2024 the best autobiographies review

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Number-one New York Times Best Seller Discover the life-changing memoir that has inspired millions of readers through the Academy Award-winning actor’s unflinching honesty, unconventional wisdom, and lessons learned the hard way about living with greater satisfaction.

Named One of the Best Books of the Year by The Guardian

“McConaughey’s book invites us to grapple with the lessons of his life as he did - and to see that the point was never to win, but to understand.” (Mark Manson, author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck)

I’ve been in this life for 50 years, been trying to work out its riddle for 42, and been keeping diaries of clues to that riddle for the last 35. Notes about successes and failures, joys and sorrows, things that made me marvel, and things that made me laugh out loud. How to be fair. How to have less stress. How to have fun. How to hurt people less. How to get hurt less. How to be a good man. How to have meaning in life. How to be more me.

Recently, I worked up the courage to sit down with those diaries. I found stories I experienced, lessons I learned and forgot, poems, prayers, prescriptions, beliefs about what matters, some great photographs, and a whole bunch of bumper stickers. I found a reliable theme, an approach to living that gave me more satisfaction, at the time, and still: If you know how, and when, to deal with life’s challenges - how to get relative with the inevitable - you can enjoy a state of success I call “catching greenlights.”

So I took a one-way ticket to the desert and wrote this book: an album, a record, a story of my life so far. This is fifty years of my sights and seens, felts and figured-outs, cools and shamefuls. Graces, truths, and beauties of brutality. Getting away withs, getting caughts, and getting wets while trying to dance between the raindrops.

Hopefully, it’s medicine that tastes good, a couple of aspirin instead of the infirmary, a spaceship to Mars without needing your pilot’s license, going to church without having to be born again, and laughing through the tears.

It’s a love letter. To life.

It’s also a guide to catching more greenlights - and to realizing that the yellows and reds eventually turn green, too.

Good luck.

Reviewer: Colleen Triplett
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: A great experience
Review: Very entertaining, it was funny, honest, adventurous and intellectual. I was intrigued and amused. Highly recommend!

Reviewer: ShezAnEnigma
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Five diamond review - Greenlight...
Review: GreenlightsMatthew McConaughy5 Diamond Review💎💎💎💎💎Greenlights, written by Matthew McConaughy is one of the best autobiographies I have ever read and listened to. I ordered it first on Audible. I enjoyed the book so much, I ordered a hard copy as well. The actor narrated Greenlights himself and hands down he has spoiled me for every other book I will ever listen to. His flow while he narrates his book is flawless. It’s as if he just called me on the phone and decided to tell me his stories. He narrates his book with such ease of voice you feel like you are just listening to a friend talk. This book, his manner of reading it to us and his over all story is amazing. This did not feel like a memoir but like a motivational book. It does not sound like he’s reading anything. He does a great job keeping the book fluid and you can easily follow the timeline he has laid out. I listened to it twice before I moved on to the next audiobook. It will be a book I will listen to again. He really just seems like a very down to earth and ‘normal’ person. I feel fame has not gone to his head. He is honest and brutal and captivating all at the same time. I have listened to it twice.Let’s talk about the actual content of this book. Matthew McConaughy has lived an adventurous life. He has had the means to do things that he wants to do financially as an adult and fortitude as a child and I am fascinated with his choices. He doesn’t sugar coat his words. From describing his parent’s tumultuous relationship and in the end accepting it as the only way they knew how to love to recounting memories of going to Australia or Africa. His stories are funny, sad, nail biters and anything in-between.I am enthralled with his great story telling ability. I am also impressed with his life. I believe that he is a ‘down to earth’ type man who accepts all people for who they are and what they can personally offer of themselves under whatever circumstance. He seems to always be open to learning something new. He does not seem to have the attitude that he knows ‘it’ all already. He seems to be the type of person who makes a commitment and he keeps it at all costs. He lives his life on his own terms and I absolutely appreciate that.He includes pictures and side notes with his tales and it really is fun to look at the pictures of him throughout his life. He takes the red lights and turns them green in his life. He is a progressive thinker and I admire that. Even if something seems to not be going right, he waits for the situation to produce something positive.Matthew McConaughy is true to himself and who he is as a person. He does not come across as arrogant or cocky. He tells his stories with gusto and with every lesson in life that he grew up with. He has chosen adventures that teach him something. He has followed his life journey with a passion. He isn’t stuck in a inflexible mind frame. As we read we can understand his thought process and some of what really makes him tick as a human being. He allows himself to adapt as he grows as a person. He is not rigid or regimented. He throws himself into his work when he works 200% and he allows himself to relax when he needs to.He draws on his past, present and future while he weaves his narrative. I am equally impressed with the people he surrounds himself with. Including his wife. He picked right. He describes her in a way that makes me believe that she is just as down to earth as he is. She was not impressed with his name and fame. She made him work for their relationship. I love the fact that even though he is a successful actor, he acts like a ‘normal’ person in situations he is faced with. He traveled around the country in an airstream, taking up residence in rv parks and campgrounds, and making friends with people all along the way. He doesn’t seem to think he is special just because he is an actor. However he knows he is special for just being human and he values other people in the same way.Of course, this is all my opinion from reading and listening to this book – he could be full of it. But I don’t think so. Although if he is, it’s okay – he really sells it and makes it believable and entertaining.Again, I give the book, both hard bound and audio, five diamonds. I recommend it for everyone.

Reviewer: 70's Kid
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Enjoyed it
Review: I have read many biographies over the years. This one was a fun read with a lot of surprises. It would be so easy for MM to be an egotistical jerk. He is instead an interesting, loving father, son, brother and husband. He is very spiritual and has a strong faith too. Impressed.

