3.94 AVERAGE


Really articulate, funny, touching, fascinating memoir. I listened to the audiobook which was great except that the guy who read it either sounded like George Carlin or was doing a George Carlin impression, which was surreal because I kept forgetting it wasn't George Carlin reading it. The book was well worth reading, though, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

When you read this book, listen to the words in your head as if it was George talking to you from the stage. That's how it was written and if you do that, it's as if George has just one more story to tell you before he goes. The best.

This has been such an amazing book. I'm a huge fan of Carlin and it was wonderful to gain some insight into the person and his thoughts. Very good read.

lillygabriella's review

4.5
funny informative lighthearted reflective slow-paced

One of the funniest men ever!! Great book!!
funny informative reflective fast-paced

I like George Carlin. He wouldn't make a list of my All Time Favorite Comedians EVER, but his humor is enjoyable, especially his delivery. His thoughts are not all my thoughts, but he is good at expressing and making you think.

This book is...interesting. While some parts are extremely interesting to read about, some of it drags so much my eyes started to blur.

I like that he wrote it, and it's not just a book about him. I haven't read his comedy books, though I bought one at a library sale. I'm looking forward to reading that after this. I'm hoping there will be less drag on it.

I miss George Carlin.
funny reflective fast-paced

Last and final book book for the year, #103, somewhat fitting to be reading a man's reflections on a long life and career at the end of the year. George Carlin was one of comedy's greats, but you wouldn't know it reading his autobiography, he just didn't see himself that way. Carlin just had an itch to entertain and continually found a place to scratch that itch for 40-50 years. He had struggles, like drugs, tax evasion, arrests for being profane/indecent, but he found a way to always make it back from a bad place. I think I relate to Carlin because he is incredibly cerebral, he's a thinking man's comedian. From his questioning of why certain words are bad (Seven things you can't say on television) To his later work why we as humans do some of the weird stuff that we do, he was always looking at human nature from a perspective that nobody else was. I think that while he knows his longevity and broad range of work make him one of the best, he still struggles a little that he never made it big in movies as he had hoped to early in his career. I think it's also a reason he's not always considered up there with Richard Pryor, though he and Pryor worked together and regularly worked the same stages. While he did find the movies late in life in a pair of Kevin Smith comedies, I think the most ironic turn was that he found success as the Conductor on Shining Time Station, a kids program that was part of the Thomas the Tank universe. To be recognized later in life in public by small children must have been strange for Carlin, but then again, he lead a fairly strange and interesting life.