Sharon in rural Florida

Not much of a story about the region

Revisado: 04-02-25

This is a book strictly about journalists in the Kosovo-Serbian-Croation wars, what they did, where they went, what they said. It offers little information about the region the book covers, and instead concentrates on the life of the rather arrogant author who relishes what he sees as his important place in history as a brave reporter. If you want to understand the Baltic region, this book will not help.

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What a marvelous opportunity missed

Revisado: 12-24-20

There is a lot of story here,and it's interesting to hear the lives of this generation of high born English. But this book runs away in too many directions to be understood by someone who is not drenched in the history of the times. Instead of one main character, there are about 14. Not just the three sisters, but their mother, father, husbands and children are all treated as narrators of the book and its principal subject. It is a lesson in how powerful a single point of view is to a story, as it is impossible to keep track of the many stories going on.
I listened to this book on audible and the narrator's voice was so pleasant that I kept it on until the end, despite of having lost track of the whole impossible story at around chapter 3. The author kept happily spinning out more lovers, more friends, more main characters, until it was impossible to care about any one of them.
It's a shame as there are many marvelous stories here. I would have loved it if the author pulled on one thread, maybe Madeline the mother, and let us see everything through her eyes as an organizing tool. Then, it would have made sense.
The story as is would make sense only to someone who was friends with all these people and knew them well. Too unstructured, too diverse, too many main characters, too unshapely, too unorganized to recommend.

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The real thing

Revisado: 04-18-19

There is so much "FBI Behavioural Unit" on television that it is easy to forget that there was ever a time when crimes weren't pursued and solved in this way. Douglas' story is fascinating. He was truly a leader in his field. And like all of us, a flawed human being, which he doesn't mind revealing. A great story.

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Delicious story

Revisado: 04-18-19

There is something rich and satisfying about hearing an author read her own work. Listening to Ruth Reichl, you feel you understand her. And, her story telling skill is marvelous. So interesting to hear about Gourmet magazine and Conde Nast and Sy Newhouse. When she spoke about 9/11, I felt my PTSD rising as she described the day. The kind of book you can listen to again and again.

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An enduring actor

Revisado: 02-01-19

Alan Arkin endures through the decades as an actor. His looks have changed very little. His talent is immense. He has a unique role to play; no one else captures the archetype that he plays nearly as well. The In Laws is a classic. His current series, The Kominsky Method, uses the epitome of his talent.
But like many actors, the role he plays in life, as himself, is not nearly as interesting as those film roles. It is fun to find out that he is a lifelong meditator and believes his stability and emotional calmness comes from that.
But even after reading this autobiography, I am going to continue to think of him as the dentist in the In Laws who longs for a quiet life, or the agent in The Kominsky Method who is devastatingly funny and frustrating to those around him. Those characters are the interesting part of Alan Arkin. This book is not.

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What a terrific memoir

Revisado: 01-04-19

The writing of this book is delicious, every sentence a delight. The family is the most intensely dysfunctional one you could imagine -- lifelong homelessness and then WHAM! a surprise from mom many years later. This book made me look at homelessness in an entirely different way. In this family it was a choice, not a necessity.
After this book, read on to Half-Broke Horses, which is equally good.

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A man we all know

Revisado: 10-07-18

Interesting to get the back story of George Lucas. He's a man we all think we know. His group of friends are our movie makers. So it's interesting to know more about all of them. Even though George himself is not that interesting. His friends all advised him that he was not a good script writer, which we all know from his movies. Here you find out who wrote which scripts, and the ones George did by himself are the most wooden and stilted. After his wife divorced him, he adopted three kids and became Mister Mom. Maybe he was creating a happy childhood for himself as well as them.

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More honest than those history books in school

Revisado: 10-07-18

It's amazing how selective history books in schools are. So much of what this author writes is things you never knew. This should be the required history book. It gives context to the facts that you learned.

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Comics real lives aren't that funny

Revisado: 10-07-18

It's amazing how comics real lives aren't that funny. Steve Martin had a childhood in which his father showed him no warmth and in fact seemed to hate him. Throughout his adult life, his father never praised him, and told friends and family, "He's no Charlie Chaplain." How horrible and hurtful that was. But Steve writes about it passively as if it was no big deal. Through his own effort, he heals the wounds with his father at the end. But he never reveals how truly hurtful his father's disdain must have been. He argues that comics need their private lives to be private, when the whole point of a memoir is that we want to know everything. So while it's a truthful book, it doesn't tell you much.

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It's a good read

Revisado: 07-19-17

Any additional comments?

If you like memoirs, it's a good read. It's a pleasant book and the author is honest about his life and his feelings so you get a sense of his psychology, which is why I read memoirs. Nothing life shattering. But I do like a book in which I learn things, and he details how a big, famous restaurant works so you learn a lot. Turns out that running a restaurant is a lot like running any business, in terms of the cast of characters you have to manage and how you have to allow for the idiosyncrasies of so many people. It's always fun to hear the analysis of celebrities by someone who has met them.

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