In a book club and starting to plan your reads for next year? Check out our 2025 picks.

Book Summary and Reviews of Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself by Alan Alda

Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself by Alan Alda

Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself

by Alan Alda

  • Critics' Consensus:
  • Published:
  • Sep 2007, 224 pages
  • Rate this book

  • Buy This Book

About this book

Book Summary

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."

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"His words of inspiration would be a perfect gift for a college grad or for anyone facing major life changes." - PW.

This information about Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Alan Alda Author Biography

Alan Alda played Hawkeye Pierce for eleven years in the television series M*A*S*H and has acted in, written, and directed many feature films. He has starred often on Broadway, and his avid interest in science has led to him hosting PBS's Scientific American Frontiers for eleven years. In 2005, his memoir Never Have Your Dog Stuffed, and Other Things I've Learned became a New York Times bestseller. He was nominated for an Academy Award in 2005 and has been nominated for thirty Emmy awards. He is married to the children's book author/photographer Arlene Alda. They have three grown children and seven grandchildren.

Link to Alan Alda's Website

Name Pronunciation
Alan Alda: AL-da. Most pronounce the first syllable to rhyme with ball, but considering Alda's father created the name from the first two letters of his first and last name (Alphonso D'Abruzzo), arguably the first syllable should be as in the Al in Alphonso.

Other books by Alan Alda at BookBrowse
  • Never Have Your Dog Stuffed jacket
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Recommendations

Readers Also Browsed . . .

more biography/memoir...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: The Barn
    The Barn
    by Wright Thompson
    The barn doesn't reek of catastrophe at first glance. It is on the southwest quarter of Section 2, ...
  • Book Jacket
    Tell Me Everything
    by Erika Krouse
    In her memoir Tell Me Everything: The Story of a Private Investigation, Erika Krouse becomes ...
  • Book Jacket: The Schubert Treatment
    The Schubert Treatment
    by Claire Oppert
    Claire Oppert fell in love with music at an early age and trained to make a career as a classical ...
  • Book Jacket
    Murder by Degrees
    by Ritu Mukerji
    Lydia Weston is among the first wave of female physicians and professors in the United States. ...

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Libby Lost and Found
    by Stephanie Booth

    Libby Lost and Found is a book for people who don't know who they are without the books they love.

Who Said...

A library is thought in cold storage

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

H I O the G

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.