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The Rainman's Third Cure: An Irregular Education
"The rainman gave me two cures
And he said, ‘Just jump right in.’
The one was Texas Medicine
And the other was railroad gin.
And like a fool I mixed them
And they strangled up my mind
Now people just get uglier
And I have no sense of time.”
--Bob Dylan, “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again”
The guiding metaphor in Peter Coyote’s new spiritual biography is drawn from a line in an early Bob Dylan song. For Coyote, the twin forces Dylan identifies as Texas Medicine and Railroad Gin – represent the competing forces of the transcendental, inclusive, and ecstatic world of love with the competitive, status-seeking world of wealth and power. The Rainman’s Third Cure is the tale of a young man caught between these apparently antipodal options and the journey that leads him from the privileged halls of power to Greenwich Village jazz bars, to jail, to the White House, lessons from a man who literally held the power of life and death over others, to government service and international success on stage and screen.
Expanding his frame beyond the wild ride through the 1960’s counterculture that occupied so much of his lauded debut memoir, Sleeping Where I Fall, Coyote provides readers intimate portraits of mentors that shaped him—a violent, intimidating father, a be-bop Bass player who teaches him that life can be improvised, a Mafia consiglieri, who demonstrates to him that men can be bought and manipulated, an ex game-warden who initates him into the laws of nature, a gay dancer in Martha Graham’s company who introduces him to Mexico and marijuanas, beat poet Gary Snyder, who introduces him to Zen practice, and finally famed fashion designer Nino Cerruti who made the high-stakes world of haute monde Europe available to him.
What begins as a peripatetic flirtation with Zen deepens into a life-long avocation, ordination as a priest, and finally the road to Transmission---acknowledgement from his teacher that he is ready to be an independent teacher. Through Zen, Coyote discovers a third option that offers an alternative to both the worlds of Love and Power’s correlatives of status seeking and material wealth. Zen was his portal, but what he discovers on the inside is actually available to all humans. In this energetic, reflective and intelligent memoir, The Rainman’s Third Cure is the way out of the box. The way that works.
And he said, ‘Just jump right in.’
The one was Texas Medicine
And the other was railroad gin.
And like a fool I mixed them
And they strangled up my mind
Now people just get uglier
And I have no sense of time.”
--Bob Dylan, “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again”
The guiding metaphor in Peter Coyote’s new spiritual biography is drawn from a line in an early Bob Dylan song. For Coyote, the twin forces Dylan identifies as Texas Medicine and Railroad Gin – represent the competing forces of the transcendental, inclusive, and ecstatic world of love with the competitive, status-seeking world of wealth and power. The Rainman’s Third Cure is the tale of a young man caught between these apparently antipodal options and the journey that leads him from the privileged halls of power to Greenwich Village jazz bars, to jail, to the White House, lessons from a man who literally held the power of life and death over others, to government service and international success on stage and screen.
Expanding his frame beyond the wild ride through the 1960’s counterculture that occupied so much of his lauded debut memoir, Sleeping Where I Fall, Coyote provides readers intimate portraits of mentors that shaped him—a violent, intimidating father, a be-bop Bass player who teaches him that life can be improvised, a Mafia consiglieri, who demonstrates to him that men can be bought and manipulated, an ex game-warden who initates him into the laws of nature, a gay dancer in Martha Graham’s company who introduces him to Mexico and marijuanas, beat poet Gary Snyder, who introduces him to Zen practice, and finally famed fashion designer Nino Cerruti who made the high-stakes world of haute monde Europe available to him.
What begins as a peripatetic flirtation with Zen deepens into a life-long avocation, ordination as a priest, and finally the road to Transmission---acknowledgement from his teacher that he is ready to be an independent teacher. Through Zen, Coyote discovers a third option that offers an alternative to both the worlds of Love and Power’s correlatives of status seeking and material wealth. Zen was his portal, but what he discovers on the inside is actually available to all humans. In this energetic, reflective and intelligent memoir, The Rainman’s Third Cure is the way out of the box. The way that works.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published April 1, 2015
46 people are currently reading
359 people want to read
About the author
Peter Coyote
55 books54 followersOrdained practitioner of Zen Buddhism, activist, and actor, Peter Coyote began his work in street theater and political organizing in San Francisco. In addition to acting in 120 films, Coyote has won an Emmy for narrating the award-winning documentary Pacific Century, and he has cowritten, directed, and performed in the play Olive Pits, which won The Mime Troupe an Obie Award. He lives in Mill Valley, California."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
March 28, 2015
You might know Peter Coyote as an actor, or perhaps from his significant 60s radical activism. These are somewhat minor parts of this profound and moving memoir, which covers from birth, in 1941, till late last year. Coyote’s had enough lifecycles for ten men and his various stops along the way are more remarkable than Forest Gump’s. “Memory begets memory and new ones shift the angle of the scales of judgment,” he says.
