This Fire

Craig Ferguson's autobiography American on Purpose came out on September 22nd. It is a very enjoyable read, and one can easily recognize Craig's humor throughout the book. Fans of his show have already heard a lot of his stories, but it is still a joy to be reacquainted with them. In the first part, Craig tells us of his childhood in his native unforgiving Scotland and of a few people who have greatly influenced his life, including his parents and his relatives living in New York. It makes one realize that, throughout life, we meet a lot of interesting people who become important to us. Later on, Craig recalls his days of drinking and of moving through the punk and stand-up comedy scenes. This includes his getting acquainted with the women involved in those scenes (man, he was a STUD!). After getting past drinking, Craig then moves on to his incredible journey through the show business world of America. He started with many crap jobs, wrote a novel and a few movies along the way, and ended up getting, against all odds, the position of late night talk show host on CBS. A lot of elements of this read make it highly inspirational, but they can all be summarized with this one sentence from the book: "Between safety and adventure, I choose adventure."