The Book of David

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.

Kirkus Reviews

Late of many appearances on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and two-drink-minimum gigs, comedian Steinberg tells the story of his life as though it were ripped from the Old Testament. Beware of a joke that groweth old upon constant repetition. Such is the lesson to be learned from this memoir, which doth predicate itself upon the supposed humor of a comic pretending to speak to God, referring to himself in the third person and to his routines as, nay, not standup, but "sermons." So it was that in a bygone time, young David came to be in that remote and ridiculous land of Winnipeg, which entailed much wailing and gnashing of teeth before he traveled to comedy's Promised Land, Second City in its glory days. Improvisational comedy success lead to his knowing of many maidens (the time was the Sexual Revolution, and they revolted). Steinberg then made the pilgrimage to California, where he sat at the right hand of Carson. Steinberg's sentences beget other sentences, and still more sentences after them, until a great many sentences are upon the page, and the reader is afflicted with dismay and lethargy, so full are these sentences with willfully anachronistic details and repetitions of a non-funny nature. Merits divine chastisement.

David Steinberg, now in his fifth decade as a major entertainer and comedian, was a regular substitute host for Johnny Carson, and appeared with Johnny more than anyone except Bob Hope. As a standup, he had four number one comedy albums and two network television shows, and was a leader of Second City during its heyday. He went on to help write and direct such television megahits as Curb Your Enthusiasm, Seinfeld, Mad About You, Friends, and Designing Women. He is also executive producer, creator, and host of Sit Down Comedy with David Steinberg. Over the last forty years, he has worked with nearly all of entertainment's funniest performers and comedians.