I tried to read this book but I was so turned off by the writing style and the weird stories about their mother dying that I couldn't really get into it. It was very stream of consciousness and jumped all over the place. I did not finish the book.

I adore everything about Eddie Izzard, but most of all I love the humanity in Eddie. He is a brilliant comic, but I think perhaps his greatest gift is that he truly gives of himself to others. He cares about humanity and our planet. Eddie's back to back marathons have raised millions for charity and he has probably done more than any other celebrity to advance the understanding and acceptance of transgendered persons.
If Eddie has one message in his memoir it's "shoot for the stars and you may get to the moon." Challenge yourself, never give up, follow the golden rule and be kind! Perhaps there is nothing very new in these assertions, but I think in the times we are living in, it simply cannot be stressed often enough, that we must BE KIND to each other.
Thank you to NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
I also purchased the Audible edition of Believe Me, read by the author and I truly enjoyed it, however, if you're not familiar with Eddie and his rather rambling way of storytelling, then you may find his "long footnotes" (asides) somewhat distracting. I highly recommend Believe Me

I thought this book had a lot of good information, many things that had me nodding and cringing because I have witnessed these habits first-hand in myself and in those closest to me. I do think this book is unnecessarily gendered; it focuses on women and that these are all things women do when that is just not true. I definitely recommend this read, especially for anyone who is feeling “stuck” or even that you “should be happier” than you are feeling right now.

Eddie Izard is one of my favorites so I was very interested in reading this and learning of his background.. The tone of the book is as if an ol$ friend is telling you their life story . We learn about his earliest days of childhood , ambitions and fame .

I really like Eddie Izzard but my god the man is a rambler. If you listen to the audiobook be prepared for <i>many, MANY</i> tangents. He adores footnotes, he adds them left and right and adds more on top of those.

"End of endless footnote!"-Words on Eddie Izzard's gravestone

(If those words aren't on there it will be an injustice.)

BUT, regardless of his endless rambling, I did enjoy the book. I think I would have enjoyed it a bit more had Izzard stuck to the topic at hand more often (a.k.a. EVER) and let the book have a more obvious direction. Izzard is not the world's most talented writer, IMO, but he is an entertaining one and if you have any interest in him as a person this is a good book to give a chance. The book wasn't as funny as I expected, but it was more heartfelt so it balanced itself out.

What I Was Hoping For

I'm a fan of Eddie Izzard's - his stand up, his movies, his television projects. There are just some performers whose work you know you're going to be interested in. And much of Eddie Izzard's work is appealing to me because of his gentle wit, his candor and playful cleverness, and his overall likeability. On paper a lot of his standup routines would be sort of blah or pointless or just uninteresting, but Eddie Izzard can light those bits up and sell them with a twinkle and with perfect timing and delivery.

So, I was a bit reluctant as I approached this memoir. Would Eddie the author undo his appeal as Eddie the performer? Would he be a pompous load, or unreleaved name-dropper, or pseudointellectual comedy theorist, or catty/nasty score settler? Well, not to worry. The Eddie Izzard you get here is a thoughtful, generous, reasonably well balanced and relatively undamaged person who takes his career and his craft, but not necessarily himself, seriously.

This is not a joke book, and really not that much a "humor" book. The author certainly has a sense of humor about most of the topics he addresses, and he is in the stand up humor business, but this is not one of those books that you often get from stand up comedians consisting of extended and reworked variations on the bits from their acts, (think Seinfeld, Carlin, Cosby, Black, etc.) This is an actual attempt at an actual memoir, and it has all of the pluses and minuses of that sort of work.

Izzard is at his most charming and playful remembering his childhood. His loss of his Mum at an early age had a profound effect on him and he returns to this theme throughout the book with an endearing blend of sadness, regret and wistfulness. Izzard's recounting of his slow and methodical progress from minor street performer to where he is today is fascinating, and justifiably a source of pride to him. His memories of coming to grips with his sexuality and his description of coming out as transgendered are balanced and nuanced, although one senses a bit more anger over the unfairness of it all than Izzard seems willing to openly express. I found the book entertaining and illuminating, and some of Izzard's insights about performing were especially striking.

