Judd Apatow's collection of interviews with famous comedians is incredibly valuable. I only wish I had read it when I was a teenager, as I think it would have pretty profoundly resonated with me and my decisions. I have a habit of dog-earring pages (hold off with your pitchforks, I own these books!) with passages that particularly stand out to me and by the time I was finished with this collection, there were many marked sections.

Sick in the Head is chock-full of advice from some of the most successful comedians, filmmakers, and writers in the world, and their behind-the-scenes stories and descriptions of work ethic and personal advancement is fascinating. If you are interested in comedy, film, writing, or show business, this book is a must-read. I thought it was fantastic. ( )

I was disappointed in this book and didn't end up finishing it. I like his movies and I really thought this would be funny but it wasn't. He didn't even really "write" much of it as it seems he just copied down these interviews verbatim. I guess if becoming a comedian is something you want to do, then you could try to read this to get ideas about how to break into stand-up. But if you're looking for a good laugh then don't bother. ( )

Apatow, Judd. Sick in the Head: Conversations about Life and Comedy. Random House, 2015.
If you like Jerry Seinfeld’s Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, you are probably the right audience for Sick in the Head, Judd Apatow’s years-long collection of conversations with comedians. When Apatow was 16, he had a show on his Long Island high school radio station. He managed to get interviews with such luminaries as Steve Allen, Jerry Seinfeld, and Stephen Colbert. Since then, he has had many opportunities to talk with other comedians and comedy writers, and he is the kind of guy who always records and saves the tape. Readers who don’t like the book complain about the intrusion of Apatow’s off-putting self-aggrandizement. He is not the guy who would edit himself out of the conversations. In that way, the book is as much a memoir about how Apatow learned his craft as a writer, filmmaker, and standup comedian as it is a showcase for the comedians he interviews. If you are looking for one joke after the other, this is not the book for you. Most of the conversations have a wistful quality, as comedians reminisce about the nature of the business and their own process of maturation. There are several homages to the bittersweet comedy of Gary Shandling, epitomized by the satire of the Larry Sanders Show. I found Jon Stewart’s analysis of the differences between the comedy of the Daily Show and a standup routine especially instructive. I do have a problem with the organization of the book, which is neither thematic nor chronological, either of which would have made more sense. 3.5 stars. ( )

Disappointing, but it's my own fault. I assumed this was a more straightforward memoir, but it's a series of interviews Apatow did with various comedians, and I'm not very keen on reading interviews. So, I skimmed and read the ones involving people I like most (Adam Sandler, Amy Schumer, Jim Carrey,...). But overall, meh. If you like this sort of thing, though, go for it. ( )

The book was not quite what I had expected it to be ( i.e. laugh out loud funny), but I found many of the chapters very interesting: Roseanne, Amy Schumer, Leslie Mann, Colbert, Seth Rogen, Silverman, Chris Rock, Fallon to name a few. Others were like eh (Sandler and Seinfeld) and then some people I never heard of or had no interest reading about so I just skipped their chapters. I gave it a 3 star rating because some were more two's others were 4's so I split the difference. Worth reading if interested in comedy or comedians or the comedic process. ( )