A review by clarkness
Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy by Judd Apatow

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.