What's It All About?

By: Michael Caine

Narrated by: Michael Caine

Brought to you by Penguin.

From Alfred to Zulu, Michael Caine has been Britain's best-loved actor for half a century.

Now, for the first time, he reveals the truth behind his remarkable life. From his time as an evacuee during the Blitz to his front-line military service in the Korean War, from his early days as an assistant stagehand to becoming Peter O'Toole's understudy, from walk-on parts in local theatres to blowing the bloody doors off with his legendary roles in Zulu and The Italian Job, Caine's life was never simple or easy.

Discussing his little-known childhood and family alongside his hard-fought journey from London to Hollywood, Caine writes with astonishing candour about the good years and the lean years, bringing his unique charm and humour to his anecdotes and memories of a sprawling movie-making career. If you worked in Hollywood in the last few decades, you've probably worked with Michael Caine - and his accounts of his relationships with other superstars, both on and offscreen, make this autobiography essential reading for any fan not just of Michael Caine, but of film in general.

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

A great story in his own voice

Just listened to this for the second time. Truly a pleasure. I recommend it highly

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.

M.C. is vulnerable and honest. Time well spent.

Michael Caine is vulnerable and honest. His voice soothes as if a good father is putting you to bed with stories of his own childhood. This is time well spent. I'm glad I took that time.

WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT

IT WAS A REFRESHING SURPRISE TO FIND MC READING HIS STORY. I HAVE ALWAYS WISHED TO HAVE MC AS MY FAVOURITE TO SHARE A CUP OF TEA WITH.

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.

Interesting Read

I learned a lot about what Michael Caine went through in his life before he became famous. It was a very enjoyable read.

The humanity

A lovely man honestly and charmingly telling the tale of his life. A great read

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.

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.