He is a genius and I only wish he was here, still doing his routines. It would have been great to know what he thought of the world today. I found his ideas refreshing and I promise that you will find yourself laughing at the most awful things. His quotes are inspiring and his routines are truly his own.

This book has really got me thinking. I never understood the idea of reading a book that changed your life...until now.


Contemporary philosophy at its best !   March 1, 2006
 2 out of 2 found this review helpful

I have to say that while I really enjoyed reading this book, and I think Bills message still needs to be heard by the ignorant - I found the constant repeating of the material annoying before I was even one quarter of the way through the book .... and sadly, this continued to occur all the way through ...

I knew it was all about his brilliant routines - but is there really any need to print the same routine 4 or 5 times ?


Thought Provoking Stuff   October 20, 2005
 1 out of 1 found this review helpful

I confess to knowing little of Bill Hick's material before reading this book. The comic material is original and intelligent but this aside we are given an insight into the true, genuine caring nature of a man who just wanted the world to do the right thing. A sad loss, God bless you man!


Go to sleep, America! Shut up and watch this!   June 28, 2005
 4 out of 4 found this review helpful

As radical and as contraversial as Bill Hicks was during his comedic career, his humour still has much contemporary value, and it's great to see a book that not only condenses some of Hicks' more volatile moments, but also shows us a little of the man behind the mouth.

The book primarily serves up several word-by-word passages of Hicks' routines in certain places at certain times of his career. Admittedly, much of the material repeats in several chapters, and reading a stand-up comedian's comic routine on paper without getting all the infections, gestures, and energy does weaken the material, but even then, the strength of his convictions, the vitriol that he has to vent on the media, the US government, pro-lifers, non-smokers and parents is astoundingly astute, and surprisingly contemporary, even though it's been over 10 years since his death.

At times, I was shocked enough to laugh out loud when a new routine cropped up that just tickled me in the right way, but as he says in several interviews, his comedy was merely what he saw when he held the light of reason up to the world. He was a believer in a better world, and a despiser of anything that surpressed and restrained the human spirit. Influenced in equal parts by Woody Allen and Noam Chomsky, his observations still ring true today, and contemporary bookshop activists such as Michael Moore are still trying to catch up.

Read this, and see why Bill Hicks is posthumously remembered as a revolutionary comedy legend!