Coyote is a gifted raconteur and story seems to flow from him like the streaming, multicolored images from a dream. It helps that he can write a shimmering sentence—his prose style is supple, his poetic imagination ripe—yet he’s straightforward and lucid, which makes the book a quick, vibrant, compelling read. It dances like a meticulously nuanced and well-wrought novel. This volume, a sequel to his earlier ‘Sleeping Where I Fall,’ is concerned, for the most part, with Coyote’s mentors, the people throughout his life who helped him become who he became and, even, perhaps who he wants to be. Honest, undiluted and humble, I loved this book from its title to its last enlightened and enlightening page.
Coyote is a gifted raconteur and story seems to flow from him like the streaming, multicolored images from a dream. It helps that he can write a shimmering sentence—his prose style is supple, his poetic imagination ripe—yet he’s straightforward and lucid, which makes the book a quick, vibrant, compelling read. It dances like a meticulously nuanced and well-wrought novel. This volume, a sequel to his earlier ‘Sleeping Where I Fall,’ is concerned, for the most part, with Coyote’s mentors, the people throughout his life who helped him become who he became and, even, perhaps who he wants to be. Honest, undiluted and humble, I loved this book from its title to its last enlightened and enlightening page.
April 9, 2015
Peter Coyote's new memoir is a must read. Textured with a rich spirit, humor, and Zen wisdom, he takes you on a journey that leaves you asking for more and more. It's as if you sat down at the breakfast table with him, and before you realize its dark outside and you don't want the conversation to end. Don't miss.
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August 14, 2015I inhaled this book in about a day and a half. Coyote's experience feels really close to me, that "full catastrophe" California life. He uses this book to describe how various people affected him over the years, including Gary Snyder and Nino Cerruti. Though he ends up as a Soto Zen priest, studying at our own Green Gulch, the discussion of his relationships, going back to those with his father and mother, are the most moving part of the book.
July 9, 2015
What a splendid book this is. It is everything that a memoir should be --
profoundly honest, wise, humble, poignant and beautifully written.
Subtitled “an irregular education,” this second volume of Peter Coyote’s autobiography belongs to the venerable tradition of the spiritual autobiography – a searching meditation upon the stages of the soul’s growth. It is structured around the influence of a succession of “mentors” who guided and nurtured this metamorphosis: his powerful and difficult father, Morris; his Mafioso Uncle Harry; his scholarly and shrewd Uncle Bert; his childhood’s “emotional anchor,” Susie Howard, and her “extended family of black friends”; a jazz musician; a Republican businessman;his “second” father, the fashion designer Nino Cerruti; and
the poet Gary Snyder, who introduced him to the practice of Zen Buddhism.
These and other influences appear in the narrative, one after another, as the objects of retrospection, as the crucial personalities who were the catalysts of change and growth. In the process the “small, confused boy” Peter Cohon transforms into Peter Coyote the Hippie communard who transforms into a famous actor who (after a lifetime torn between the irreconcilable choices of Power and Love) at last finds a “Third Cure” in his vocation as a Zen Buddhist priest. It is the slow, surprising and often agonizing transformation of a pupa into a butterfly. Although the story of this unfolding happens to be a memoir written by a celebrity, it betrays no more attachment to the moment when the author was an international celebrity standing on a red carpet in Cannes than to the days when he was shooting drugs and eating road-kill. For it is a narration guided by a determination to look squarely at things exactly as they were and are and enlivened on every page by a keen eye for the details that illuminate a scene or a character. It is a stunning book.
profoundly honest, wise, humble, poignant and beautifully written.
Subtitled “an irregular education,” this second volume of Peter Coyote’s autobiography belongs to the venerable tradition of the spiritual autobiography – a searching meditation upon the stages of the soul’s growth. It is structured around the influence of a succession of “mentors” who guided and nurtured this metamorphosis: his powerful and difficult father, Morris; his Mafioso Uncle Harry; his scholarly and shrewd Uncle Bert; his childhood’s “emotional anchor,” Susie Howard, and her “extended family of black friends”; a jazz musician; a Republican businessman;his “second” father, the fashion designer Nino Cerruti; and
the poet Gary Snyder, who introduced him to the practice of Zen Buddhism.
