Last December I went home to Canada for my parents’ 40th wedding anniversary & while I was home this was one of the books that I managed to nick from my Mom & bring back with me to read. My knowledge of Alan Alda, admittedly, is quite limited – I would say that the only exposure I had of him was as Hawkeye in M*A*S*H, but this book intrigued me.
Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself wasn’t a bad book, but it wasn’t a great book either. It’s a collection of life lessons centred around speeches that Alda gave at University commencement ceremonies & charity evenings. I hadn’t realised that this was the second installment of Alda’s memoires. You don’t really need to read the first one to understand this one, but at the same time, I do wish I had read the first one first……..I do wonder what I have missed.
You do get to learn a lot about Alan Alda through reading this, but that isn’t the point of this book. Alda’s life lessons are a nice read, but the best bits are the stories he tells around these life lessons, not the lessons contained within the speeches he delivered. I found myself oddly disappointed with this book, but pleased I had read it.
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