Customer Reviews

World Is My Home

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Equally entertaining to Michener devotees and casual readers alike. Although often accredited as America's "master story teller", not much is known about this orphan from humble beginnings. Michener weaves a captivating story of his youth followed by his WWII years in the U.S. Navy, which of course brought us "Tales of the South Pacific". He then relates real down to earth experiences as a would-be writer seemingly trapped as editor. Through it all his humbleness is refreshing. His appreciation and respect for the arts and culture is most noteworthy and no doubt will have many readers running to the nearest record store well stocked in opera and classical music. He relates as only he can the various stimuli involved in the undertaking of his later massive works, many accomplished well past the age of 60. If nothing else, upon finishing this remarkable auto-biography, the reader will have an immense respect for the writer and a stirring curiosity to explore his many works and indeed, the several fine pieces of literature that influenced him.

I have read and loved many books by James Michener and I was happy to run across this book (on audio cassette from the library). It was interesting to learn about his life and to learn from his example. For example, even though he faced deprivations as a child, he made a choice to be a sunny, optimistic person all his life. He made a choice not to harbor grievances or dwell on negative thinking. Also, he was a great student all his life. He loved art, opera, literature and for anyone who has ever read his books, you know he had an insatiable curiosity about nearly everything. The nice thing is that when he learned new things, he shared that knew knowledge with the world and everyone was enriched.

Also, he was a high-principled (moral) and generous man and his generosity began long before he became a famous author.

He didn't become a writer until he was forty. Many of his great works were completed well after that. He wrote into his eighties! All writers and aspiring writers would enjoy this work as well as the general public.

When the extraterrestials finally touch down and exit their spaceship I hope we have a man like James Michener, an "average" brilliant man of great wisdom and wonderful humanity, to represent our species. He would no doubt climb aboard, ingratiate himself with his new found friends, and write a highly entertaining epic of our galaxy.
Michener has always been my personal favorite. His humanity shines through in this memoir.

"Memoir" describes this book nicely. Its first seven chapters comprise the author's autobiography, and its last seven chapters are his thoughts about writing and his reminiscences about his career. He avoids some parts of his life entirely - for instance, don't think you will find out all about his divorces - but he gives the reader plenty of insight into his creative process and its wellsprings as best he himself understands them.

Michener's life story has to be unique, even among as varied a lot as writers. What fascinated me as I read this book by one of my favorites was his awareness of where publishing as an industry and writing as a business was heading, as he continued working in what turned out to be his life's final decade. Although he insisted on keeping his manual typewriter, and depended on secretaries to cope with word processing, he foresaw the shift from paper to digital submissions at a time when most authors and most publishers were either not thinking about this at all or refusing to consider that such a sea change might happen. I wonder how he would react to Kindles, and to reading eBooks on smart phones and PDAs?

--Reviewed by Nina M. Osier, author of "Love, Jimmy: A Maine Veteran's Longest Battle"

From a beginning that was awful Michener very matter of factly found his way to what he calls 'luck'. I loved his tale of epiphany at forty, and beginning his writing career in an empty warehouse with another soldier providing encouragement. He imparts a great deal of good advice for the aspiring writer, and provides a good story at the same time.

I would keep this on my bookshelf for inspiration alone.

Everything you ever wanted to know about Michener? Probably not! He wont step into the gutter about his personal failures but a terrific book.