Weighing in a hundreds of famous names and short quips about people, places, and showbiz trivia for which I have little context (my VHS rental habits ran more "Alien Laser Fight Vampires"), there was no reason for this to be even remotely enjoyable to me.

But Allen can write. He's also incredible at amazing one-liners. (WAIT, is that just a computer programming thing, or do we also describe single-sentence jokes that way too? I can't even remember and now I don't want to look it up because I like the idea that short, self-contained programs and short, self-contained jokes have the same name and I didn't realize it until now.) There aren't a lot of jokes in this book, but a couple caught me off guard and one in particular made me chortle out loud.

I have no idea what possessed me to read this. The last I'd heard about Woody Allen was decades ago when it was said that he had, "married his own adopted daughter." Turns out that's not a fair (or accurate, in any legal sense) description of what happened and he even says, "there are still people out there who think I married my own adopted daughter." And I'm like, "well, there you go."

Allen has a pretty alien way of looking at the world and at himself. He comes off as sweetly naive and I don't get the impression he's written about himself in a calculating way. It feels very raw and honest. But it also needs an editor something fierce. There are several occasions where he repeats himself almost word-for-word and some of it comes across as pretty tone deaf. But I heard the text in his voice where the rawness and imperfection works.