Born standing up

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Amazon link to Born Standing Up - http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/1416553649

The really interesting thing to me is how much work it took him to earn his success. In his book "Born Standing Up" he goes more into his adolescence, where he learned stagecraft, acting, and improvisation. Then as a comedian, years of refining his odd formula until he became great at it.

On a related note, if you find this line of thought interesting, you'd probably enjoy Steve Martin's Born Standing Up . It's a beautifully written memoir in which he tells the story of how he became one of the most successful stand-up comedians ever. I'm not much of a reader, but for what it's worth, it's probably the best thing I've read this year. And, yes, it reinforces the idea that "genius" is often the result of years of hard work and trial and error.

I highly recommend Born Standing Up by Steve Martin if you're at all into comedy. One of the more enjoyable books I read recently. I'd say it was entirely unrelated to Hacker News, but pmarca did paraphrase it in his talk at SuS.

Born Standing Up by Steve Martin, wry observations on growing up to become really really creative. It makes me less sad that I left magic tricks behind me.