so it's concise and interesting thoughout. My favorite part was when he explained his theory of what he was trying to do:

"What if More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 20, 2008

Colleen rated it:

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 wer More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Mar 12, 2008

Diane rated it:

A very enjoyable read. I've liked Steve Martin's other books, especially 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 '60s and '70s.

I was interested to learn how much philosophy he 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 catch up More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Jan 31, 2012

Sarah rated it:

Having read and enjoyed "An Object of Beauty", I remarked (naively) to a friend in the entertainment world that I was impressed Steve Martin could move from being a performer to such a well written author. Duh! Steve Martin actually began as a writer, first creating all of his own comedy material, then for years he was a TV writer (Smothers Brothers, Sonny & Cher), and of course, he wrote the screen plays for blockbuster movies, "The Jerk", "L.A. Story", etc. My More...

5 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 08, 2009

Shellie (Layers of Thought) rated it:

Coming of age in the 1980's Steve Martin sits in my youthful consciousness as a stand out/up celebrity. I laughed at his movies and all my high school and community college friends loved him. I remember everyone imitating him in conversations and at parties in attempt to be funny or contemporary. So when trying to find a comedian to read about for an April fools day challenge I chose his memoir Born Standing Up. I expected the book to be funny - it wasn't. So if your looking for humor this is n More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Sep 10, 2011

Dennis rated it:

I really enjoyed this book and surprisingly have not read anything else by Steve Martin, other than his one-pagers in the New Yorker (more Martin planned for my Goodreads queue). As one who played his comedy albums over and over, Steve Martin's voice was ingrained in my adolescent ears and to read this book was to hear him again. His comedic voice is ever-present but nothing in the book is funny, which reinforces a perspective that humor is a light overlaying lens on our reality, one Steve wears More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 13, 2011

Svengali rated it:

When I first became obsessed with Steve Martin I was very young. My father had two records of his stand up and I idolized the silly innocence in the movie 'The Jerk'. I Sang the song 'King Tut' in front of my second grade class. I couldnt get enough information about this man, Steve Martin. Perhaps I wanted to know more about this figure, but more importantly I wanted much larger amounts of material that he produced comically. The comedy was cathartic - an embodiment of freedom, yet perfect More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 16, 2008

Chris rated it:

Interesting book ... as a kid growing up in the 70s, I certainly knew who Steve Martin was ... I saw him on Saturday Night Live, I had all the albums, I watched the movies he was in. But reading the book gave me new appreciation for him. Coming out of a pretty bad upbringing (not unusual among comedians), he really strived to do something different ... and his explanation of how he evolved his act to the point of what became a mega-sensation (playing stadiums) is extremely intriguing, because More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 13, 2008

Justin rated it:

I devoured this book like semisweet chocolate, only some kind of chocolate that isn't too rich and doesn't leave me sick no matter how much of it I eat. I feel like I could read about Steve Martin's analysis of his own standup comedy for thousands of pages. Instead I'm stuck with about 200, and these I cherished.

Born Standing Up is not an intimate confessional by Martin, and those eager to learn more about the man behind the rather aloof, cold public facade will be disappointed here. More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 12, 2008

Todd rated it:

I purchased this book as part of a long-standing tradition of buying books for my mom about people she has expressed interest in. This one had been standing out to me on shelves in the months leading up to Christmas, so when the gift rush set in, Born Standing Up was a no-brainer.

As you know, the beauty of book giving is in trying the item out before you pass it along. Long story short, this led to a two day devouring of this book before seeing the family to exchange gifts. I could n More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 28, 2008

Jason rated it:

A friend from work let me borrow this, and I'm so glad I listened to the audio book rather than read it (I'd almost bought the book at Target last week on a whim). Steve Martin is my favorite comedian; I've had all his albums at one time or another, his early movies are some of my favorites. I don't know much of his literary work, unfortunately, like "Pure Drivel" and "Shopgirl", but will be atoning for that shortly. Hearing Martin tell his own story is a real treat. Whil More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 31, 2008

Paul rated it:

Steve Martin is an interesting fellow. When I was in high school, he went through his "overnight sensation" phase, where his lines were on every high school student's lips. He was the embodiment of a kind of faux stupid attitude that many high school students affected. His first movie, The Jerk, went right along with that.

