Rating: 
Summary: A superbly crafted character study
Review: Steve Martin's, 'The Please of My Own Company," reads like an exquisitely crafted character study that a top-notch actor would create while prepping for a role. Readers are treated with colorfully fleshed out character portrayal, smidges of interesting backstory and a skeleton of a story that manages to keep things just interesting enough without bogging down the light, effervescent flow of Martin's prose. Martin also proves that he's quite adept at culling the inner-voice of his characters as he meticulously brings to life everey bit of minutiae involved in the thought process of an OCD riddled character attempting to overcome obstacle after obstacle (in this case figuring out how to cross the street, the right amount of light bulb wattage to keep lit, etc.). The end of the tale might come across as a bit too Hollywood in its payoff but nonetheless it satisfied and made for a great read on a 2 1/2 hour flight across 4 states.
Rating: 
Summary: Read the book instead
Review: Listening to Steve Martin tell the story makes it difficult to imagine the main character as someone other than himself. I kept picturing Steve Martin in these situations, since he was the one speaking. That said, the story is funny, touching and very enjoyable. But you might want to read the book instead.
Rating: 
Summary: Like "Bright Lights Big City"
Review: There has been great comparison of "Pleasure of My Company" (Steve Martin) to "My Fractured Life" (Rikki Lee Travolta). Although I enjoyed both books I am more inclined to compare "Pleasure of My Company" to a modern version of "Bright Lights Big City" (Jay McInerney) while "My Fractured Life" I would compare as our decade's "Catcher in the Rye" (JD Salinger). Martin is playful with his melancholy; you always know the tongue is firmly in place even if he will never invite you to laugh out loud with this one. I think those who like Travolta's "My Fractured Life" will fully enjoy Martin's "Pleasure of My Company" but in the same way that those who like "Catcher in the Rye" also appreciate "Bright Lights Big City."
Rating:
Summary: What A Delight!!
Review: I loved this! Having read "Shopgirl" previously, I already knew I'd enjoy Martin's cool, quirky style.
Much better plot here. Daniel (main character) almost jumps to life from the pages. I loved the endless drone of his days, his "affections", his grand sense of humor. Oh, and how darling his love for Kinko's!
Such a tiny book, it reads effortlessly, yet I found myself reading slower, savoring each morsel.
Without giving anything away, read this book. You will be totally satisfied! Bravo, Mr. Martin. You have yet another gift!
Rating:
Summary: Steve Martin writes a mean sentence
Review: Daniel Pecan Cambridge is beset by a collection of neuroses that have rendered him jobless and lonely--and the subject of study of a psychiatry student who stops by his compulsively cleaned apartment twice weekly. Some of Daniel's peculiarities merely make his life difficult, such as his need for the aggregate wattage of lit lightbulbs in his apartment to equal precisely 1125 at all times. But others virtually preclude normal conduct. Most awkward, perhaps, is Daniel's inability to step over curbs: he can only cross a street when two scooped-out driveways lie directly opposite one another. This requirement makes an adventure of Daniel's frequent trips to the local Rite Aid, and it complicates his attempts to woo the real estate agent showing apartments across the street from his own. Steve Martin's chronicle of Daniel's self-imprisonment, narrated by Daniel himself, is a sweet story filled with often gorgeous prose. Martin's writing is both delightfully precise ("Let me tell you about my mailbox. It is one of twelve eroded brassy slots at the front entrance of my building.") and quietly funny: "I never have interfered with a relationship, out of respect for the guy as much as for myself, but Brian is a dope and Philipa is a sylph and I am a man, even if that description of myself is qualified by my failure to be able to cross the street at the curb." The Pleasure of My Company is a quick read--163 pages and chapterless, with an ending that is perhaps too abrupt--and it is well worth a look. You'll leave the book appreciating, quite possibly madly envious of, its Renaissance-man author's highly re-readable prose style.
Rating:
Summary: Not A 5-Star Book At All! Just Really Good.