Like his stage act, there is a fair amount of rambling, numerous digressions, a bit of doubling back and a bit of repetition. But for me that added to the charm and authenticity. This did not feel like a slick publicity piece, but more like a real attempt by Izzard to communicate honestly with his fans. I'm glad to have read this, and pleased to have had this opportunity to take a peak behind the curtain.

(Please note that I received a free advance ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)

Maybe this book gets better later but I couldn't get past the banality of his descriptions of boarding school lunches and day to day childhood conversations.

An enjoyable story of Eddie's early life, which I started to read as an e-Galley, but I restarted and much preferred listening to in audiobook, where Eddie ad-libs new content and footnotes. A fascinating, if meandering, portrait of the artist as a young man, and what drives him. Recommended.

I absolutely LOVE Eddie Izzard, so it was a real treat to read this work. I found it full of his quirks and comedy. I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys stand-up or just a good book for a rainy day.

I love Eddie Izzard's stand up, and this memoir feels exactly like Eddie Izzard is sitting down and telling you his life story. It has a wonderful way of making you feel like you are in conversation with him, and he is just a friend you've had over for drinks.

I'm already a fan of Eddie Izzard so it's no surprise that I enjoyed this immensely. The entire book has the same rambling, digressive tone as his comedy and I appreciate that in written form this may be too random for some readers but I really loved how fresh it felt to read.

Izzard cheerily avoids politics in the book, from the British petroleum industry controversies in the Middle East to life in Northern Ireland as the Troubles were emerging. These elements are dropped in favour of Izzard reflecting those periods as he experienced them as a child- with innocence and naivety- which is a refreshing way of reading about troubled times and places. The footnotes to each of his chapters are full of joy and if read along with the story, really add punches of humour even where it seems there oughtn't be any.

Izzard covers most aspects of his life, from his childhood in Northern Ireland, his family's time in the Middle East, the death of his mother and his years at boarding schools, his grafting to become a performer in Covent Garden and his coming out as transgender, as well as his epic marathon pursuits all feature. His awkwardness about relationships, dogged commitment to making it as a performance artist and first attempt at Edinburgh Fringe are completely fascinating. However, the early section of the book, dealing with the loss of his mother, was really beautiful; his comprehension that this was where childhood stopped was heartbreaking.

His stories about coming out are tinged with sadness; it was a risk for him to be himself, and despite all the tough things he's experienced, pivotal moments in his gender expression remain the hardest parts of his life. I have a huge amount of respect for these stories in particular.

It's very clear that Izzard is hugely intelligent, committing to comedy in multiple languages and truly believing in himself as a European and not just a British person. That doggedness follows into the stories of the marathons, which he passes off as a brilliant experience, perhaps having mislaid the sense of absolute torture that must have gone with the journey.

Eddie Izzard's relentless positivity makes for a lovely reading experience, if you buy into the rambling journey.

I ended up listening to the audio book rather than strictly reading the text, but either way, it's an interesting and fascinating read.

If you like Eddie Izzard's stand up, you're probably going to enjoy this book. If you like autobiographies of interesting people with unique voices, you're probably going to enjoy this book. Me, I like Eddie Izzard's stand up, and I loved this book.

What Didn’t Work
It’s hard to say that the first part of this memoir doesn’t work. Eddie Izzard’s early years were not super happy. His mother passed away when he was pretty young and he and his older brother were sent to boarding school because his father traveled often for work. Add to that Izzard’s growing sense that he had, as he puts it, a girl mode despite being very sporty and being interested in the army and the UK version of the scouts. This isn’t material that lends itself to a comedy take. I think Izzard knows this, but he does try to add some levity in the form of digressions. I think it was this juxtaposition that didn’t quite work for me in the first half of the book.

