Review: Egghead
or, You Can’t Survive on Ideas Alone
Egghead
Bo Burnham
234 pages - 2013 - poetry, comedy
December 24th, 2024 — December 25th, 2024
Rating: ⭐⭐½
When I was younger, I was horribly afraid of Shel Silverstein. I think a lot of people my age were—the book cover always featured full-sized photos of Shel in black and white that were the most terrifying things I had seen in my short life.
But I loved Shel Silverstein’s books. The Missing Piece was one of my favorites, but I also loved Where the Sidewalk Ends and The Giving Tree. I would brave the potential sight of Shel’s photo if it meant I could laugh at his poetry and the line drawings of ridiculous scenarios.
Egghead felt a lot like a Silverstein but much more salacious. For better or for worse.
This is another one about which I won’t have too much to say. If you like Bo Burnham’s comedy, you might like this poetry collection, but it definitely had a different feel than his specials. It honestly sounded unlike him, probably because of the lack of music underneath the punchlines.
Personally, I prefer his musical comedy. But I’m glad I read this collection. It was a very quick read, especially being on a break. There’s not much substance either, so it’s quite simple to tear through.
I didn’t know that the poems “Him” and “Magic” were in this collection, or that they were Bo Burnham’s work. I read those online somewhere many times through the years.
There were a few hidden gems. I particularly liked “Donald” although it might just be ‘current-event-cynicism’. A few poems were smirk-level funny, some cringy, some uncomfortably sexual. I wouldn’t post any of the poems on my Instagram story with a tasteful filter, but if they were in front of me, I would read them again.
Total pages read so far, 2024: 20,069
Total books read so far, 2024: 54
Next book: Foe by Iain Reid