Books with author Martin Stephen

Despite being smart, athletic, and likeable, fourteen-year-old Cael Brand prefers to move quietly through junior high in the shadows. But when his mother and only living parent, famed archeologist Dr. Eryn Brand, succumbs to a sudden and unexplainable illness, the teenager can't avoid getting involved. To save his mother, Cael will need to follow a series of clues that unlock a long-hidden family secret. There are things Cael never knew about his mom, and the answers are not to be found on Earth. His search for the truth leads to Palatore - a mysterious world where everyday, ordinary words have amazing power to heal or destroy. To survive the journey and return with a cure, Cael will need to step from the shadows and with the help of new friends take a stand against an age-old enemy bent on his family's destruction.

In the midseventies, Steve Martin exploded onto the comedy scene. By 1978 he was the biggest concert draw in the history of stand-up. In 1981 he quit forever. This book is, in his own words, the story of "why I did stand-up and why I walked away." Emmy and Grammy Award winner, author of the acclaimed New York Times bestsellers Shopgirl and The Pleasure of My Company, and a regular contributor to The New Yorker, Martin has always been awriter. His memoir of his years in stand-up is candid, spectacularly amusing, and beautifully written. At age ten Martin started his career at Disneyland, selling guidebooks in the newly opened theme park. In the decade that followed, he worked in the Disney magic shop and the Bird Cage Theatre at Knott's Berry Farm, performing his first magic/comedy act a dozen times a week. The story of these years, during which he practiced and honed his craft, is moving and revelatory. The dedication to excellence and innovation is formed at an astonishingly early age and never wavers or wanes. Martin illuminates the sacrifice, discipline, and originality that made him an icon and informs his work to this day. To be this good, to perform so frequently, was isolating and lonely. It took Martin decades to reconnect with his parents and sister, and he tells that story with great tenderness. Martin also paints a portrait of his times -- the era of free love and protests against the war in Vietnam, the heady irreverence of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in the late sixties, and the transformative new voice of Saturday Night Live in the seventies. Throughout the text, Martin has placed photographs, many never seen before. Born Standing Up is a superb testament to the sheer tenacity, focus, and daring of one of the greatest and most iconoclastic comedians of all time.

How can you murder those who are already dead?The Poppleham Ghosts is a Young Adult novel by UK author Steve Martin. Kevin Beeston is a 15-year-old on work assignment with his father's company. The company demolishes old buildings, replacing them with mass-produced buildings. In one of the buildings Kevin encounters a group of ghosts. He finds that these spirits are tied to the old buildings and once the building is destroyed, so are they. Kevin then begins a campaign to save the natural habitat of the Poppleham Ghosts.The Poppleham Ghosts is more than a ghost story and is more concerned with the manner in which the modern world is increasingly sterile and mass-produced and leaves no place for the imagination (symbolized by the ghosts).This is a book that will appeal to Young Adults making the transition from childhood to adulthood and battling with the pressures and realities of today’s world.

In this stylistic tour de force, Stephen Marche creates the entire culture of a place called Sanjania—its national symbols, political movements, folk heroes, a group of writers dubbed "fictioneers," a national airline called Sanjair, and a rich literary history. Sanjania is an island nation whose English-speaking citizens draw upon the English, American, Australian, and Canadian literary traditions. This brilliant story is an anthology, taking the reader from the rough and tumble pamphlets of 1870s Sanjania to the burgeoning Sanjanian nationalistic awareness in the 1930s literary journal, The Real Story, to the extraordinary longing of the writings of the Sanjanian Diaspora. These works develop into a Rashomon-like story, introducing us to illustrious Sanjanian figures such as the repentant prostitute Pigeon Blackhat and the magically talented couple Caesar and Endurance. The result is a vibrant evocation of a country— from the birth pangs of its first settlers and their hardy vernacular to is revolutionary years and all the way to the present—all told in Stephen Marche’s innovative and accomplished writing.