What Worked
The pace picks up in the second half as Izzard talks about the evolution of his career and the things that have become important to him. This seems to be more comfortable territory for Izzard. If, like me, you came upon Izzard as a successful stand-up comedian, it isn’t evident that he originally wanted to do dramatic roles. The path to playing Wayne Malloy on The Riches or Abel Gideon on Hannibal wound through sketch comedy and street performance before the stand-up stage.

"…if I wish to do something, I am quite happy to go back again and again and attack the brick wall of “no” and find a way to push through to the other side."

Izzard has carried this through in his personal life as well. His career as a stand-up comedian was just taking off when he decided to come out as transgendered. It could have destroyed his career or it could have led to becoming a “niche” comedian. Instead, Izzard simply persisted in being an intelligent and absurd. One gets the feeling that if the stand-up thing wouldn’t have worked, Izzard would have pivoted to the next thing. What that might have been is a question for the ages.

The fact that comedian, activist, actor and trans icon, Eddie Izzard, is considered a national treasure here in the UK is one of the (many) reasons I applied for my citizenship recently. What a darling he is, with his painted nails featuring both the British and EU flags on the cover (well, on some copies anyway). As I'm married to a man who has a penchant for heels, I'm naturally quite fascinated by Izzard and his life. So I literally raced to read this book as soon as it became available. It starts with quite a humble, British tone (Izzard ponders why he's writing a memoir and if it's a little too self-indulgent) and then takes a pretty linear structure, following his life from his early days in Northern Ireland, to boarding school, to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, to street performing in Covent Garden, to selling out huge theatres around the globe. Sounds pretty straight-forward, right? Well, one thing that struck me was how much bloody hard work this man has put in, and continues to do so with his endless marathons for charity etc. Another thing was that I tend to read memoirs looking for salacious details (don't we all?) so be warned: there's barely a peep about his 'private life' in here. There's a lot about his mum, though, and the huge impact her death had on him at an early age. Poor luv. But what a brilliant, beautiful and hilarious creature he grew up to be.

I very much enjoyed this memoir by one of the most unique people I've ever heard of. I became familiar with Eddie Izard through his early comedy specials, and I loved learning about his early life, his road to comedy, and his activism. His writing style felt very chatty, and I chuckled when, at the end of the book, he mentioned how it may have been like having a conversation with someone who doesn't let you get a word in edgewise.

Izzard is open about how losing his mother at a young age impacted him. He also goes into some depth about coming out as transgender, and what that means as he identifies as having both "boy and girl genetics."

I definitely recommend this book. I hope to someday see a standup gig of Izzard's live!

Thanks to NetGalley for a review copy of this book!

I was really interested in reading this as a fan of the comic and actor, I could not get past the writing style. It is very stream of consciousness and jumps from one topic to another. I found it confusing and distracting and could not finish the book.

While one could argue that celebrity memoirs aren’t necessarily the most challenging reads, they do come with a unique set of pressures. Famous people thrive on perception, so if they’re going to tell their life story, it had better be good.

Comedians have a particularly heavy onus to bear; not only does their story need to be interesting, it has to be funny, but not too jokey. The reader wants to know who this person is, but the author can’t lose sight of why the reader is interested in the first place.

It’s a delicate balance, one that Eddie Izzard manages to strike more often than not in his new memoir “Believe Me: A Memoir of Love, Death, and Jazz Chickens” (Blue Rider Press, $28). The comedian walks us through his life with a blend of self-deprecation and self-awareness that make for an engaging read.

Izzard was born in Yemen, but spent his formative years growing up in the United Kingdom – Northern Ireland, Wales, England. The defining event of his childhood – and really, his entire life – was the death of his beloved mother when he was just six years old. That experience led to an assortment of biographical dominoes falling. His father, unable to properly care for his sons as a single father due to the nature of his job, sent Eddie and his brother to boarding school. It was a decidedly mixed bag as far as experiences go.

However, it was at boarding school where Eddie first caught the performing bug. Said bug would follow him to university, where he would find himself mounting his very own show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival – an experience that would in turn lead to him leaving school altogether to pursue his dreams.

