Celebrities Whose Autobiographies Reveal Their Working Lives

Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life Martin remembers the point at which he decided to give up every part of his act that wasn’t original. He takes the reader from a childhood job selling guidebooks at Disneyland to writing for the Smothers Brothers and working out what belonged in his own act. Start here for a comic’s account of how long a distinctive stage voice can take to find.

Bossypants Fey has been the person writing the joke and the person who has to make it work on camera. Read her account of writing and performing on Saturday Night Live alongside the parts about making 30 Rock. The appeal is seeing the difference between getting one sketch on the air and keeping a whole comedy series going.

Home Work: A Memoir of My Hollywood Years Written with Emma Walton Hamilton, this is the volume to pick for Andrews’s move into movies. It takes up her work on Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music, then follows collaborations including Victor/Victoria with director Blake Edwards. The changing partnerships are a way into the work of making a musical for the camera.

Dolly Parton, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics Parton builds her account around the songs. She pairs the lyrics with stories from her own memory and material from her archive, with historical context from Robert K. Oermann. If a favorite song has made you wonder what she was drawing on when she wrote it, this is the book to open there and follow the connections outward.

My Name Is Barbra The long road to making Yentl is a place to start if you’re curious about what it takes for a star to get a film made. Streisand also writes about directing The Prince of Tides and making records. The book gives you several ways to see what changes when the performer gets a say in how the whole work takes shape.

All About Me! Start with the pages on Sid Caesar’s Your Show of Shows. Brooks takes you from writing for live television to making The 2000 Year Old Man with Carl Reiner and eventually directing films. Read it for the jump from coming up with material together to building a movie around a comic idea.

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft King puts the years leading to Carrie next to advice about how to write fiction. The combination makes the book useful if you want to see the writer who had to learn the work, as well as the one who can now explain his process. Choose it for a memoir that leaves you wanting to go back to your own draft.

Mo’ Meta Blues: The World According to Questlove Writing with Ben Greenman, the Roots drummer uses the records and artists he listened to as part of the story of becoming a musician. His account reaches beyond the band into how hip-hop is heard and written about. Keep a playlist nearby if you like a memoir that sends you back to the music while you read.

Born to Run Springsteen’s account of the Asbury Park bar-band years gives you a way to hear the rise of the E Street Band differently. The companion collection, Chapter and Verse, includes recordings from the Castiles with Springsteen as a teenager. It’s a rare chance to put some of the early work on while reading how a live act came together.

Finding Me Davis writes about the distance between the training she received at Juilliard and the roles she needed to find her own voice. Her account of auditioning for August Wilson’s Seven Guitars brings the question into a room with a part to win. Pick this for an actor’s perspective on what experience can bring to a role.

Kids, Wait Till You Hear This! Minnelli told her story to Michael Feinstein, with Josh Getlin and Heidi Evans contributing to the book. It takes in both Cabaret and Liza with a Z. Read it to follow an entertainer across film and a televised stage performance, and to hear what she makes of those parts of her career in retrospect.

Fictional Selves MacLachlan makes room for characters he played, parts he missed, and a version of himself he calls Other Kyle. The book ranges from Blue Velvet to Showgirls and discusses working with David Lynch and Laura Dern. Its unusual structure makes it a good choice if you’re interested in how an actor thinks about the parts that help define a career.

Look at Me Hoffman, writing with Ariel Levy, remembers why he thought he was wrong for The Graduate. He recalls talking through his doubts with Mike Nichols and struggling through the screen test with Katharine Ross. Start there if you want to see how a casting decision that looks inevitable in hindsight felt to the actor in the room.