I think Steve Martin is truly brilliant. Shopgirl is an excellent novel, with no cheap laughs (and not too many other kinds of laughs--if anything, the book is restrained to a fault). It's very considerably better than the movie. I would start with Shopgirl. The Pleasure of My Company DOES have some cheap laughs, and some much more rewarding laughs, and it, too, is a good book and well worth reading. Both are genuine acts of imagination.