Audiobook Sample

Listen to the sample to experience the story.

Please wait while we verify your browser...

  • Title: Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life
  • Author: Steve Martin
  • Narrator: Steve Martin
  • Length: 04:03:50
  • Version: Abridged
  • Release Date: 20/11/2007
  • Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
  • Genre: Biography & Memoir, Arts & Entertainment
  • ISBN13: 9.78E+12
Hello fellow seekers of true stories and human connections,

There’s something profoundly intimate about hearing an artist tell their own story in their own voice. As I listened to Steve Martin narrate “Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life” while driving through the winding roads of Big Sur last summer, I was struck by how his measured, slightly melancholic tone perfectly mirrored the coastal fog – lifting just enough to reveal startling clarity before rolling back to preserve some mystery. This audiobook isn’t just a memoir; it’s an aural time capsule of an era when comedy transformed, delivered by the man who helped revolutionize it.

Martin’s narration is a revelation. Having spent years collecting oral histories during my travels – from Oaxacan grandmothers to Senegalese griots – I’ve learned to appreciate when a storyteller understands the rhythm of silence as much as words. Martin pauses like a jazz musician holding a rest note, letting the weight of revelations about his lonely childhood or the grueling decade spent perfecting five minutes of material settle in your ears. You can hear the ghost of his younger self in certain phrases, particularly when describing his early days performing eight shows a week at Knott’s Berry Farm. The way his voice lifts when recounting his first successful bit at The Bird Cage Theatre transported me to watching street performers in Barcelona’s Plaça Reial – that electric moment when an artist first feels an audience truly with them.

The memoir’s structure unfolds like one of Martin’s classic routines – seemingly spontaneous yet meticulously crafted. His description of developing the ‘wild and crazy guy’ persona reads like a travelogue through creative evolution, each failed experiment and accidental discovery mapped like stops on an underground comedy pilgrimage. I found myself pulling over during particularly vivid passages, like his account of bombing at San Francisco’s The Boarding House, just to sit with the raw vulnerability. It reminded me of my own early travel writing rejections – that peculiar alchemy of shame and determination that fuels artistic growth.

What makes this audiobook exceptional is how Martin’s voice embodies the paradoxes of his career: the shy introvert who commanded stadiums, the philosophy student who became synonymous with absurdist humor. His narration of the book’s most poignant sections – particularly the strained relationship with his father – carries the quiet authority of someone who’s processed pain through creativity. The audio format adds layers a print version can’t capture, like when his voice tightens slightly describing walking away from stand-up at his peak, allowing listeners to hear three decades of complex emotions in a single breath.

From a technical perspective, the production is flawlessly clean, allowing Martin’s vocal nuances full expression. Unlike some celebrity-narrated memoirs that feel rushed, you sense he approached this recording with the same perfectionism he brought to his craft. The subtle shifts when quoting mentors like Johnny Carson or describing Saturday Night Live’s chaotic early days demonstrate a master performer’s control. It’s this quality that makes the audiobook superior to reading the text – you’re not just learning about Martin’s comedy theories on ‘making people laugh by not trying to make them laugh,’ you’re experiencing them through his delivery.

While the memoir focuses on Martin’s stand-up years (1950s-1981), it’s ultimately about the universal journey of artistic self-discovery. His descriptions of writing jokes in a tiny Anaheim apartment mirror my own memories of drafting stories in cheap Lisbon hostels – that sacred, frustrating process of creating something from nothing. The audiobook’s greatest gift might be how it demystifies genius, showing the unglamorous work behind the magic while preserving just enough wonder to keep you enthralled.

For listeners who appreciate memoirs like Nora Ephron’s “I Feel Bad About My Neck” or Tina Fey’s “Bossypants”, Martin offers a more meditative but equally revealing male perspective on creativity and fame. The absence of his banjo (except in brief chapter transitions) feels intentional – this isn’t a performance, but a conversation. By the final chapter, when he describes passing his old comedy albums in a record store without nostalgia, you understand this isn’t just a career retrospective, but a profound meditation on how we outgrow our former selves while carrying them forward.

If the book has any limitation, it’s that non-comedy fans might miss some of the industry references. But Martin’s storytelling transcends show business – it’s about the price of originality, the loneliness of the road (whether comedy clubs or foreign countries), and how we reconcile with our past. I’ve listened to hundreds of audiobooks across six continents, and this remains one of the few I’ve revisited annually, always finding new resonance. Like the best travel experiences, it changes as you change.

With stories yet to be lived and heard, Marcus
Marcus Rivera