Zen and the Art of Stand-up Comedy »

Jay Sankey is a stand-up comic, writer, and cartoonist. For more then twenty years he has performed around the world and has made numerous television appearances. He lives in Toronto.

In this engaging and disarmingly frank book, comic Jay Sankey spills the beans, explaining not only how to write and perform stand-up comedy, but how to improve and perfect your work. Much more than a how-to manual Zen and the Art of Stand-Up Comedy is the most detailed and comprehensive book on the subject to date.

Library Journal

Toronto-based comedian Sankey may not be a household name, but his how-to book is a worthy complement to Judy Carter's Stand-Up Comedy: The Book (Dell, 1989) and far better than Richard Belzer's slight How To Be a Stand-Up Comic (Citadel, 1992). While Carter offers more specific advice on joke writing to beginners, Sankey provides more depth, musing helpfully on writing, delivery, set structure, and more. He may be right to advise that naturally funny people can learn to do stand-up, but Sankey could say more about the daunting hurdles to latter-day professional success. His Zen references are judiciously sparse, and his conclusion that stand-up comics can learn from Zen about being "in the moment" and staying loose on stage rings true. For strong performing arts collections.Norman Oder, "Library Journal"