will's review

[close]

blog this review

Copy/paste the text below into your blog. <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/773858.Born_Standing_Up_A_Comic_s_Life?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life" border="0" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41U9%2Bvy3OTL._SL160_.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/773858.Born_Standing_Up_A_Comic_s_Life?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7103.Steve_Martin">Steve Martin</a><br/><br/> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/18452985?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a> rating: 3 of 5 stars<br/>Born Standing Up - A Comic's Life by Steve Martin <br/> <br/>I like reading biographies but I don't buy them. I find them hard work and normally intensely annoying. Very rarely do I ever finish one, normally I abandon them three-quarters through. This is why I don't buy them, I don't see the point of spending money on a book I won't finish and will irritate me. If I read a biography it is normally from a library or borrowed. So, you are probably asking, why the hell do you read them? Because biographies are normally written about people who have done things and, somewhere - inside the sycophancy or hatred or half-hearted cod-philosophy - there is sometimes a small nugget of information that gives you an insight into why these people became the people they are. While standing in the queue at Borders the other day, in their 40% off sale, I saw Born Standing Up. Steve Martin is a man I admire and I like his writing - Shop Girl is a wonderfully insightful film. I thought that for 40% off I would get my money's worth. <br/> <br/>Although Born Standing Up is written by Steve Martin, about Steve Martin, he describes it as a biography "the story of a person who isn't me now". In it he looks back at his childhood and the struggle to become a stand-up comedian. He finishes it at the moment he quit stand-up and moved into the film making business. He is brutally honest - he talks about his sexual dalliances, his drug taking dalliances, his problems with his family. You get a good feel for the man he is: he isn't "wild and craaazy", he is a conservative; he isn't an extroverted performer, he is an introverted 'A' grade Philosophy student; he isn't an over-night flash in the pan; he is an exceptionally hard-working man who took 23 years to become an over-night success. And it was all that hard work that meant, when he arrived at the top, he recognised it was time to quit before he started to come down the other side. <br/> <br/>I finished it! I read the whole book in less than a day. So, in theory, I should recommend this book - but I won't. It worked for me because I like biographies, I like biographies of entertainers, I like Steve Martin - and this was a good biography of the entertainer Steve Martin. However, a key question I ask myself when I get to the end of a book is not "Would I read this again?" but "Would I buy this again?" And I'm afraid the answer is "No!" Not even at 40% off. If you want to read it, get it from the library. <br/><br/><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/1015266?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>