From there, he worked his way up. He hit the comedy circuit in the UK. He made his way from tiny clubs to massive stadium shows, crafting his own unique comedic voice.

But it isn’t just his professional story being told. Izzard is engagingly frank about his own “alternative sexuality” – namely, his adopted label as an “action transvestite” – and shares his journey toward not just societal acceptance, but self-acceptance as well. His sexuality is a vital part of his history – one that he never shies away from at any point in these pages.

There’s plenty of other stuff here – the marathon running business is particularly fascinating – and all of it is engaging and heartfelt and unwaveringly honest.

And oh yeah – it’s pretty freaking funny too.

This isn’t an earth-shattering tell-all. There’s nothing particularly groundbreaking here – certainly not to the extent that Izzard’s comedy is – but that’s not really the point. What makes “Believe Me” such a compelling read is the fact that it is unabashedly … ordinary. It seems odd to say about a memoir written by someone who makes their living in the spotlight, but there’s very little “look at me” in this book.

That’s not to say that it wants for entertainment value, however. Izzard is as sharp and smart as you’d expect him to be here, relating the tales of his adolescence with a wry, dry wit. But there’s little room for spectacle or self-aggrandizement here; he just tells his tale. The reality is that with a storyteller as gifted as Izzard, there’s nothing else that you need.

Part of what makes Eddie Izzard such a successful entertainer is his uncanny knack for finding the ridiculous within the sublime – and vice versa. He pulls extraordinary observations from ordinary realms. And while “Believe Me” isn’t as willfully anarchic and absurd as his comedy, it still provides a fascinating peek into the journey that led him to grow into the man he has become.

Getting a peek behind the curtain with regards to a guy like this is a rare treat. “Believe Me” is that peek, a glimpse at the inner workings, the gears and cogs that make a unique personality such as Eddie Izzard tick.

Let's talk about how amazingly funny this book is. Let's talk about how it made my cry at some points. And let's talk about how amazingly well written this is. And footnotes! (I love footnotes)

Advanced reader copy provided by the publisher VIA NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I've followed Eddie Izzard's career since watching his cult-favorite Dressed to Kill special as a teenager and obsessing over his dramatic performance in the too-short-lived TV show, 'The Riches.'

'Believe Me' is written much in the same way as Izzard's comedy style...a little meandering, a little surreal, and boldly earnest. He covers major chunks of his life, from boarding schools to street performing to international tours to charity work, while touching upon gender identity and a prevailing belief (hence the title) in humans' capacity to do good and achieve. It's a interesting bag with long looks at transgenderism, atheism, English football, stage production, and learning how to fly airplanes (seriously), but I stayed engaged and the tone reminded me of Haruki Murakami's 'What I Talk About When I Talk About Running'....a look at Izzard's personal life through his passions.

This review is for the print edition, although I think this would probably be excellent in audio form.

I've been a long time fan of Eddie Izzard so I was really interested to find out more about him and what happened in his life to make him such a unique artist.

I've been to see Eddie a few times and the book is very much like watching him live - it weaves back and forth and is written a lot of the time as if he is in a show. Great for a live show but not so much on the written page. I like books to be chronological or at least have some order, so it rankled a little with me when I thought we were done and dusted with a period in his life, only for it to be recounted again later with a new anecdote.

I never realised where Eddie "came from" and even now can't recall how I first heard or saw him, I was hoping the book would jog my memory. What it did do was provide a great insight into his early childhood and formative years. It also gave a glimpse of his total resolve in "getting things done" of which in recent years the marathons were a part of. His capacity to learn new languages and use them for stand up comedy is another of his many feats.

He really is a remarkable man and I am not sure after reading this book I really know a lot more about him, as I feel he is still a private person and only let the veil slip on parts of his life. If you love Eddie you will love getting to know more about him.

I'm giving this book 3 out of 5 stars. My thanks to Netgalley for a copy to review.