Comedy Central: The Essential Guide to Comedy

As a former (failed) stand-up comedian, I read this book with great anticipation. While it was engaging and interesting at times, it didn't hold my interest as well as I thought it might. The book does a reasonable job of explaining the history of stand-up using highlights from several careers. But it also covers many off-topic, less interesting items such as movies made by comedians. And while the book is often even-handed, it takes too many easy shots at people like Gallagher to opine what the authors think is funny. One other note: Comedy Central is somehow related to this book as their logo appears on the cover. It's hard to say what their involvement in it was, however. Although I do note that many of the comedians whose names appear in the book are staples of Comedy Central.