Shining at the Bottom of the Sea is a vividly imagined anthology of Sanjania, a fictional country created by one of the most impressive voices in Canadian literature, Stephen Marche. The novel offers a rich and varied portrait of Sanjania and its way of life through a collection of stories—from pirate tales to social realist dramas, from folk parables to avantgarde experiments, from nineteenth-century prostitution “confessions” to postcolonial memoirs. Part satire, part commentary on literary nationalism, part acrobatic feat, Shining at the Bottom of the Sea is above all else an original and absorbing read. Its stories range from wickedly funny to heartbreakingly sad and will be enjoyed by all readers—even the ones who have never had a chance to visit Sanjania.

By Joseph Boone September 30, 2008 With a number of hit movies under his belt, it's almost easy to forget that Steve Martin first earned fame doing stand-up comedy. In the late 1970's he was selling out large arenas, appearing regularly on Saturday Night Live and the Tonight Show, and spinning platinum comedy albums excerpted from his act. He made it look easy and was wildly successful until he walked away in the early 80's. In this book, he takes a look back at the path that led him toward all that fame. While he begins with childhood, he limits himself to events that were formative to his career. The narration is honest and concise. Whether he talks about failures in himself or others, he adopts a matter-of-fact tone that deftly avoids dips into self-pity or bitterness. As the book continues, we learn all of his major stepping stones from Disneyland to the Bird Cage theater at Knotts Berry Farm, and so on. Martin traveled a winding road to stand-up success and is brutally honest about how much he had to learn for so long early in his career. Yet, with each step, you can see the progress as he figures out how to create his own unique comedy voice and make it work. There are many things that could be said in favor of "Born Standing Up." From my perspective the most important are these two. First, I felt like I knew Steve Martin better when I finished reading than when I started. That may seem an obvious result of any biography but it can only be said if the author is genuinely candid. The second thing is that I both like and respect him more as a result. Not because he paints a perfect picture of himself, but because he is honest about his shortcomings and how he dealt with them. It was a true pleasure to spend this time in his company and I hope he writes a sequel someday covering the experiences of his movie career. ( Amazon customer review)

A young girl sees a vampire make a kill, and then becomes the next target...Three family members are alone in a deserted town with just a ferocious werewolf for company...A seaside resort becomes the latest venue for yet another zombie apocalypse...The witches in a quaint English village are peckish, and one of the family is on the menu.Featuring scenes of extreme banter and almost unacceptable buffosity from the start, this collection of four horror stories should only be read by those with strong stomachs.

It is 2138. Jake lives on planet Dios with his father, a Planetary Environment Controller (PEC), and Squawker his holographic pet. Jake's dad accepts a new assignment: to clean up Planet Terra - a cesspit, exo- planet in the habitable zone of their Solar System.Jake is forced to leave his Dios life behind and move to planet Terra and a new school. Planet Terra is nowhere near as nice as Dios and the litterbug, lay-about classes of Terra treat their environment appallingly. Powerful energy companies, supported by corrupt politicians, have polluted and disfigured the Terran landscape and destroyed whole ecologies.Global climate change is turning half the planet to desert.When teachers and students at his new school find out that Jake's dad is there to get strict new environment laws enforced, Jake is bullied. Things spiral downwards and Jake runs away to a camp of eco-warriors living outside the city, In time the tribe accept him. Jake meets and falls in love with Moon Water and, after a showdown with Tumbril, becomes leader of the tribe. Their home threatened by drilling for Terrafirmium, an energy-rich crystal, Jake takes up the fight. Primitive acts of sabotage do little to deter the miners. Jakes’ last, desperate ploy is to hack into the Terran governments communication system . He makes an impassioned plea to the young Terrans. to stop big businesse and government destroying the planet.The message goes viral.Terra-wide ,youth takes to the streets in protest. The Supreme Council finally hears the case of Jake v. Resources Inc. and the legacy of generations to come is decided in a landmark legal case.