Is This Anything?
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4.1 • 159 Ratings
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
The first book in twenty-five years from “one of our great comic minds” (The Washington Post) features Seinfeld’s best work across five decades in comedy.
Since his first performance at the legendary New York nightclub “Catch a Rising Star” as a twenty-one-year-old college student in fall of 1975, Jerry Seinfeld has written his own material and saved everything. “Whenever I came up with a funny bit, whether it happened on a stage, in a conversation, or working it out on my preferred canvas, the big yellow legal pad, I kept it in one of those old school accordion folders,” Seinfeld writes. “So I have everything I thought was worth saving from forty-five years of hacking away at this for all I was worth.”
For this book, Jerry Seinfeld has selected his favorite material, organized decade by decade. In this “trove of laugh-out-loud one-liners” (Associated Press), you will witness the evolution of one of the great comedians of our time and gain new insights into the thrilling but unforgiving art of writing stand-up comedy.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Comedian Seinfeld (Seinlanguage) reflects on the absurdities of life in a laugh-out-loud volume that gathers jokes he's written over the course of his 45-year career along with reminiscences on the lifestyle and craft of stand-up. "I was able to spend endless amounts of time on some of the silliest ideas you can imagine," he writes. "And they're all here." Highlights include takes on such topics as air travel ("The closest thing we have to royalty in America are the people that ride in those little carts through the airport.") and growing up ("How many times did your parents have to say to you, Would you get up off the floor?' Adulthood is the ability to be totally bored and remain standing."). Throughout the sections of monologue-style jokes, which appear almost like a script on the page in stacked lines, Seinfeld inserts anecdotes from his career, such as remembering venturing to an N.Y.C. comedy club for the first time at age 20 ("every neuron in my little brain just lit up"); working on Seinfeld with producer Larry David and feeling like an "over-drained marathoner"; and doing "nothing" for two years after the series wrapped in 1998, before seeing Chris Rock perform and getting inspired to return to the stage. This sharply observed, life-in-gags treasure trove offers essential reading for comedy fans, from a master of the form.
Customer Reviews
From a comic just starting out!
I’m the biggest fan of stand up comedy you’ll ever meet. I started preforming stand up a year and a half ago. I’ve seen all of Jerry’s stand up specials but reading this book helped me better understand how to write a joke. I was getting more laughs at the open mic before I even finished the book. Thanks for helping me become a better comic.
Yada Yada Yada the whole book
As if he doesn’t have enough money, he had to take more of mine to sell me the same jokes he’s been telling for years. Love Jerry! Would have loved some new material even more!
Is this a compilation?
Yeah, it is. Jerry walks you through memory lane from past decades to today of his comedy. Familiar favorites and ones you missed the first time around. Worth the read. I thought afterward “Gee, it would have been nice if I could have heard Jerry say all the bits.” Only then did I realize that I could have bought the read-by-the-author audio version.