Born Standing Up
by Kevin Wilder
Well, things have been a bit crazy lately. It’s the end of the decade, and I can say I reached my goal for the year. I coauthored a novel and read (and just as often, listened to) a book every week. I think I need a vacation.
Today I’ll be posting quickly and carelessly, flying through the last few books I read this year. Then, probably tomorrow, I’ll recap everything and mention my favorites. It’s possible I might make some lists of the best stuff I watched, read and listened to … but if so it’ll come a bit late.
Born Standing Up was #50. Less funny than I imagined it might be, but still enjoyable. In Steve Martin’s most recent memoir, he reflects on his early career as a standup comic and the factors that led him to and away from the difficult occupation. His ideas of what comedy should become were groundbreaking and daring. Researched the profession, he tweaked it to find connections social condition of the day, and began favoring toward personality quips over written jokes. He had difficult parents, worked at Disneyland as a kid, and as you know, learned to play a mean banjo.
As a reader, I began finding myself becoming more interested in personal memoirs this year, especially in the case of audiobooks. This was the last memoir I read, and I hope to read plenty more in the two-thousand-tweens.
