by Judd Apatow ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 16, 2015
A delightful and hilarious read for anyone interested in what makes comedians tick.
Three decades of interviews with comedy greats conducted by writer, producer, and director Apatow (The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, etc.).
The author’s sprawling and insightful collection of interviews with some of the biggest and most respected names in comedy was a project that began over 30 years ago when, as a high schooler in Long Island, he coerced various agents and managers to grant him time to speak with comedians for his school radio program. Such ambition is a testament to Apatow’s self-stated obsession with comedy and an unyielding desire to learn as much as he could about the form. The early interviews, often conducted when the author was only 15, offer a unique glimpse into the minds of the rising comedic stars of the 1980s—e.g., Jerry Seinfeld, Jay Leno, Paul Reiser, and Harold Ramis. Little did Apatow know that he was interviewing future megastars, and the comedians were unaware that the young man hoisting his giant tape recorder during the interview would become a comedic sensation in his own right. The author also wisely conducts follow-up interviews with several comedians for juxtapositions that are the most immediate charms in a book nearly bursting with them. The table of contents is a who’s who of major players: Martin Short, Steve Martin, Chris Rock, Mel Brooks, Sarah Silverman, Louis C.K., Jim Carrey, Seth Rogen, and Stephen Colbert, among others. For added perspective, Apatow also includes interviews with less-conventional funny people like musician Eddie Vedder, novelist and artist Miranda July, and director Spike Jonze. The persistent theme across this diverse range of interviews is the comedian as tireless tradesman constantly touring and honing his craft. The candidness of the interviews also exposes the peculiar community of comedians with anecdotes and cameos unlikely to be heard elsewhere.
A delightful and hilarious read for anyone interested in what makes comedians tick.Pub Date: June 16, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9757-6
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
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PERSPECTIVES
by Charlayne Hunter-Gault ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1992
From the national correspondent for PBS's MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour: a moving memoir of her youth in the Deep South and her role in desegregating the Univ. of Georgia. The eldest daughter of an army chaplain, Hunter-Gault was born in what she calls the ``first of many places that I would call `my place' ''—the small village of Due West, tucked away in a remote little corner of South Carolina. While her father served in Korea, Hunter-Gault and her mother moved first to Covington, Georgia, and then to Atlanta. In ``L.A.'' (lovely Atlanta), surrounded by her loving family and a close-knit black community, the author enjoyed a happy childhood participating in activities at church and at school, where her intellectual and leadership abilities soon were noticed by both faculty and peers. In high school, Hunter-Gault found herself studying the ``comic-strip character Brenda Starr as I might have studied a journalism textbook, had there been one.'' Determined to be a journalist, she applied to several colleges—all outside of Georgia, for ``to discourage the possibility that a black student would even think of applying to one of those white schools, the state provided money for black students'' to study out of state. Accepted at Michigan's Wayne State, the author was encouraged by local civil-rights leaders to apply, along with another classmate, to the Univ. of Georgia as well. Her application became a test of changing racial attitudes, as well as of the growing strength of the civil-rights movement in the South, and Gault became a national figure as she braved an onslaught of hostilities and harassment to become the first black woman to attend the university. A remarkably generous, fair-minded account of overcoming some of the biggest, and most intractable, obstacles ever deployed by southern racists. (Photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-374-17563-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1992
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by William Strunk & E.B. White ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 15, 1972
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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