What's It All About?

By: Michael Caine

Narrated by: Michael Caine

Length: 2 hrs and 50 mins

Publisher's Summary

In his revealing autobiography, Michael Caine tells with unsparing honesty of his hard-fought journey from an impoverished South London childhood to Hollywood wealth and stardom. With all the easy charm and relaxed humour of a natural raconteur, he takes us behind the scenes of both his professional and private life.

©1992 Stoke Films Ltd (P)1994 Random House Audiobooks

Stay Away - Bad Quality and Abridged

I pulled found this on my phone as I started listening to The Elephant to Hollywood and he mentioned his previous autobiography. Being a completest, I had to stop and listen to the first book in the series. Unfortunately, I did not look at the runtime nor the fact that it is abridged. So that is on me, but on the other hand, less than three hours to cover the first 50 years of his life, I am going to guess that it was SUPER abridged.

So my mistake aside, the audio is horrible. In looking around, I can see this was originally on audio tape. I can only assume an Audible engineer found only one of the cassettes, recorded on extra long play of course, under the seat of his car. He then pulled out his old school tape player, held it up to his computers microphone, and then called it a job well done. I mean it is so bad that this book should not be sold anymore. I feel as if this mess is still on here because Audible knows people won't notice and will spend the ~ $9 to buy it. I assumed it was cheap as it is an older book, however, compared to other books I have bought, the 3hrs was pretty expensive...

I did give the performance 3 stars because it still has Michael Caine telling his story, although it can be hard to hear through the din. The bottom line is stay away and go get the real book. Audible, you should be ashamed at this still being sold on here.

7 people found this helpful

Interesting look behind the scenes

Great story and interesting glimpse at the real person behind the legend. The ONLY complaint I had was the sound quality on the recording. It's a bit fuzzy and does not cater to his speaking style. He starts bold, but tapers off, so I had to keep the volume all the way up because it ranges from booming to a whisper.

Somewhat disappointing

What would have made What's It All About? better?

It was too short, but of course that was the length of the book I would imagine.

If you’ve listened to books by Michael Caine before, how does this one compare?

Haven't listened to any other.

What didn’t you like about Michael Caine’s performance?

I love Michael Cain but he's not a very animated reader. The material was fairly interesting, but delivery was lacking

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from What's It All About??

Not sure.

Fantastic!

I love Michael Caine, and in his autobiography he comes out as witty and entertaining. He has a wonderful voice and it is not at any point boring.

Oddly monotone

Michael Caine's led a rags-to-riches life and has some amusing stories to tell along the way. Unfortunately his performance on this 1992 abridged reading is almost completely flat and monotone. About the only time it perks up is when he remarks, as part of a major edit in the story, that if we want to know more about his numerous films we'll need to read the book - I could almost hear him laughing as he said it. His 2010 autobiography 'The Elephant to Hollywood' (also available here on Audible) is far more entertaining and far better value too. It covers the same ground and then some - a generous, unabridged 10 hours of the irrepressible Mr Caine rounding up his life so far.

6 people found this helpful

Eye opening insight to Mr. Caine's poor backgroun.

Michael Caine's self-narrated Auto Biography makes all the difference to this audible book.

Highly recommend it. Unbelievable how down to earth this immensely successful A-Lister was and still is.

My wife and I listened to this from start to finish within a 280mile round trip in the car.

We hope there's another self-nareated Michael Caine auto-biography.

2 people found this helpful

Good but disappointed not the full book

my wife reas the full book, put it's not fully narrated as the book is funny according to the wife.

Straight to the point

Michael skips through this himself, and tells it as it is and as if he was in the pub talking to you.

good but short

off to listen to next book as this was nice but very brief. completely skipped some chunks

Good but short!

Micheal Caine gives an interesting and touching review of his life up until his 58th year. When I bought this audio book I did 't realise it was abridged so it only lasts just over two hours which was a disappointment but it was an entertaining two hours.

Great listen

Enjoyed this book. Learnt a lot about him that I didn't know. Great that he narrates it himself too. Now onto his newer autobiography. 😂

10 out of 10 for this book

What did you like most about What's It All About??

It was such a genuine honest read

What was one of the most memorable moments of What's It All About??

When Michael bought his Mum a house and she asked when does the rent man call

Have you listened to any of Michael Caine’s other performances? How does this one compare?

No as yet I have not

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes and that is exactly what I did and enjoyed it very much

Any additional comments?

I would recommend this book to anyone that has lost faith in human nature. Micheal Caine is a lovely caring man and its nice to be reminded that there Are people in the world worth listening to

1 person found this helpful