These and other influences appear in the narrative, one after another, as the objects of retrospection, as the crucial personalities who were the catalysts of change and growth. In the process the “small, confused boy” Peter Cohon transforms into Peter Coyote the Hippie communard who transforms into a famous actor who (after a lifetime torn between the irreconcilable choices of Power and Love) at last finds a “Third Cure” in his vocation as a Zen Buddhist priest. It is the slow, surprising and often agonizing transformation of a pupa into a butterfly. Although the story of this unfolding happens to be a memoir written by a celebrity, it betrays no more attachment to the moment when the author was an international celebrity standing on a red carpet in Cannes than to the days when he was shooting drugs and eating road-kill. For it is a narration guided by a determination to look squarely at things exactly as they were and are and enlivened on every page by a keen eye for the details that illuminate a scene or a character. It is a stunning book.
February 9, 2016
if it's any comfort , bob dylan has almost nowt to do with this book or peter coyote's (cohon's) tale of growing up and growing old in 1960's-20teens usa and europe.
if you've read coyote's auto bio of communes and hippies and diggers and beats of 1998 Sleeping Where I Fall: A Chronicle you already know his smooth writing style, easy going but continuous waves of peripatetic life, and how, seemingly completely by chance, luck, karma, serendipity, he finds himself at epicenters of movements and pivotal events of counter culture and hippy ideas of searching for some sort of 'better way' than usa's disaster capitalism and perpetual wars against "them".
this new volume of coyote's continues in the easy, interesting and fun stories of him growing up in boojee new jersey, his pops a driven man to be rich, to take care of everything and everybody, except his son it seemed.
coyote then goes to grinell college, at his dad's insistence, or jail, or army, his choice. he goes to iowa. you may even recall him on a hunger strike and marching protest in front of white house against nuclear proliferation and perpetual war in umm 1961? perhaps one of the very first of these protests, which would soon be standard, up till today.
he then goes to san fransisco st to grad school in poetry, but drops out to be a mime and digger. a radical mime of the 99% fighting the 1% with humor and truth. his stays an outsider hippy until his 30's when his father suddenly dies, and it turns out their millionaire worth and lifestyle was fake, and his mom is now destitute, and they have to sell off their beloved farms in penn. to banks. and sheriffs, .... coyote drifts, but then tries acting and has success, and more success, then gets old and is big in europe. then gets older and has breakthroughs in zen,,,which leaves us with now. sorry to spoil all this for you. as it is a wonderful read. interesting, insightful, educational. has a few pictures, some notes.
if you've read coyote's auto bio of communes and hippies and diggers and beats of 1998 Sleeping Where I Fall: A Chronicle you already know his smooth writing style, easy going but continuous waves of peripatetic life, and how, seemingly completely by chance, luck, karma, serendipity, he finds himself at epicenters of movements and pivotal events of counter culture and hippy ideas of searching for some sort of 'better way' than usa's disaster capitalism and perpetual wars against "them".
this new volume of coyote's continues in the easy, interesting and fun stories of him growing up in boojee new jersey, his pops a driven man to be rich, to take care of everything and everybody, except his son it seemed.
coyote then goes to grinell college, at his dad's insistence, or jail, or army, his choice. he goes to iowa. you may even recall him on a hunger strike and marching protest in front of white house against nuclear proliferation and perpetual war in umm 1961? perhaps one of the very first of these protests, which would soon be standard, up till today.
he then goes to san fransisco st to grad school in poetry, but drops out to be a mime and digger. a radical mime of the 99% fighting the 1% with humor and truth. his stays an outsider hippy until his 30's when his father suddenly dies, and it turns out their millionaire worth and lifestyle was fake, and his mom is now destitute, and they have to sell off their beloved farms in penn. to banks. and sheriffs, .... coyote drifts, but then tries acting and has success, and more success, then gets old and is big in europe. then gets older and has breakthroughs in zen,,,which leaves us with now. sorry to spoil all this for you. as it is a wonderful read. interesting, insightful, educational. has a few pictures, some notes.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 3, 2016
I've always had an admiration for Mr. Coyote's work. Whether that be in his history as founding member of the Diggers (the San Fransisco-based 60's counter-culture community action group), in film and as the voice of many a documentary, Coyote's voice has a distinct appeal that translates well in this memoir. The thing I enjoyed most was Coyote’s writing about Zen Buddhism. He is a Zen practitioner and lay priest.
