Finding Your Comic Genius: An in-depth guide to the art of stand-up comedy

This book is absolutely incredible. The level of depth and detail that is put into explaining the ins and outs of writing and performing stand up comedy is astounding. And what a steal? I would happily pay 50x more and still owe Adam a kidney

An essential handbook on standup comedy. You enjoy reading, you learn, you improve and it encourages you to keep working harder and better. A must read for comedy lovers.

One of the most helpful books about comedy, Adams analytical approach to jokes is unparalleled and the use of metaphors make it easy to diget. I can't recommend this read enough.

Aiuta alla grande , fa capire molte cose

Adam Bloom writes clearly and insightfully about joke writing concepts that no other books have covered. Like many a comedy nerd, who has read most of the books about stand-up comedy, I love to know how a joke works rather than just knowing that it works. What I like best about this book is that there are so many great nuggets of comic wisdom that I can apply to my writing for presentations and articles. My favourites are the seesaw, flow, and the triple punches. As a writer first and performer second, he knows what he is talking about having written for many established comedians who take the credit and pass off his work as their own. Isn’t there a name for that? I would have liked the difference between persona and style of comedy to have been more fully explained as it seems to be crucial to finding your comic genius and having a strong idea of who you are as joke writer. Is being playful part of a persona or a style of comedy or both? I would like to have seen a comprehensive list of the different types of personas as well as more three word examples of popular comedians and how their material fits their persona. I was expecting this as I was reading the chapter and was disappointed when I got to the end. This book shows you how to go about getting constructive alignment with a and it makes you realize that this is very difficult. It is no wonder so few comedians have achieved it. The only ones who have done so seem to embody a well-known comic archetype. For example, Jack Dee is a crank. Milton Jones is a weirdo. Jimmy Carr is a jerk. Patton Oswalt is a nerd. Woody Allen is a neurotic. Rodney Dangerfield is a loser. Jerry Seinfeld is a know-it-all (and so many others). I would like to have heard Adam’s view on what he would tweak in his persona, comedy style, status, and material to get to his next level of success as a performer and how his persona connects with a comic archetype: his comic character on stage. When he says that his persona is intense and over-confident, but really vulnerable and child-like, that sounds like the tough archetype (without the leather jacket) where the hard facade masks a soft child within. Like Andrew Dice Clay. In this book and on podcasts, he comes across as a nerd with the level of analysis, detail and interest in an obscure thing (joke structure) and because I think he feels marginalized by the television industry - which is a classic nerd trait. He may well write best for some archetypes more than others because he has a strong idea of who they are. For the price of this book, you get Adam Bloom’s joke writing knowledge based on his life’s work without having to hire him to tweak your jokes.