The Book of David

by David Steinberg

From award-winning comedian, director, writer, and producer David Steinberg comes the totally original, utterly blasphemous, and hysterically funny memoir of a young man who emerged from a traditional Jewish childhood to become an international star—all because, it seems, he kept God in stitches.

David Steinberg was raised in Winnipeg, Canada, by parents who expected little from him. And no wonder. Instead of studying Talmud in order to become a rabbi, he chose to major in Martin and Lewis with a minor in basketball. As David imagines the story of his life (since his success otherwise makes no sense), God one day spotted him on the playground and decided that this young man with no ambition could go far with His help. Sure enough, God soon had David on network TV and Broadway, and selling out nightclubs across the country—as well as being pursued by hot starlets.

The Book of David is David Steinberg's hilarious trip down memory lane, assuming that the lane has a biblical address. This wild riff on the Old Testament is guaranteed laughter.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction

208 pages, Hardcover

First published June 12, 2007

About the author

David Steinberg CM is a Canadian comedian, actor, writer, director, and author. At the height of his popularity, during the late 1960s and early 1970s, he was one of the best-known comics in the United States. He appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson more than 130 times (second only to Bob Hope in number of appearances) and served as guest host 12 times, the youngest person ever to guest-host. Steinberg directed several films and episodes of television situation comedies, including Seinfeld, Friends, Mad About You, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Golden Girls, and Designing Women.

Since 2012, Steinberg has hosted the interview program Inside Comedy on the Showtime network.

Reviews

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though he has more or less abandoned performing when he became a successful tv director, David Steinberg is still a very funny and inventive talent, as he reveals in this often fanciful memoir, written in mock-Biblical style. The King James conceit threatens to get in the way at times (Steinberg even has to resort to footnotes at times just to interpret his own prose...) but is usually effective, propped up by a vivid imagination and a encyclopedic range of reference points from the obvious to the obscure, allowing him to cite the 1960s as "the epoch between Demi's and Ashton's births" and to note that a well-known mobster's enemies "had treated him as time has treated Mickey Rourke."

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

I guess I was expecting more - at least more about his life, rather than a fictionalize version that had to be footnoted to get the true story. There were some good laughs, but overall not as good as it could have been.

[Itisme · Rating 3 out of 5]

a library loan.



This made me laugh like his standup stuff of back in the day when Johnny was THE late night king.