Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life
“One of ten other biographies I recommend.”
Why it is worth your time
Born Standing Up is Steve Martin's 2007 memoir of his stand-up career, from a job at the magic shop in Disneyland as a teenager to the arena shows of the late 1970s, when he was the biggest comedian in the US. He quit stand-up in 1981. The book is short and covers the years of writing for television, the slow building of an act with no punchlines, and the loneliness of selling out stadiums. Jason listed it among the 10 biographies on his January 2019 post, where he argued that outsiders should read how insiders got there. Martin's 18 years of unglamorous work before the breakthrough is the point of the book and the point of the list. It suits anyone building a craft. The caveat is that it ends in 1981, when Martin quit stand-up, so the film career is not covered, and Publishers Weekly notes the reticent Martin dishes no backstage dirt.
