From Judd Apatow comes an intimate portrait of his mentor, the legendary stand-up comic and star of The Larry Sanders Show, with never-before-seen journal entries and photos, as well as new contributions by fellow comedians and writers.
Filmmaker Apatow...continues honoring his mentor with this affecting book that intersperses Shandling’s letters, journal entries, and scripts with remembrances from friends and colleagues. The result is a compulsively readable narrative of Shandling’s evolution from sitcom writer to creator and star of The Larry Sanders Show. ... It’s fitting that a comic whose best-known role deconstructed the late night talk show host should have a book that obsessively deconstructs him. Shandling’s determination to pursue authenticity through his work will appeal to comedy fans and mindfulness practitioners.
A little too scattershot and light on details to qualify as either biography or oral history, It’s Garry Shandling’s Book is best characterized as a scrapbook. But what a scrapbook! ... The journal entries paint a vivid portrait of a talented but troubled man who was both an earnest seeker of enlightenment and a neurotic perfectionist ... They also offer insight into Shandling’s development as a comedian and his growth as a person — and into how the two intersected ... much of it is also pretty funny ... It’s Garry Shandling’s Book has its flaws. For one thing, it doesn’t have an index — a serious problem in a book so filled with names of people, TV shows and movies. For another, it contains some references so obscure that they will puzzle even the most knowledgeable fan ... And as wonderful as the photographs are, an appalling number of them lack captions ... Even a scrapbook should be more informative than that.
Director and producer Apatow shares personal insights into the life and career of his late friend, comedian Garry Shandling, in this heartfelt and humorous illustrated biography ... Marked-up scripts and jokes—as well as quotes from such comedians as Sarah Silverman, Jay Leno, and Bob Saget—offer a window into Shandling’s approach to scripted humor. The unfiltered image of Shandling is often moving ... Even casual viewers of his two TV shows, It’s Garry Shandling’s Show and The Larry Sanders Show, which mocked the conventions of the sitcom and the late night talk show, are likely to gain a deeper appreciation of the comic genius behind them. Fans of the self-deprecating Shandling will delight in Apatow’s collected remembrances.
