“I don’t do comedy,” said Richard Zoglin, author of “Comedy at the Edge: How Stand-up in the 1970s Changed America.” “I can talk, but I don’t know how funny I am.”
On Feb. 28, his fans will be the ones to decide as they pack FreeBird Books to hear Zoglin read from his tome, for which he interviewed comedians from Steve Martin to David Letterman.
“I grew up listening to comedians and watching them on TV,” said Zoglin, who works as an editor at Time magazine. “I was a huge fan of this whole generation that started with Richard Pryor and George Carlin. It was the golden age and represented a shift in stand-up comedy — I wanted to chronicle that.”
Zoglin said he’s nostalgic for a time when stand-ups were changing the comedy business.
“It seemed like such an exciting time for stand-up comedy,” said Zolgin. “And looking back, I was surprised that nobody ever did a book pulling it all together as an era.”
It looks as though he’s had the last laugh.
Richard Zoglin will read from “Comedy at the Edge: How Stand-Up in the 1970s Changed America” (Bloomsbury, $24.95) at 7:30 pm on Feb. 28 at FreeBird Books (123 Columbia St. at Kane Street in the Columbia Street Waterfront District). Free. For information, call (718) 643-8484.