Review: funny, funny, funny read! short piece ideal for, say, a round-trip flight cross country or something quick to throw in to your book club members tired of the last guy's request to read "war and peace." there really is nothing great about this book, its just super-fun and beautifully character-driven. gotta tell you though...i thought the ending was lousy. the main character has obsessive compulsive disorder and i'm sure, a host of other antisocial problems. lucky for me that these are two topics i love to see on paper or on television (monk) or in the theatres (as good as it gets.) i find OCD a fascinating case to study in all its forms and martin never deviates from real life situational hazards and how the..."patient" deals with them. basically, the main character's story is about him trying to get through life without anyone disturbing his routine. nothing really happens aside from his having crushes on every cute girl in town, but can't bring himself to talk to any of them. he doesn't even have a job because, as he's managed to screw up other aspects of everyday life, he's screwed that up too. so he sits at home, unemploed, gazing out the window at various objects of his affection. nothing else happens until his grandmother dies and he has to go to her funeral. mentioning anything more about what happens after that gives away the story. now, for the bad parts.... there are points in the story where martin mentions things that literally never happen until pages or chapters later. there is a character named lauren, whom we didn't meet, yet she's mentioned to us several pages ahead of time as if we know her well. also, in one of the worst examples of editing and continuity i've ever seen on paper, martin makes it evident to us that this man doesn't have a telephone - no celphone, nothing. but when he gets up the nerve to talk a cute realtor who barely knows he exists, he calls her up on the phone. when she tells him she will come over in ten minutes, he quickly hangs up the phone and jumps in the shower. at no point does it say, "he runs home from the payphone at the rite aid and jumps in the shower" nor does it say "he quickly returns brian's celphone downstairs, runs back up and takes a shower." nothing like that. all of a sudden, he has a phone when it is explicity againsts what he is all about to have one. ugly. my problem with the ending is the same i have been noticing from many other writers i've read lately, like doug rushkoff's "ecstacy club." it seemed rushed and seemingly far-fetched, as we are led to expect one thing and we get another and its over. ah, whatever...not the worst thing in the world. other than that, i really liked the book and i hope you enjoy the read!
Rating:
Summary: Martin just gets better.
Review: Martin's career fascinates me because I see him enter a new field at a certain level and then improve on subsequent outings. He's always been good enough from the get-go to earn the indulgence of fans and financers, which of course buys him time. People will take a chance on Steve Martin. Pure Drivel, his collection of short, humorous essays, bettered his first effort, Cruel Shoes (much of which reworked his standup routines). Roxanne, his sharp adaptation of Cyrano, seemed to come from nowhere, if we consider his previous screenplays -- The Jerk, The Man with Two Brains, and Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid. L. A. Story (one of my favorite films) revealed a screenwriting talent of the highest caliber. Likewise, after Shopgirl, a rather self-conscious, too-careful effort, Martin comes up with The Pleasure of My Company. Martin has always used words sparely and elegantly. Here, however, he manages to give the impression of having loosened up a bit, of taking artistic risks with his characters. The characters of Shopgirl were a little too easy and too familiar to readers of New Yorker fiction. One always sensed Martin's controlling hand in their actions, and the best parts of the book seemed to be the by-the-way observations of Southern California culture. In Pleasure, one actually cares what happens to the hero -- a self-absorbed neurotic so inside his own head that he has, essentially, withdrawn to the rooms of his small apartment. Among the many ironies, he enters (twice!) an essay contest on why he is the Most Typical American. As in L. A. Story, Martin's somewhat surreal view of life (in this case, explored through a character suffering from world-class obsessive-compulsive disorder) turns out to be, not really nightmarish, but a sense of wonder toward the ordinary world.
Rating:
Summary: Wow! What a Pleasure ...
Review: ... THE PLEASURE OF MY COMPANY is! Steve Martin's novella about peculiar Daniel Pecan Cambridge (who struck me as more autistic than obsessive-compulsive; but plenty eccentric nonetheless) is sweet and insightful. It is also funny, and Daniel's odd perceptions of reality are terrifically imaginative. What began in me as a cautious wariness about him, finished 163 pages later with a smile and a tear and a cheer. Buy it or borrow it, but treat yourself to reading this little gem.
Rating:
Summary: a very funny book-great read
Review: Steve Martin's The Pleasure of My Company is the story of 31 year old Santa Monica resident Daniel Pecan Cambridge. He has very severe obsessive compulsive disorder (though he doesn't recognize it as such), which dictates everything in his life. It takes him 40 minutes to get top a drugstore that is only a few blocks away because he will only cross the street on driveways that dip down a certain way and are parallel to each other (he's afraid of curbs), and he creates mental grids of his ceiling to count irregularities. He is also obsessed with a realtor whom he has met only briefly under the guise of a potential renter, his (student) physiatrist (Clarissa),and his pharmacist (Zandy). Eventually he conquers his problems and moves on to a new life. This book was really funny as well as insightful. There were some parts where I had to struggle not to burst out laughing, which is why I gave it a 5 out of 5.
Rating:
Summary: Thoroughly Enjoyable
Review: I found this story to be light-hearted and witty. The Pleasure of My Company was a pleasure to read.
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