The riveting mega-bestselling beloved and highly acclaimed memoir of a man a vocation and an era named one of the ten best nonfiction titles of the year by Time and Entertainment Weekly. In the mid-seventies Steve Martin exploded onto the comedy scene. By 1978 he was the biggest concert draw in the history of stand-up. In 1981 he quit forever. This book is in his own words the story of why I did stand-up and why I walked away. Emmy and Grammy Award-winner author of the acclaimed New York Times bestsellers Shopgirl and The Pleasure of My Company and a regular contributor to The New Yorker Martin has always been a writer. His memoir of his years in stand-up is candid spectacularly amusing and beautifully written. At age ten Martin started his career at Disneyland selling guidebooks in the newly opened theme park. In the decade that followed he worked in the Disney magic shop and the Bird Cage Theatre at Knott s Berry Farm performing his first magic/comedy act a dozen times a week. The story of these years during which he practiced and honed his craft is moving and revelatory. The dedication to excellence and innovation is formed at an astonishingly early age and never wavers or wanes. Martin illuminates the sacrifice discipline and originality that made him an icon and informs his work to this day. To be this good to perform so frequently was isolating and lonely. It took Martin decades to reconnect with his parents and sister and he tells that story with great tenderness. Martin also paints a portrait of his times--the era of free love and protests against the war in Vietnam the heady irreverence of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in the late sixties and the transformative new voice of Saturday Night Live in the seventies. Throughout the text Martin has placed photographs many never seen before. Born Standing Up is a superb testament to the sheer tenacity focus and daring of one of the greatest and most iconoclastic comedians of all time.