Life Itself: A Memoir

 Life Itself: A Memoir by Roger Ebert

In one area, he mentioned a chain smoker switching to filtered cigarettes. I wonder if electric cars are today's version of filtered cigarettes. They help a little bit in reducing emissions, but it is still just a big car. Just like a filtered cigarette, a car is still dangerous.

Ebert had some family members die from smoking. However, that was just a side note of his story. He had started to blog and take to social media more extensively after his cancer surgery left him unable to talk. He had already had a talent for writing. However, that was joined with an outgoing personality and a love to socialize. Writing to social media helped provide an outlet for some of the social behavior, but was still not the same.

The memoir goes through the standard reminiscences of early history. He grew up in Urbana, Illinois - a college town, home to the University of Illinois. He was born during World War II, and thus predated the baby boomers by a few years. He is not an active Catholic, but he has positive memories of his time in Catholic school and church. He was an avid stamp collector and writer and worked on the newspaper and enjoyed reading, watching movies and writing. He states that a lot of things just "happened" in his life that ended up providing opportunities.

He later moved to Chicago to work on a PhD. Needing a job, he sought one with a newspaper. He ended up getting a position with the Sun Times. After a while, they needed a movie critic and he got the job. Later the PBS station wanted a TV show. Ebert and Siskel were two local critics chosen. The chemistry they had (and constant fighting) helped make it a success and further launched his career. He also had experience with alcoholism and then sobriety through AA. 

With his job, he traveled to many locations and met many people. There are many chapters in the book detailed some of the more memorable ones. There are famous directors and actors that he considers friends. There are others that he is on good terms with, but would not consider to be friends. There are also plenty of other people that had impact on his life. He also detailed locations such as a small hotel in London and a little cafe in Venice that were important to him. He also had an interesting experience studying in apartheid South Africa. Through all these, he seemed to be somebody that would observe the situation and develop strong opinions, but would still get along with anybody.