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Nonesuch Nonfiction Book Club
- Date: 12/21/2023 2:00 PM - 3:30 PM
- Location: Palm Springs Public Library - The Learning Center
300 S. Sunrise Way
Palm Springs, California 92262
Nonesuch Nonfiction Book Club
Let the adventure begin. Join the Nonesuch Nonfiction Book Club led by Sean R. Corbin, a PSPL Librarian.
The group meets the 3rd Thursday of the month September through May in The Learning Center at the Palm Springs Public Library from 2 p.m. - 3:30 p.m.
To receive meeting information and/or join the email list for the Nonesuch Nonfiction Book Club, please email Librarian and Book Club Coordinator Sean R. Corbin in advance of the meeting.
December 21, 2023
Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life by Steve Martin
—The riveting, mega-bestselling, beloved and highly acclaimed memoir of a man, a vocation, and an era named one of the ten best nonfiction titles of the year by Time and Entertainment Weekly
Emmy and Grammy Award–winner, author of the acclaimed New York Times bestsellers Shopgirl and The Pleasure of My Company, and a regular contributor to The New Yorker, Martin has always been a writer. His memoir of his years in stand-up is candid, spectacularly amusing, and beautifully written.
At age ten 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. The dedication to excellence and innovation is formed at an astonishingly early age and never wavers or wanes.
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 sixties, and the transformative new voice of Saturday Night Live in the seventies.
Throughout the text, Martin has placed photographs, many never seen before. Born Standing Up is a superb testament to the sheer tenacity, focus, and daring of one of the greatest and most iconoclastic comedians of all time.
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