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    Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself
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    Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself
    Unavailable
    Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself
    Audiobook6 hours

    Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself

    Published by Penguin Random House Audio

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    On the heels of his acclaimed memoir, Never Have Your Dog Stuffed, beloved actor and bestselling author Alan Alda has written Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself, an insightful and funny look at some of the impossible questions he's asked himself over the years: What do I value? What, exactly, is the good life? (And what does that even mean?)

    Picking up where his bestselling memoir left off-having been saved by emergency surgery after nearly dying on a mountaintop in Chile-Alda finds himself not only glad to be alive but searching for a way to squeeze the most juice out of his new life. Looking for a sense of meaning that would make this extra time count, he listens in on things he's heard himself saying in private and in public at critical points in his life-from the turbulence of the sixties, to his first Broadway show, to the birth of his children, to the ache of September 11, and beyond. Reflecting on the transitions in his life and in all our lives, he notices that "doorways are where the truth is told," and wonders if there's one thing-art, activism, family, money, fame-that could lead to a "life of meaning."

    In a book that is candid, wise, and as questioning as it is incisive, Alda amuses and moves us with his unique and hilarious meditations on questions great and small. Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself is another superb Alan Alda performance, as inspiring and entertaining as the man himself.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateSep 4, 2007
    ISBN9780739354711
    Unavailable
    Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself

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    Reviews for Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself

    3.5/5

    117 ratings9 reviews

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    • 3/5
      I thoroughly enjoyed Alan Alda's first autobiography "Never have your dog stuffed". This is less entertaining - it's more a series of speeches he has made at various university graduation events. Some are better than others and it does get a bit repetitive. OK but not a must read.
    • 5/5
      Wonderful collection of wisdom under the most brilliant title. Not what I expected, but I'm better for it. I mentally offered three stars after a couple of chapters, bumped it to four around half way through and five near the end. The memoir reads like a conversation between good friends. Good stuff.
    • 2/5
      Too repetitious.
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed the audio book. I found it engaging and insightful as well as funny. Interesting musings about life read by author Alan Alda.
    • 4/5
      I decided to read this book because I have been watching Mash and saw the book at the library and picked it up. I have always loved Alan Alda and he reminds me of my father by his stature. Tall, thin, and lanky.I wasn't disappointed. Reading about Alan Alda's life and some of the speeches he has given through his lifetime were very interesting. How can an actor give a speech to students graduating from medical school and are actual doctors? It was interesting to see how he went about building the speeches and why he did them.Now I just need to listen one of his own books that he has narrated.
    • 2/5
      I should have a shelf called "I knew better". This audiobook would go right in the center, if I had.

      Alda's passionate, articulate, engaging but somehow I still found this book both fatuous and smarmy. I don't think it's intentional, of course. I found it desperately annoying. Maybe it's my own bias showing- if I'm deeply touched, I generally respond with humor or sarcasm (preferably both at once), and I think I am embarrassed in the presence of ingenuous emotions like Alda's. And a little voice in my head adds gratuitously, "especially at his age". It's a sincerely sentimental book full of earnestly sweet and genuinely good advice. Nevertheless, I couldn't wait for it to be over. That's more about me than Alda, isn't it?
    • 4/5
      Though I should have been reading other books, I simply had to sit and listen to Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself. My parents raised me to appreciate M*A*S*H, and so I've always had an interest in Alan Alda. Of course, as Alda discusses, celebrity is a strange thing, and celebrities often disappoint on closer inspection. I will probably never meet Alan Alda, so I can't say whether he would disappoint if I did meet him, but listening to this audiobook has only made me admire him more.

      The title is a strange one, and means exactly what it says. In Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself, Alan Alda considers various speeches he gave throughout his life, such as commencements and eulogies. He looks back at what he said then and tries to boil down them down to what he really believes and what he really wants to pass on to people about living life. While initially skeptical about this construct, it proves to be an incredibly fascinating pursuit, as he learns from his past self.

      No doubt this book will also lose him fans. Alan Alda is a very political man. He has very strong opinions on things like equal rights and the environment and the arms race. I happen to agree with him on pretty much all of this, so I appreciate his candor, but those staunchly on the other side of the spectrum will likely be offended.

      Alda makes several basic observations and then looks at them again and again. Still, the book managed not to come across as repetitive, though it might seem that way to those less interested in continual philosophical musings. His thoughts on the divide between the humanities and science are especially compelling.

      For those looking for an in depth look at Alan Alda's life, this is not the place to get it. He does mention his family quite often and famous friends too, but they are not the point of the book. They are sometimes illustrative of an argument he's trying to make, but this is not a biography. The subjects covered are those dealt with in speeches to a public audience, so he mostly skims the surface of private life.

      If you read Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself, I recommend the audio highly, because, hello, you can listen to Alan Alda. He has a unique and delightful voice, so immediately recognizable as him. He's a delight to listen to, and who better to tell his story than him?
    • 5/5
      Fantastic book about a fantastic actor and all round nice human being.
    • 5/5
      This guy has always made me laugh; even when he was Hawkeye. This book is about all his speeches he's made to medical students who are graduating - even though he only played the part of a doctor and isn't actually one. He still in great demand even today.