"The rain man gave me two cures
And he said, 'Just jump right in.'
The one was Texas Medicine
And the other was railroad gin.
And like a fool I mixed them
And they strangled up my mind
Now people just get uglier
And I have no sense of time.”
-Bob Dylan, "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again”
"The rain man gave me two cures
And he said, 'Just jump right in.'
The one was Texas Medicine
And the other was railroad gin.
And like a fool I mixed them
And they strangled up my mind
Now people just get uglier
And I have no sense of time.”
-Bob Dylan, "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again”
April 7, 2019
Hard to characterize but an impactful read
I bought this book for two reasons. I know who Peter Coyote is, and I'm an aspiring Buddhist. It's hard to pin down what the book is about aside from Coyote's life and his road through Buddhist practice. Aside from that, it's extremely well written. Coyote truly is a writer who made his living as an actor.
I bought this book for two reasons. I know who Peter Coyote is, and I'm an aspiring Buddhist. It's hard to pin down what the book is about aside from Coyote's life and his road through Buddhist practice. Aside from that, it's extremely well written. Coyote truly is a writer who made his living as an actor.
May 1, 2022
I know Peter Coyote's work mostly through his narration rather than his acting. And so I listened to him narrate this book as I took long walks. Although he's not always likable, he's led a fascinating life: at a young age he met many unique characters who taught him a lot (how to be, and also how not to be), as well as meeting people who later became famous, and in the course of his life mixed in many different worlds. As someone who also played in the counterculture of the 60s and 70s and loves music and movies, I found it all interesting. Coyote is a very good writer and knows how to tell a story. He owns up to his failings in several areas of life, in honest detail. Eventually he became a Zen Buddhist. Listening to this brought me some good "aha" moments about my own life. At times he tries to dazzle us with complex prose that gets a bit tangled up, but overall the book flows very well. I don't give five stars lightly, but despite its (and the author's) flaws, I enjoyed the heck out of this book.
December 8, 2025
A good memoir of a life lived fully. Coyote is lucid and candid about some of his deepest feelings and struggles, offering insights from the perspective of his seventies over his youth, adventures, mistakes, successes and disillusionments.
This book builds on top of “Sleeping where I fall”, which focuses on his experience with the Diggers and the Hell’s Angels in the context of the counterculture, with an increased focus over his childhood and later years, including his acting career. It traces the people that mentored and influenced the author significantly throughout his life, from mobster Harry Palmer to the poet Gary Snyder and Italian stylist Nino Cerruti. I personally find Coyote relatable, so I found the tale entertaining, vivid and insightful.
Others who have different feelings about him might find his personality too histrionic and self centered, some morally sketchy characters out of place, and the overall narration pretentious and annoying. I personally didn’t, but readers beware. Would recommend.
This book builds on top of “Sleeping where I fall”, which focuses on his experience with the Diggers and the Hell’s Angels in the context of the counterculture, with an increased focus over his childhood and later years, including his acting career. It traces the people that mentored and influenced the author significantly throughout his life, from mobster Harry Palmer to the poet Gary Snyder and Italian stylist Nino Cerruti. I personally find Coyote relatable, so I found the tale entertaining, vivid and insightful.
Others who have different feelings about him might find his personality too histrionic and self centered, some morally sketchy characters out of place, and the overall narration pretentious and annoying. I personally didn’t, but readers beware. Would recommend.
August 19, 2025
Fascinating biography of someone who almost became a 'fixer', as in, hit man, then part of the Mime Troupe, was one of Diggers, then discovered Zen.
The honest way he portrays his father Morris, "with the 19" neck", and mother Ruth, his uncle, sister Muffet, his childhood nanny Susie, and his first mentor, Jim Clancy, is very inspiring. Always searching, he tried looking outside himself until he went inward to find his true home.
His voice is so familiar as he narrates films and tapes that we never think of the man behind the voice. I've a signed copy of the book when he came to our small burg to read excerpts from it and I accompanied his old friend, Julia Butterfly Hill, who greeted him warmly. A double treat.
The honest way he portrays his father Morris, "with the 19" neck", and mother Ruth, his uncle, sister Muffet, his childhood nanny Susie, and his first mentor, Jim Clancy, is very inspiring. Always searching, he tried looking outside himself until he went inward to find his true home.
