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    Pure Drivel
    Pure Drivel
    Pure Drivel
    Audiobook2 hours

    Pure Drivel

    Written by Steve Martin

    Narrated by Steve Martin

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Grammy Award Nominee for Best Spoken Word Album!

    Steve Martin's talent has always defied definition: an actor who's kept us riveted for over 25 years, a razor-sharp screenwriter, an acclaimed playwright. In this ingeniously funny collection of humorous riffs, those who thought Martin's gifts were confined to the screen will discover what readers of The New Yorker magazine already know: that Martin is a master of the written word.
    Hilariously funny and intelligent in their skewering of the topic at hand, the audiobook's pieces, some of which first appeared in The New Yorker, feature Martin at his finest.
    With a playwright's ear for dialogue, a sense of irony only Steve Martin could muster, and a first-class comic ability to perfectly time the punch line, Pure Drivel will have listeners crying with laughter, and marveling at the fact that in addition to all of his many talents, Steve Martin is also a superb writer.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateOct 1, 1998
    ISBN9780743563819
    Pure Drivel
    Author

    Steve Martin

    Steve Martin is one of today's most talented performers. He has had huge success as a film actor, with such credits as Cheaper by the Dozen, Father of the Bride, Roxanne, Parenthood, L.A. Story, and many others. He has won Emmys for his television writing and two Grammys for his comedy albums. In addition to his bestselling novel The Pleasure of My Company and a collection of comic pieces, Pure Drivel, he has also written a play, Picasso at the Lapin Agile. He lives in Los Angeles.

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    Reviews for Pure Drivel

    3.5/5

    458 ratings35 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 1/5
      It is well named - it is pure drivel. I continued listening to it until the end hoping to catch at least one witticism, something that would even make me smile. It never happened. I remember when the author was funny.
    • 1/5
      Unfunny, self indulgent rubbish. To be fair, it does live up to the title.
    • 5/5
      This book was nothing but Drivel, I mean Pure Drivel! This book is classic Steve Martin humor. I'm not sure where he comes up with all this Drivel. I could listen to the Steve Martin do "a Steve Martin" all day every day. Thank you for your humor and humility! Even though Steve is not funny anymore, (wink, wink) I really think he is the second funniest person I can think of. Thank you for many years of wonderful memories, and for a few sleepless nights thinking about all the Drivel now this book has put in my head! Buck Mitchell, Pensacola, Fl.
    • 4/5
      A good fun short book. Iwas either laughing or chuckling throughoit this Audiobook.
    • 4/5
      It was a quick fun read. I do love the way Steve Martin sets a scene. As a painter I also love his constant art references.
    • 5/5
      Incredibly original and funny. Loved every minute of it.
    • 1/5
      not very good obtuse. trite. unoriginal. was able to speed through at at 3.0x
    • 5/5
      wish he was my housemate...sigh* oh the humanity and hilarity..
    • 4/5
      Steve Martin is as always wonderfully strange and witty. I like his longer works more, but this collection is great for a quick read.
    • 5/5
      one of my favourite book. I read it once a year. so funny and unique.
    • 5/5
      Quite funny - exactly what I'd expect from Steve Martin.
    • 1/5
      Ugh. Not what I expected from the Steve Martin. Ugh
    • 3/5
      A collection of short stories, SNL skit like scripts, essays, and other bits of just.... stuff. At times witty and at other times, like the title of the work - drivel. Some funny stuff in here, some not. Some worth reading, some not.

      Mileage may vary.
    • 4/5
      Came to learn banjo. Did not learn banjo. Quite entertained though.
    • 4/5
      The man who started us laughing wearing that white suit of his has returned with another hilarious collection of essays, mostly from the pages of New Yorker magazine. Like his previous collection, Cruel Shoes, Steve Martin grabs your mind in so many clever and creative ways that you keep laughing. Don't confuse Pure Drivel with the books that other comedians have been tossing out in the past few years; this is different because Martin can write.
    • 3/5
      Amusing, though I prefer his "straight" writing. He is a generous and highly professional entertainer.
    • 4/5
      Steve Martin is as always wonderfully strange and witty. I like his longer works more, but this collection is great for a quick read.
    • 2/5
      I guess I just don't "get" Steve Martin. I can give or take him in movies, I didn't care for his fiction, & I can't say that I cared much for this collection of stories either. I'm a bit surprised by the name of this collection, not because it's not apt, but because I think it begs for all sorts of pun-driven comments. Many people love this guy, and as a person I don't have anything against the man, but his writing is just underwhelming to me.
    • 1/5
      OK, it may be a little better than my collection of high school compositions, but not by much! Stick to Steve's autobiography!
    • 3/5
      I'm still having mixed thoughts about Steve Martin, author. Some of his stuff is laugh out loud funny, and others either does nothing for me or makes me feel vaguely unclean. But some of these were great. The man has an amazing mind, that's for sure.
    • 3/5
      The name says it all. Pure Steve Martin.
    • 1/5
      I always dislike writing a negative review, but in order to write an honest review of this book, I have no choice. Pure Drivel, by Steve Martin, was a huge disappointment. I have always enjoyed Steve Martin's comedy and found him tremendously funny. Unfortunately, he missed the mark with this book. Pure Drivel is so bad, it would have to improve to be drivel. It was boring, tedious, and a huge beating. I only finished the book in order to justify having spent money to purchase it. I could not wait to finish it and get on with my life. No doubt, this was one of the worst books I have ever read. Fortunately, it was a rather short book. To be fair, there was one story I found funny, that of Joey and his letters to his ex-girlfriend. This story was very good and I read it over and over. But other than this one story, the rest of the book was total trash. I truly wished the book had been funny. I wish the book had been enjoyable, as I have always loved Mr. Martin. Unfortunately, it was not. Save your money and avoid this book.
    • 5/5
      This book is the funniest half hour or so you could possibly spend. The book is only 100 pages long. I read it on an airplane to pass the time and had to stop because I laughed so loud it was exceedingly conspicuous.
    • 4/5
      Pure Drivel is a collection of short, humorous essays, which are each about 3 to 5 pages long and vary on topic from reflecting on the writing process to joining Mensa. The humor is an absurd funny, not necessarily a laugh-out-loud funny. In some ways, the essays reminded me of David Sedaris’s fiction, which I find funny but not as funny as his nonfiction works. This slim volume entertained me, but I enjoy Martin’s more serious works better.
    • 4/5
      A mixed bag of humor pieces by the multi-talented Steve Martin, with a few misses, some near-misses, and several very funny pieces. Martin occasionally falls prey to the same affliction of Woody Allen when he writes short humor, of confounding humor with vapid absurdity. But when he is good, he is great.
    • 3/5
      "... a meow of intergalactic proportions."
    • 4/5
      I read it twice, and I still don't know what it was about. It was Pure Drivel and it was amazingly funny. Steve Martin is still one of the greatest.
    • 4/5
      I listened to the audiobook version of Pure Drivel in my car, and I had to turn it off the CD player several times because I was laughing so hard it was impairing my driving. Like any collection of short humor pieces it's uneven, or perhaps a better way of saying it is that some pieces will strike a reader funny and some not so much. I loved the zaniness of 'Side Effects' and 'Schrodinger's Cat.'
    • 3/5
      Damned funny. Good bedside material.
    • 5/5
      I must have been in a strange mood the first few times I thumbed through this: didn't find it funny. Later I picked it up again, and began reading from the beginning. I laughed out loud all the way through, and it still tickles my funnybone when I go back and thumb through it again.