This Is Your Life

by John O'Farrell

Book Overview

A hugely entertaining novel about the art of stand up comedy, This is Your Life was a runaway bestseller in England. O'Farrell's hero, Jimmy Conway, starts out the novel at the London Palladium. He is about to perform his stand up comedy routine in front of two thousand invited guests and millions more watching the event live on TV. He steps out blinking into the spotlights and waits for the applause to die down. He tries to appear confident but he...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 080214134X
• ISBN13: 9780802141347
• Release Date: April 2004
• Publisher: Grove Press
• Length: 313 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.5" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Another funny story about a loser

I give this story a five. I gave for it three fivers total in fact. As ever O'Farrel is witty and sarcastic about his main character. And the main character as always remind us of the author himself.

You'll Enjoy One of the Best Days of Your Life if You Read This!

O'Farrell has a way of writing that along with making the reader laugh and laugh and laugh also makes them reflect on life a bit at the end. This is one book you will certainly forget about what's on TV until you've finished. In This is Your Life, Jimmy Conway is not that impressed with his life teaching English as a Second Language to those who really don't want to learn it in the small seaside town of Seaford in Sussex, England. Jimmy wants more than anything to be famous, he is secretly writing a screen play to accomplish this and his hunger for fame reaches new heights when he is embarrassed by his brother with letters he wrote as a child to his present 30 something aged self, which give advice to himself to bring him back to the common man now that he is famous. Of course he is no where near famous. The closest he ever came to fame was a brush the day before with comedian Billy Scrivens while they were walking their dogs. Needing to be around fame Jimmy is shocked when trying to force another chance encounter to find out Billy is dead. Making a comment that he just talked to him yesterday the media assumes the two were best friends and Jimmy gets his fifteen minutes of fame on the news. Jimmy is invited to the celebrity funeral and uncomfortable being a nobody makes up a tale that he is comedian who refuses to sell out and go on TV. To his surprise many believe him and it is not long before he is the country's most successful new talent comedian, only thing is he's never done stand up in his life. If you like the pretending to be a celebrity theme also check out the sensational novel Free Lunch by Nancy Sparling.

lesson on why fame isn't what it's you might think it's worth

First things first: I got this book from my 15 yr old daughter as a birthat present. I am generally not one to read fiction books. But of course as a birthday present, I felt I had to read it. And guess what, I actually enjoyed this book, quite a lot. "This Is Your Life" (313 pages) brings the story of Jimmy Conway, who is living a bland life as a part-time teacher in Southern England. Jimmy meets a major TV celebrity by chance when jogging one day. The celebrity dies the next day, and Jimmy somehow builds this encounter into a bit of 15 min. of becoming a B (or C) celebrity as a stand-up comedian whom nobody has ever actually seen perform (which he hasn't of course). Jimmy enjoys his new status, but then there is a major twist towards the end of the book, which I won't reveal, but it brings Jimmy back down to earth, realizing that his "bland" existance in fact was the best thing going in his life. This book is not a major literature statement, but it is hilarious (I laughed out loud many times throughout), and it does bring home an important message: you may want to be famous, but it isn't at all what you might think it may be, and instead you should enjoy the things you already have around you. Excellent book all around. Thanks for that birthday present, my daugther!

What would YOU be willing to give up for your '15 minutes'?

Jimmy Conway has always wanted to be a celebrity - and he was sure he'd be really good at it! So when he gets the chance to give up his ordinary life for celebrity status, even under false pretences, he grabs it with both hands. Having gotten a lot more than his allocated fifteen minutes, Jimmy finds that the "life less ordinary" he'd dreamed of is not all it's cracked up to be, and that his celebrity status has meant giving up a lot more than he'd bargained for. An excellent commentary on celebrity-obsession and a very funny book!

What a funny life.

This book has been great! I'm normally not a non-fiction kind of reader but I was perusing the shelves the other day and ran across its interesting title...The main theme of the book is how most of celebrity is faked by flash and peonage. The work is hilarious, the idea is hilarious!