His voice is so familiar as he narrates films and tapes that we never think of the man behind the voice. I've a signed copy of the book when he came to our small burg to read excerpts from it and I accompanied his old friend, Julia Butterfly Hill, who greeted him warmly. A double treat.
March 1, 2023
Its funny. i would be hard pressed to say which book of his was better. The the first or the second. I would have to write that they are bookends to the sixties and the seventies. This book was on merry-go-around of riveting...penetrating...shocking and revealing. He is a good writer. If about the first book I wrote that there copious use of drugs ..the second book covers that and more. But what doesn't address is the amount of STI's that happened or was hidden in plain sight. It is a good book,Thought provoking...also he exposes the the gender/roles in the communes that clung to historical and cultural bias......This is a good book. read it.
January 25, 2026
The Rainman's Third Cure: An Irregular Education by Peter Coyote is a spiritual memoir tracing the author’s journey through the 1960s counterculture, international stage and screen work, and life lessons from a wide range of mentors. Using a metaphor inspired by Bob Dylan—“Texas Medicine” (love, transcendence) versus “Railroad Gin” (power, status)—Coyote explores the tension between competing paths in life. Ultimately, he discovers a “third cure” through Zen practice, offering an alternative way to navigate love, power, and purpose. The book blends personal stories, reflections, and teachings, showing readers how to find freedom beyond conventional choices.
January 25, 2026
I only knew of Peter Coyote as a narrator on Ken Burns documentaries. I find his voice to be quite soothing, so I was looking for an audio book that he narrated. This book is about his fascinating life, his mentors and teachers along the journey. His mentors when he was a kid are significant. I found his friendship with the beat poet Gary Snyder to be particularly interesting. And Peter Coyote's becoming a zen priest.
October 13, 2019
An excellent memoir, if somewhat intense. Coyote presents his introspection with honesty and candour. He makes for an interesting subject, however occasionally frustrating as a character. The audiobook he narrates is especially rich.
March 11, 2019
Excellent book and eye opening and inspirational.
December 7, 2020
low 3 stars. While cloaked in a robe of Buddhist practice, very much about why the author believes he is special.
April 11, 2022
His prose is strongly affected by and reflective of all the Ken Burns narrations he has done over the years.
December 12, 2023
I’m glad I read it. A long complex life, intelligently discussed and revealed. I did want more about the significant women in his life but alas a memoir is all about choices.
November 3, 2015
Ok. I don’t usually like autobiographies, but I’m making an exception for this one. It’s probably because Peter Coyote’s personal charm and presence of mind pervade the writing. It might be because he went to my alma mater (Grinnell College) and was my first big interview as a writer. Maybe it’s because he has an obvious and particular fondness for the Gold Country in California where I grew up. Regardless, I invite you all to give it a shot; I can absolutely guarantee you’ll learn something.
"I was clinging to an idea of sanity as my only refuge from chaos and death--both of which felt as if they were biding their time, waiting for my first false step."
That’s not to say that you won’t need a bit of patience, however. Almost the entire first half of the book is a sort of barely-chronological rambling through Peter’s childhood, which, although marginally interesting, is probably more useful as an act of reflection for him than as a subject for his readers. I can only read so much of “my father was distant and aggressive so I grew up with some issues” before screaming, especially when I knew there was so much more interesting material for him to cover.
Luckily for me, I decided to power through. The second half of the book swept me away into a tale so candid and charmingly self-reflective, I couldn’t help seeing a bit of myself in much of what he said. In truth, I think most humans from the United States would be hard-pressed to resist identifying with him in some way. As he once told me, he’s “the Zelig of the counterculture” (referencing Zelig, the Woody Allen film in which a man takes on the characteristics of those around him). I would expand that to say he’s the Zelig of post-50’s United States. Although he skims over much of his life in the counterculture, referring readers to his first book Sleeping Where I Fall (which I couldn’t stand, surprisingly), his storytelling ability and raw honesty make one feel as if one was there, beside him, all along. From starting an anarchist, free living commune in the 60’s to tenuous and unconventional romantic relationships, from Hollywood to Zen Buddhism, his life covers the spectrum of the idealized American free thinker in a variety of nuanced, unexpected ways. The reader shares in his frustration, his stagnation, and his transformations. By the end of the book, although I myself drifted away from Buddhism long ago, I began to realize that anything that can bring so much clarity to one’s perception of self and others may have some secular value after all.
