Is This Anything?

A book that's an easy mood booster!
It made me snort and had me hiding my laugh in public, definitely worth the $24 I spent on this book.

It would be 5 stars but his jokes in the 00s and teens were too... “I'm old and don't understand young people things” and it got repetitive and i didn't like it lol

I wasn't sure what this would be when I bought it for my dad as a Christmas gift (yes, yes, sometimes I read books I give as gifts before I give them, but only because my dad takes years to read so give me a break, okay??). I thought it might be a memoir, or something, and that could be fun, as in my experience, comedians write pretty funny memoirs. Turns out, it's just every (or most of the?) jokes that's he's written/performed over his career. The way they're structured are almost like poems – the way they are broken up mimics the pacing of verbal delivery – which, indeed, does add to the comedic effect once you get used to it. Some of these I'd heard, some of them I hadn't, but the time reading: time laughing ratio made this a good time.

The book is exactly as advertised. It's a collection of Jerry Seinfeld's jokes from all of his notebooks, every joke he had written down somewhere. It's not much else. There are a couple small sections where he writes about his career, but for the most part it's just Jerry's jokes.

So you already know whether you think the book is funny. If you think Jerry's jokes are funny, it is. If you don't, it's not.

It's definitely not as funny reading Jerry's jokes as listening to him tell them. Jerry even admits that in the book, saying that the very book you're reading is not a good way to experience stand-up comedy.

But it's very interesting from a joke construction viewpoint. If you're interested in the craft of comedy, it's fascinating seeing how he crafts his jokes. In written form, you have the ability to slow down and look at exactly what he did with each bit to make it work (or in some cases, why it didn't work). So if you're into the art of comedy, it's worth reading for that.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Readeras part of a quick takes/catch up post —emphasizing pithiness, not thoroughness.
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Jerry Seinfeld keeps the notebooks he writes his jokes in and has always done so. Which made compiling this collection possible. This is a collection of what Seinfeld considers his best material.

It's organized by decade, with a little narrative added to discuss his career/family. But it's primarily joke after joke after joke after joke. As I recall, SeinLanguage was essentially the same thing, but the last time I read that was in the 1990s, and my copy is in a box. So I can't verify that.

I'm not sure audio was the best method for me. It felt like listening to a comedy album recorded in a studio rather than in front of an audience. It just felt strange to hear it all without laughter or other audience reaction—or his reaction to the audience. Also, I think it'd work better taken in parts—not the whole 6 hours in a clump (I guess 2 clumps).

Still, it's material from one of the best around—it's an entertaining time.

Seinfeld shares the best of his standup from the decades of his career.

We listened to this as an audiobook all the way to East Texas and all the way back home. Laughing all the way...

i like observational humor and i love seinfeld, but a lot of these jokes were so outdated and i swear 80% of them were about the differences between men and women, which to me felt not very true or relevant to modern society and very focused on outdated heteronormative/cis stereotypes focused to the point that it literally felt like i was a repressed housewife in the 80s listening to it.

then again, some of the bits were great and i will forever love jerry seinfeld's voice and delivery (i listened to the audiobook) and his love of cereal so i still found some value to this collection of jokes. just wish that it had only included some of the best ones with more autobiographical content! (i could also do without the fathphobia!)

This is not a memoir. It is a collection of over 400 jokes from his long career. And I wouldn't change a thing.

I'm a huge fan of (most) standup comics and comedy writers, so I really enjoyed having six hours of nonstop jokes from Jerry. It felt weirdly comforting to traverse the past decades through his interesting life observations. I never watched Seinfeld, pauses for the collective gasp, so I don't have that show as a comparison.

If you're looking to read Seinfeld's memoir, this is definitely not it, but it sure is a wondrous stroll through his brilliant brain which is just what I needed at the time. (I'm also starting to wonder if I might be too generous with my stars on Goodreads. Haha.)