Category Archives: Memoir-Biography

AUDIOBOOK REVIEW: Born Standing Up, by Steve Martin

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RELEASE DATE: November 1, 2007
AUTHOR LINKS: WEB / TWITTER / GOODREADS / FACEBOOK
PUBLISHER: Simon & Schuster Audio
FORMAT: Audiobook
SOURCE: Purchased
BUY NOW FROM: Audible

NARRATED BY: Steve Martin

In the mid-70s, Steve Martin exploded onto the comedy scene. By 1978 he was the biggest concert draw in the history of stand-up. In 1981 he quit forever. Born Standing Up is, in his own words, the story of “why I did stand-up and why I walked away”.

At age 10 Martin started his career at Disneyland, selling guidebooks in the newly opened theme park. In the decade that followed, he worked in the Disney magic shop and the Bird Cage Theatre at Knott’s Berry Farm, performing his first magic/comedy act a dozen times a week. The story of these years, during which he practiced and honed his craft, is moving and revelatory.

Martin illuminates the sacrifice, discipline, and originality that made him an icon and informs his work to this day. To be this good, to perform so frequently, was isolating and lonely. It took Martin decades to reconnect with his parents and sister, and he tells that story with great tenderness. Martin also paints a portrait of his times: the era of free love and protests against the war in Vietnam, the heady irreverence of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in the late 60s, and the transformative new voice of Saturday Night Live in the 70s.

MY REVIEW

When I think back to what TV show or movie I may have watched starring Steven Martin, the only one that comes up is Father Of The Bride. Obviously, I don’t call myself a huge fan, but he’s one comedian who I know of and seem to really like whenever I see him in anything.  Continue reading →

AUDIOBOOK REVIEW: Happy Accidents, by Jane Lynch

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RELEASE DATE: September 13, 2011
AUTHOR LINKS: TWITTER / GOODREADS
PUBLISHER: Hyperion
FORMAT: Audiobook
SOURCE: Library
CHALLENGE: 2012 Mixing It Up Challenge – Biography
BUY NOW FROM: Amazon

NARRATOR: Jane Lynch

In the summer of 1974, a fourteen-year-old girl in Dolton, Illinois, had a dream. A dream to become an actress, like her idols Ron Howard and Vicki Lawrence. But it was a long way from the South Side of Chicago to Hollywood, and it didn’t help that she’d recently dropped out of the school play, The Ugly Duckling. Or that the Hollywood casting directors she wrote to replied that “professional training was a requirement.”

But the funny thing is, it all came true. Through a series of Happy Accidents, Jane Lynch created an improbable and hilarious path to success. In those early years, despite her dreams, she was also consumed with anxiety, feeling out of place in both her body and her family. To deal with her worries about her sexuality, she escaped in positive ways such as joining a high school chorus not unlike the one in Glee but also found destructive outlets. She started drinking almost every night her freshman year of high school and developed a mean and judgmental streak that turned her into a real- life Sue Sylvester.

Then, at thirty-one, she started to get her life together. She was finally able to embrace her sexuality, come out to her parents, and quit drinking for good. Soon after, a Frosted Flakes commercial and a chance meeting in a coffee shop led to a role in the Christopher Guest movie Best in Show, which helped her get cast in The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Similar coincidences and chance meetings led to roles in movies starring Will Ferrell, Paul Rudd, and even Meryl Streep in 2009′s Julie & Julia. Then, of course, came the two lucky accidents that truly changed her life. Getting lost in a hotel led to an introduction to her future wife, Lara. Then, a series she’d signed up for abruptly got canceled, making it possible for her to take the role of Sue Sylvester in Glee, which made her a megastar.

Today, Jane Lynch has finally found the contentment she thought she’d never have. Part comic memoir and part inspirational narrative, this is a book equally for the rabid Glee fan and for anyone who needs a new perspective on life, love, and success.

MY REVIEW

This was a wonderful, wonderful listen! I’ve seen Jane Lynch on so many TV shows over the years and have been one of the many TV-watchers addicted to Glee in the past few years. Jane’s character, Sue Sylvester, is just great — as are all the characters I’ve seen her play. They’re all sarcastic and funny!  Continue reading →

ARC REVIEW: How to Cook Like a Man: A Memoir of Cookbook Obsession, by Daniel Duane

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Released: May 8, 2012 (Bloomsbury)
Author Links: WEB / GOODREADS
Source: NetGalley, for review
Buy Now From: Amazon

When Daniel Duane became a father, this San Francisco surfer and climber found himself trapped at home with no clue how to contribute. Inept at so many domestic tasks, and less than eager to change diapers, he took on dinner duty. Duane had a few tricks: pasta, stir-fry … well, actually, those were his only two tricks. But he had a biographical anomaly: Chef Alice Waters had been his preschool teacher. So he cracked one of her Chez Panisse cookbooks and cooked his way through it. And so it went with all seven of her other cookbooks, then on to those of other famous chefs—thousands of recipes in all, amounting to an epic eight-year cooking journey. 

Butchering whole lambs at home, teaching himself to make classic veal stock, even hunting pigs in Maui and fishing for salmon in Alaska, Duane so thoroughly immersed himself in the modern food world that he met and cooked with a striking number of his heroes: writing a book with Alice Waters; learning offal cookery hands-on from the great Fergus Henderson; even finagling seven straight hours of one-on-one private lessons from the chef he admires above all others, Thomas Keller. 

Duane’s inimitable voice carries us through, with humor and panache, even through a pair of personal tragedies. Here is a writer who can make chopping an onion sound fun and fascinating. But there is more at stake in his wonderful memoir: In the end, Duane learns not just how to cook like a man, but how to be one.

My Thoughts

I am not the best chef. While my cookbook cabinet houses more than 30 cookbooks, I usually buy them for one or two recipes only. Sometimes I’ll find a cookbook that has many, many good recipes, but even then I’ll only make them once in a blue moon. I tend to prefer simplicity in the kitchen — spaghetti, eggs, soup, etc. I’ve just never had the patience for elaborate recipes, nor do I have the desire to spend all my money on ingredients for a recipe I might not even end up liking. Continue reading →