Is This Anything?

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Is This Anything?

By: Jerry Seinfeld

Narrated by: Jerry Seinfeld

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About this listen

The first book in twenty-five years from Jerry Seinfeld features his best work across five decades in comedy.

Since his first performance at the legendary New York nightclub “Catch a Rising Star” as a twenty-one-year-old student in autumn of 1975, Jerry Seinfeld has written his own material and saved everything. “Whenever I came up with a funny bit, whether it happened on a stage, in a conversation, or working it out on my preferred canvas – the big yellow legal pad – I kept it in one of those old-school accordion folders,” Seinfeld writes. “So I have everything I thought was worth saving from forty-five years of hacking away at this for all I was worth.”

For this book, Jerry Seinfeld has selected his favourite material, organised decade by decade. In page after hilarious page, one brilliantly crafted observation after another, readers will witness the evolution of one of the great comedians of our time and gain new insights into the thrilling but unforgiving art of writing stand-up comedy.

Entertainment & Celebrities

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Critic Reviews

‘The book is consistently funny and it’s impressive that someone could have had a lifetime of so many insightful observations about seemingly mundane things ... It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen ...’

‘Seinfeld’s jokes on the page makes his comedy come to life with new meaning. As you consider Seinfeld’s career, which has spanned nearly five decades, you realize that even though he claims his comedy is about nothing, you could just as easily say it’s about everything.’

‘Admirers of Seinfeld's stream-of-consciousness observations about the minutiae of daily life will find much to enjoy here, and readers will also appreciate the window onto his evolution as a comic as he changes from a single guy in a messy apartment to the cocreator and star of a hit sitcom to a husband and father who watches (and critiques) Star Wars with his kids ... a welcome treasure trove of laughs.’

‘Comedian Seinfeld reflects on the absurdities of life in a laugh-out-loud volume that gathers jokes he’s written over the course of his 45-year career along with reminiscences on the lifestyle and craft of stand-up…This sharply observed, life-in-gags treasure trove offers essential reading for comedy fans, from a master of the form.’

‘Fans of Seinfeld will eat this up, and aspiring comics will want to study how he shapes his seemingly effortless humour.’

‘Seinfeld proudly proclaimed to be a show about nothing. Is This Anything?, Jerry Seinfeld’s first book in almost three decades, is about everything ... Bit by bit, we chart his growth as a master joke craftsman. Decade by decade, we follow his life journey, viewing the world through his perspective of what he found to be funny ... Is This Anything? captures the output of one of our great comic minds.’

‘[A] trove of laugh-out-loud one-liners but also a timeline, beginning with a kid commuting from his parents' home on Long Island to New York City to try to make strangers laugh. It continues through a career during which Seinfeld became arguably the greatest stand-up comic of his era and the pivotal figure of the funniest TV sitcom of its time.’

‘This book is incredible … It’s like the best joke book you can buy.’ (Jimmy Fallon)

‘It almost looks like a book of poetry … It made me realize a joke is a precision instrument, every word is a beat.’

‘Jerry Seinfeld’s new book, Is This Anything?… I enjoy opening it, pretending I’m Jerry and making my wife laugh with Jerry’s material. It’s like an artist being a copyist at a museum; you learn by emulating the strokes of others.’ (Steve Martin in the New York Times Book Review)

Most relevant

If you know you’re not buying an autobiography but a collection of what Seinfeld thinks are his best all time jokes then you won’t be disappointed. Seinfeld surely must be one of the greatest comic minds of the twentieth century. While you do lose a little without his body language and gestures, his reading of exquisitely logical silliness is perfect. This is audible at its best. If you love the show you will have heard much of this material, but it is interesting to see the timeline and how a good chunk was actually written 15 years before Seinfeld aired, and is still funny today. Seinfeld has a way of finding the absurd in the everyday. This never gets old. It is universal comedy.