Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself

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 show more 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? show less

Nearly dying on a mountaintop in Chile prompts Alan Alda to grab life by the collar and live it even more fully than he did before. In this memoir, he ponders what constitutes a good life and what makes life meaningful, and he does this by revisiting various talks and speeches and commencement addresses he’s given over the years. The talks are woven through stories that cover the personal and the public: his travelling on the Orient Express with his daughter, his grappling with celebrity, his hanging out with the grandkids, his musing on the commonalities of three friends who died the same year, and much more.

Overall, I ended up enjoying this revisit in audio form. I’d read the book in print 10 years ago, and at first I found the show more audio more confusing because it was hard to tell where the prepared talks ended and where the rest of the narrative began. My favourite part was his story about the Orient Express; the part I couldn’t handle was the bit about him shooting his pet rabbits :( But that ended up being easy to skip.

I’d recommend the audio more for a car trip than for doing chores; it’s relaxing to listen to Alan narrate his life. show less

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?

Oh my goodness, I LOVED this book. I could enjoy another 200 pages of things he learned. There is so much to think about in this book. There were things that made me laugh out loud and things that made me cry. This book is a series of speeches that he has given and him talking about them. I highly recommend this book and think we can all get things from his insight.

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.

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.

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.