thanks for mentioning monitoring goodreads at the the end louis, so meta ( )

Stopped reading after 100 pages or so. Learned (the hard way) that every once in a while you should not give in to the urge to want to learn more about someone. ( )

3.5 stars - I loved the first half of this book that looked at his life and how he got started with the weird weekends etc. I was less interested in the Hamilton and Saville content. ( )

An amusing read about Louis’ career. He comes across very much as he appears on screen: curious though a little more unsure and angsty. And I love the way he writes, so articulate, self-deprecating with some snortingly funny images. In some parts uncomfortably honest (if you are the wives) about his two marriages that he ungallantly portrays as having bumbled into. ( )

Turns out I knew precious little about this man! I saw his Scientology documentary (twice) and loved it, and had seen smatterings of him on various TV documentaries but had no idea of the extent of his output.

This book chronicles the making of his career, going into detail on some of the key projects on which he has worked. The Jimmy Savile case dominated, which, even though was thought overkill by some reviewers for it taking up two chapters, to me was very interesting. The audio was provided by Theroux himself and was done very well. He is clearly super intelligent and articulate; he has wonderful things to say and says them very well. I was very into the descriptions of his key projects, and found the surrounding information fascinating. I was particularly impressed at the level of attention he gave to his home life (he has a wife and three young children) as parental expressions of awe and wonder at their newborns seem - to me - usually to be limited to women's memoirs.

Maybe it is is his excessive overthinking of things that drew me in (I heavily relate to that!), but I loved the down-on-himself reflections, the musings and the ponderings this book offered. ( )