Greenlights
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4.4 • 119 Ratings
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- $32.99
Publisher Description
From the Academy Award®-winning actor, an unconventional memoir filled with raucous stories, outlaw wisdom, and lessons learned the hard way about living with greater satisfaction.
I've been in this life for fifty years, been trying to work out its riddle for forty-two, and been keeping diaries of clues to that riddle for the last thirty-five. 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 realising that the yellows and reds eventually turn green too.
Good luck.
The audiobook now includes an exclusive interview with Matthew McConaughey which was recorded during his book tour in 2021.
(P)2020 Penguin Random House LLC
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
It makes sense that an iconoclast like Matthew McConaughey would take the basic idea of an autobiography and make it all his own. Part memoir, part self-help manifesto, Greenlights finds the actor sharing some of the most intimate, illuminating and hilarious moments from his life and career. McConaughey draws inspiring lessons from his blue-collar Texas childhood, his father’s tragic passing while in bed with McConaughey’s mother, and his history of sexy dreams that seem to prophesy big life moments like meeting his wife. We especially loved getting an inside look at how the Hollywood star prepares for his movies—did you know his iconic “Alright, alright, alright” from Dazed and Confused was ad-libbed during a costume fitting? And who can resist listening to that perfect Texan drawl? McConaughey brings his trademark candid and approachable vibe to his narration. He’s every bit the charming rogue he plays on screen, but he’s also a masterful storyteller. This compelling audiobook proves that, at least in McConaughey’s case, real life truly is stranger than fiction.
Customer Reviews
Loved this!
Fabulous and hilarious journey through this man’s life- wonderful shared lessons applicable to all.❤️
Perspective-driven read
This book is all about perspective, and narrated by the author, it’s a fantastic read.
Matthew has some incredible stories to tell, and much like my childhood, he grows up in a household with fixed expectations and strict standards to live by. Still, he has some adventures, and learns to push the boundaries where necessary and respect them when deserved.
It’s a beautiful book about how he grew to be the man he is today.
9/10 would highly recommend.
Energy driven
This guy knows how to live life like the rest of us dream of. A Texas Monk.