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bookhawk's review against another edition
3.0
A good collection of interviews with comedians, writers and directors that reveals how people put comedy together and gets deeper than one would expect. A great book to read intermittently. Some interviews provide 5 star content.
kunberginson's review against another edition
3.0
This was everything I expected. A good read, hilarious, and insightful. I will certainly be recommending this to anyone who loves comedy. I look forward to the part two Judd keeps talking about.
megmcfish's review against another edition
funny
informative
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
3.75
julibug86's review against another edition
4.0
Really enjoyed this book and hearing from so many influential comedians on how they got their start. I find Judd Apatow hilarious and he seems like a hardworking individual. The book pulled together interviews conducted when Apatow was a teen along with more recent interviews. To be fair, some fell a little flat, but there were other great ones to make up for it. He could definitely have a sequel to this and I would read it.
clarkness's review against another edition
4.0
I loved a lot of this book because it fits pretty well into one of my favorite genres: people who are passionate about a topic talking about that topic. I love inside baseball, what can I say? The Paris Review Interviews are sort of the gold standard of this kind of work, but there is a lot to love about "Sick in the Head" if you love comedy. The only real down side (as mentioned in a few other reviews) is that Apatow tends to make the interviews a little more about himself than would be preferable. I would have enjoyed it if there was more variability, fewer repetitive questions and answers from Apatow, and more of a focus on the different ways that each interviewee approaches and thinks about comedy. On the other hand, there is some beautiful, thoughtful stuff in here. The interview with Harold Ramis is worth the price of admission by itself. He comes off as one of the most thoughtful, wonderful, deeply feeling humans that you can imagine, and he is obviously also a comedic genius.
hikemogan's review against another edition
4.0
When Judd Apatow was 15 years old he began doing interviews with comedians he admired. He'd tell their publicists that he was "from a radio station in New York," which was technically true but the station was a 10-watt high school station. He'd grill them about how the business worked, how they worked on their sets, and set about preparing himself for doing it too. Apatow dropped stand-up for a career in writing and then directing/producing films, but he continued to interview funny people all the while. This book functions partly as a set of interviews with tons of hilarious people but partly as an autobiography of Apatow through those interviews. Some conversations are all business (older comedians in particular seem to have a very walled-off style) and then some are so intimate and revealing about Apatow and the interviewees' lives that they read like private conversations. Each interview includes the year it was conducted (some people like Jerry Seinfeld, appear twice, first in 1983 and then again in the 2010s). Clocking in at nearly 500 pages, it might seem daunting but keep in mind these are transcribed interviews with some lines being simple one or two-word responses, so you'll fly through it.
ykantjoeyread's review against another edition
3.0
Good but could have done with more interviews with female comics.