Reviewer: kellysm76
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: truly read in his voice
Review: This was enjoyable. I love that the editors kept the writing in his style. I could hear him saying everything I was reading. He’s a very optimistic person and has done a lot of self reflection as an adult.

Reviewer: Kelbrat
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Great quick read and surprisingly insightful.
Review: I flew through this book, first because I needed to for book club, and next because it was so enjoyable. The narrator in my head had a slight McConaughey tilt but was more straight-on which I appreciated. I enjoyed learning more about the man behind the actor.

Reviewer: Sherri Drake
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: A must read
Review: I didn't realize this was more of his life story, however it was an amazing book. It was hard to put down. I learned so much about myself and my path going forward. I highly recommend this book!

Reviewer: Annie Cathryn
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Real and Raw
Review: Listening to Matthew McConaughey is like sitting in a small-town bar enjoying a beer with an old high school buddy while John Mellencamp strums his guitar through the speakers—familiar, real, and raw.I chose to listen to Greenlights because I wanted to hear Matthew McConaughey’s words in his Texan twang. Then I bought the hardcover for the pictures. Not knowing much about him, I didn’t have expectations other than thinking the book would be glamourous and glitzy like all of Hollywood. Boy, was I wrong.I had seen a few of his movies and enjoyed all of them—even the romantic comedies, which he chose to step away from to rebrand himself. I honestly didn’t realize how interesting Matthew was until listening to his book.Matthew (don’t call him Matt) writes his book based on his diaries he kept over the years and views life as catching a series of greenlights—signs that say keep going and carry on. “This book is about catching greenlights and realizing that the yellows and reds eventually turn green.”Growing up, he subscribed to outlaw logic—bar fights, rites of passages, cussing, concussions, and scars—making him appear a little cocky with a tough exterior. Yet he comes across as likable and down to earth with his Ram truck and charm that seduced all the ladies.He recounts many adventures through Australia, South America, and Africa, leaving the reader wondering how many of his stories are exaggerated. That aside, he is an incredible storyteller, interweaving nuggets of wisdom throughout like, “Sometimes we need to leave what we know to find out what we know.”I am a travel lover too, so I enjoyed how he packed up and left whenever he wanted. Ah, the sweet freedom. Not on a private jet or a yacht—he drove a van he named “Cosmo,” hooked up an Airstream to the back of it, and traversed the U.S., stopping at trailer parks. In my mind, celebrities travel in style with an entourage or a bodyguard, but Matthew set out on his own with his dog and took the dirt roads (cue up John Mellencamp’s “Small Town” song here). Many of the lessons he learned in life came from his travels, and he shares them in this book.After he became famous from the movie A Time to Kill, he traveled somewhere to find answers, and that somewhere made me gasp—The Monastery of Christ in the Desert in Abiquiu, New Mexico. Up until last year, my dad lived down the road from this monastery, and I had visited it in 1996. It’s secluded and in the middle of the desert. Matthew’s mention of Abiquiu, a town of 231 people, took me completely by surprise. This part of his journey brought tears to my eyes because I had experienced similar feelings that he divulged at the exact place he was feeling them, and around the same time! “Sometimes we don’t need advice. Sometimes we just need to hear we’re not the only one.”Although he talks about acting, it’s secondary to getting to know Matthew as a person. However, now I want to go back and watch his other movies. I think I’ll see him through a new lens of appreciation and understanding.Overall, this was an uplifting read with a lot of great takeaways from a man who has lived and traveled through many green lights.

Reviewer: Amazon Customer
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Rather self-centered.
Review: Love his looks but his outlook and personality in writing is weird.

Reviewer: Ewa M.
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: I highly recommend the book. As for me, it is an inspiration and a good motivation to keep going. Written in an accessible language.

Reviewer: Fábio
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Leitura muito boa e interessante sobre a vida de Mathew

Reviewer: Jorge Velazquez Pagola
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Well, I might say that I was a lil bit escepctic at first, but this book is one of the best books I've read this year. Mainly because Matt gives you certain lessons, anecdotes about his life, that will make you think for some time.Expect to laugh on some parts, get sad on others, as you will encounter sensations you've felt before, and have a good time reading certain aspects on one of Hollywood's stars life.This book is certainly a good gift. And if you don't purchase it for someone, do it for you. I'm positive you'll enjoy how it is written, the visual aspects of it, and try to riddle Matt's caligraphy.

Reviewer: Inmaro
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: "Greenlights" is a book by and about actor Matthew McConaughey and tells his life story. Actually, I am not particularly a fan of his. I know some movies he starred in, but that's all. All I knew so far was Matt Damon's impersonation of Matthew McConaughey on TV because he wanted to take off his shirt in a movie. So, I wasn't very familiar with this actor, but when I saw his book, I felt intrigued enough to buy it.Well, that's quite a story he tells about his childhood, how he ends up acting and embarks on a kind of spiritual journey. Some people are thrown on the "searching for myself"-trail through extreme or even sad events in life. When it comes to Matthew McConaughey, it is due to a wet dream at night. Yup, that doesn't sound like a reason, but when you read his book, you'll surely agree: It makes sense.He tells his story in a nutshell. His narrative is funny, sometimes profound, but not exaggerated. His story goes from the boy who wants to have fun to someone who could also pass for a rancher in Texas, who rounds up the cattle like a man and who only smiles when necessary ... Or to a guy who goes to the beach, surfs and wears flip-flops, is good-natured and has fun in life. In his book, he seems to describe both sides: The man shaped by an impressive role model, his father, and the carefree surfer boy, with a (beginning) career in Hollywood.But the further I read, the more I realized that the person behind the author of this book is not just the rom-com actor who wants to get rid of his shirt. Maybe that's only my impression, but you should read it for yourself. For my part, I really enjoyed reading that book.

Reviewer: Cristina Díaz Lara
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: I really loved it