The sooner we become less impressed with our life, our accomplishments, our career, our relationships, the prospects in front of us—the sooner we become less impressed and more involved with these things—the sooner we get better at them. We must be more than just happy to be here. Matthew McConaughey
I read Greenlights in a day, not because I’m a particularly fast reader, but because it is short, and I also listened to the audiobook as I was cleaning the house (and it needed a lot of help). Because I write memoir, I also read it to see trends in the market, and this one was a pleasant surprise. It’s an unconventional retrospective filled with raucous stories, outlaw wisdom, and lessons learned the hard way about living with greater satisfaction.
When Matthew McConaughey approached the half century mark, he took a one-way ticket to the desert and wrote this book: an album, a record, a story of his 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.” It’s his love letter to life. This book is a guide to catching more greenlights—and to realizing that the yellows and reds eventually turn green too.
I loved it. This book was well written, quirky, and very McConaughey. The narration was marvelous. One of my favorite movies of all time is Sahara, a 2005 adventure film in which he and Steve Zahn play treasure hunters. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen it, but it always makes me laugh. Matthew McConaughey IS Dirk Pitt. He is irreverent, adventurous, charming, and free-spirited. He is also arrogant, and his bumper stickers were annoying, but overall, Greenlights earns four stars.