Book Review: I'm a Joke and So Are You

I don't understand this book. I enjoy Robin Ince's stand-up comedy, and have marvelled at his incredible free-association at numerous events. But I'm not so sure that it works well as a book.

What makes us funny? What drives us to entertain others? The first half of the book takes a high level view of the current state of the science. It doesn't provide answers - but it provokes some interesting questions.

It's a scattershot look at the psychology of comedians, then it veers off into interviews with comedians, and then immediately goes down a tangent about fMRI and the brains of comedians, and dives quickly into moral philosophy, before a brief meander through... and so it goes.

The book is entertaining - but absolutely exhausting to read. Just when it's about to go into detail, it finds a rambly little alley to noodle through. It works when watching him live, but I just found it confusing and frustrating in book form.

The second half is better - the musings on the nature of offence and how a comedian harnesses it could be an entire book in itself. Similarly, the section on how comedy helps us to deal with grief, is moving and important.

Perhaps I am too curmudgeonly. I felt like each chapter was the starting off point for a discussion that never concluded.