"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 realizing that the yellows and reds eventually turn green too.

Good luck."

Acquired via PaperBackSwap. (Unabridged on 6 CDs; read by the author)

My first memory of Matthew McConaughey was his starring role in 1996's A Time to Kill, alongside Sandra Bullock. I was probably a little bit starstruck at that point -- he was attractive and had that southern boy twang that was somehow kind of appealing. He's been around the block a bit since then...making headlines not only in the movies but with some of his off-screen antics as well. Some of the appeal may have worn off for me over the years, but I still respected him as an actor and when I had the opportunity to get a hold of his book on audio, I jumped at the chance.

This isn't quite a typical memoir. It does include a lot of personal stories, but it's also somewhat philosophical, with a lot of personal thoughts on growing up, growing out, and living life. I can't imagine reading this in any format other than audio. McConaughey's voice is just one that pulls you in and makes you feel like he's talking directly to you. It gives the reader a nice, comfy feeling. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Adding to an audio bookbox. Enjoy....!

caught in the audio bookbox.

released in the audio bookbox.