The old joke goes, “I was gonna get you a book but I saw you already have one.” Reading books about stand up comedy and books by stand up comedians is one of the things that really helped to keep inspired and grinding in the early days when I was struggling to build some momentum and find my voice.
It helped to hear of so many of my heroes going through the same kinds of struggles I was. I love Drew Carey’s “Dirty Jokes and Beer: Stories of The Unrefined” especially the fiction pieces he includes at the end. “Harpo Speaks” written by Harpo Marx (not quite a stand up, but one of the funniest people of all time) and Rowland Barber is a delight. I could name at least a dozen more books that I devoured in my first years as a comic, but here are the two that I’ve chosen to recommend as my absolute favorite books about stand up. Let me know your favorites in the comments!
The Last Laugh: The World of Stand-Up Comics
by Phil Berger
I love this book and I reread it every few years to inspire me and recharge my comedy batteries. Despite the cover focusing heavily on eighties comics, Berger, who was mostly a sports journalist, does a wonderful job of bringing you into the early days of stand up, a relatively young art form, starting with the post vaudeville scene. He brings to life the era of stand up being performed at nightclubs run by the mob, and the reader really feels like they’re getting to know early stars like Milton Berle and Henny Youngman, but also lesser known though hugely influential artists like Joe Ancis, a favorite of other comedians who never really found an audience himself. And its an absolute delight to spend time with Rodney Dangerfield, Richard Pryor, Lenny Bruce, Lily Tomlin and countless others. Even the updated edition only takes you up to the eighties, so if you’re wanting to read about your current comedy favorites, this is not the book you’re looking for, but if you want a fun and well researched ride through comedy’s birth and evolution, I can’t recommend this one enough.
Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life
by Steve Martin
There is no shortage of books by stand up comedians, but this is the one for me. Steve Martin is a smart, natural writer and he has such a story to tell, coming up in years leading up to the eighties comedy boom, remaining true to his weird, experimental ideas through a decade of struggling to find an appreciative audience, and then riding the boom to the very top, becoming the worlds first arena filling stand up comedy super star. I’ve long loved his book of short stories, Cruel Shoes, and I went into Born Standing Up expecting more joking, and bending of conventions, and what I got instead is a thoughtful, sincere, and somewhat subdued examination of his career path, and artistic methods.