I Must Say cover

I Must Say

by Martin Short

Martin Short: chaos in a bow tie.

For you if

you need a reminder that joy and craft and absurdity are their own form of resistance

⚡ Choose Your Route ⚡

Not sold directly on this site. Support indie bookstores with a new copy, or go sustainable with a used one.

Buy New on Bookshop.org

Supports independent bookstores

— OR —

Find Used on Better World Books

Secondhand & sustainable

$18 MSRP
Reference price shown. Other editions may be available.

Short’s memoir is pure generosity — a chronicle of performance, friendship, and relentless positivity. Behind every pratfall is a craftsman obsessed with precision and heart. It’s a study in how to turn grief, awkwardness, and absurdity into grace — one perfectly timed bit at a time.

Where This Book Lives

Related Viewing

Shares a topic, theme, or setting with this book in the catalog.

Best in Show poster

Best in Show(2000)

dir. Christopher Guest

Dog show devotion, played entirely straight-faced.

Five eccentric owners and their dogs compete at the prestigious Mayflower Kennel Club Dog Show, in a mockumentary that never winks at its own joke.

Why it’s here: An ensemble of oddballs taken completely seriously by the camera, which is the whole joke and also the whole warmth — nobody here gets to be a punchline without also getting to be a person.

Letterboxd ↗

Never Let Me Go poster

Never Let Me Go(2010)

dir. Mark Romanek

Raised for a purpose they never chose.

Three friends grow up together at an idyllic English boarding school, slowly coming to understand — and largely accept — the specific, limited purpose their lives were engineered to serve. Adapted from Kazuo Ishiguro's novel.

Why it’s here: Punk in its quiet, devastating restraint — no uprising, no escape plot, just people trained from childhood not to fight their fate. Pedagogical in showing how a society justifies using some lives for others' benefit, one small acceptance at a time.

Letterboxd ↗