But somewhere Steve Martin dropped all that. Today you're more likely to find his work in The New Yorker than on Saturday Night Live, and he hasn't don More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 16, 2008

Johnsergeant rated it:

Downloaded from Audible.com

Program Type: Audiobook; Unabridged
Narrator: Steve Martin
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio, 2007
Length: 4 hours and 3 min.

Publisher's Summary
In the mid-70s, 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. Born Standing Up is, in his own words, the story of "why I did stand-up and why I walked away".

At age 10 Martin start More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 19, 2007

Joey rated it:

I am a huge Steve Martin fan. I own his comedy albums and never get tired of them. He has great clips on Youtube, too. When my mom told me that a book was coming out soon about his life as a stand-up comedian, I was anxious for a month to get my hands on a copy. I bought the book as soon as it came out and devoured it, but I was not impressed.

Steve Martin barely exposes any part of himself as an artist. He seems to just give a quick overview of what happened to him and what he did to b More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 16, 2010

Alex rated it:

BORN STANDING UP: A COMIC'S LIFE BY STEVE MARTIN: Actor/writer Steve Martin’s latest book, Born Standing Up, is neither a novel nor a complete autobiography. It is an insightful and entertaining read about Steve Martin’s rise to fame through comedy, starting during his teen years and leading up to his success as an actor in blockbuster movies.

The book begins with Steve’s birth in a classic American family, with a supportive mother and a father who always wanted to pursue a career i More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 04, 2008

Kara rated it:

Wow. Big disappointment. I was hoping for some insight into this this man who was so hilarious in the 70s, yet disappeared to later reemerge as a family-friendly "light" comic actor. But this is an impossibility due to the fact that Martin seems to have little insight into himself.

His book reads like a Filofax diary of who and where and what. What's missing is any genuine humanity or emotion. Is he married today? Has kids? Who knows because it's not addressed.

More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Sep 12, 2008

David rated it:

The secrets of Steve Martin's (or any highly skilled professional's) success revealed! 90% perspiration, 9.9% desperation, 0.1% inspiration. Hard work. Years of poverty and hand-to-mouth living. Practice, practice, practice. Rejection. More hard work. More practice. More rejection. Then a lucky break and a breakthrough, and the rest is history. But for the break to produce success on the level Martin has had, he had to be prepared for it, and he was. This book tells us what being prepared means More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Jan 09, 2009

Bob rated it:

Steve Martin is a genius. He's funny, he writes, he acts and he let Glen Frey know that Eagles was not the right name for his newly formed band...it would be The Eagles. This is more a book about Martin and his rediscovery of his family than anything else.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 20, 2008

Tricia rated it:

A well-written and engaging memoir from an iconic comedian. What blew my mind was how his success was the result of incredibly hard work: he spent years dissecting and analyzing comedy through performance. This is almost a "how-to" book on stand-up, but times have changed and so what is best gleaned from its pages is the level of dedication and sheer will power needed to create art. Inspiration might strike some, but the majority of creativity comes from careful observation of masters More...

0 comments like

Jul 31, 2009

Bibliophile rated it:

Born Standing Up, Steve Martin’s memoir of his days as a stand-up comic, is so well-written (with so many wonderful turns of phrase) that I forgot that I’m not really a fan of stand-up comedy at all and became quite fascinated by his career and by his own very honest and thoughtful examination of his relationships with others. I actually got a bit teary-eyed towards the end of the book when Martin attempts to bridge the distance that has grown between him and his parents. He may not be a " More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

May 13, 2008

Jonathan rated it:

An inside look into the mysterious live of a beloved celebrity. Shedding the light of reality on the mystery of super-stardom. Showing that while we know that much of Steve's charm lies in his natural personality, much of his success can be attributed to his perseverance. I may have extra affection for this book because of my oddball talents (juggling, guitar, balloon animals, etc.) which are similar to those that were an important part of young Steve's performances (magic, juggling, banjo, ball More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

reviews