Many years ago someone gave me a very surprising and wonderful gift for my birthday. It was a copy of Steve Martin's Pure Drivel; a collection of humorous essays and super short stories by one of the funniest men on the planet. Having never been exposed to Steve Martin off-screen before I was happily shocked to learn that he writes just as well as he acts. Every page of that short little book had me laughing my ass off and I counted it as my favorite collection of funny essays ever after that (blew Dave Barry away, in my opinion.)
Since then I have amassed a small collection of Mr. Martin's works (the novellas, the plays, etc) and like so many other books they've been sitting on my shelf, waiting patiently to be read. I hate to admit that the main reason I'm picking up this volume now is that it's really, really short. Having spent the first half of the month reading Wicked I've cut back on the amount of time I have to finish anything and a super short collection like this one is just what the doctor ordered. Furthermore, after the grave and saddening Wicked I could seriously use a little laughter.
So throughout the remainder of the month I will be reading Cruel Shoes, Steve's very first book which was written and released before I was born. Based on how hard his second collection hit me my expectations for the first are even higher. I'll let you know how it goes.
Martin is a talented humorist in every facet I've experienced. He used to contribute some of the funniest short stories to The New Yorker.
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