"There are many services our 'self' affords us, or it would never have survived the fine grinding of evolution. No matter how useful it may be, however, we will never locate or grasp it."
As I mentioned before, I was privileged enough to have the opportunity to interview Peter for an article in my alma mater’s alumni magazine. He speaks with the same charm and perceptiveness with which he writes, only his humor feels more organic. He’s friendly, warm, and has a perspective on life that a young, wandering post-graduate has no choice but to admire and soak up. All this is to say, there seems to be no disconnect between the Peter Coyote revealed in this book and the Peter Coyote that lives and breathes today—a consonance that I had been more than a little dubious of before meeting him. If this lends some credibility to his book for you, all the better.
So, whether you’re into autobiographies or not, pick this one up. You’ll learn something about life, something about intentionality, something about how to reflect on your decisions, and something about how to be a damn good storyteller, all in the span of a few days (the book goes quite fast after you get past his childhood.) It’s not as enchanting as a work of fiction might be, and it won’t help you escape an challenges you’re living with, but believe me, it’ll make your reality seem a little more worth it.
-Elise Hadden, Under The Heather Books
Like my review? Read more at www.undertheheatherbooks.com!
"I was clinging to an idea of sanity as my only refuge from chaos and death--both of which felt as if they were biding their time, waiting for my first false step."
That’s not to say that you won’t need a bit of patience, however. Almost the entire first half of the book is a sort of barely-chronological rambling through Peter’s childhood, which, although marginally interesting, is probably more useful as an act of reflection for him than as a subject for his readers. I can only read so much of “my father was distant and aggressive so I grew up with some issues” before screaming, especially when I knew there was so much more interesting material for him to cover.
Luckily for me, I decided to power through. The second half of the book swept me away into a tale so candid and charmingly self-reflective, I couldn’t help seeing a bit of myself in much of what he said. In truth, I think most humans from the United States would be hard-pressed to resist identifying with him in some way. As he once told me, he’s “the Zelig of the counterculture” (referencing Zelig, the Woody Allen film in which a man takes on the characteristics of those around him). I would expand that to say he’s the Zelig of post-50’s United States. Although he skims over much of his life in the counterculture, referring readers to his first book Sleeping Where I Fall (which I couldn’t stand, surprisingly), his storytelling ability and raw honesty make one feel as if one was there, beside him, all along. From starting an anarchist, free living commune in the 60’s to tenuous and unconventional romantic relationships, from Hollywood to Zen Buddhism, his life covers the spectrum of the idealized American free thinker in a variety of nuanced, unexpected ways. The reader shares in his frustration, his stagnation, and his transformations. By the end of the book, although I myself drifted away from Buddhism long ago, I began to realize that anything that can bring so much clarity to one’s perception of self and others may have some secular value after all.
"There are many services our 'self' affords us, or it would never have survived the fine grinding of evolution. No matter how useful it may be, however, we will never locate or grasp it."
As I mentioned before, I was privileged enough to have the opportunity to interview Peter for an article in my alma mater’s alumni magazine. He speaks with the same charm and perceptiveness with which he writes, only his humor feels more organic. He’s friendly, warm, and has a perspective on life that a young, wandering post-graduate has no choice but to admire and soak up. All this is to say, there seems to be no disconnect between the Peter Coyote revealed in this book and the Peter Coyote that lives and breathes today—a consonance that I had been more than a little dubious of before meeting him. If this lends some credibility to his book for you, all the better.
So, whether you’re into autobiographies or not, pick this one up. You’ll learn something about life, something about intentionality, something about how to reflect on your decisions, and something about how to be a damn good storyteller, all in the span of a few days (the book goes quite fast after you get past his childhood.) It’s not as enchanting as a work of fiction might be, and it won’t help you escape an challenges you’re living with, but believe me, it’ll make your reality seem a little more worth it.
-Elise Hadden, Under The Heather Books
Like my review? Read more at www.undertheheatherbooks.com!
July 24, 2016
For some reason, I have a thing for Peter Coyote. Maybe it's his looks or his voice--you always recognize that voice. I picked up this book on a whim at one of my favorite bookstores. It demonstrated a life of which I was unaware--including how he change his name, that he was Jewish, that he didn't start acting until later in life, that he thought/thinks of himself as a writer first, his activism, the role that Buddhism played in his life and more and more. It's sometimes a little confusing the way his time frames jump, but still very interesting and enjoyable.
June 30, 2016
Peter Coyote is quite an intriguing man. He grew up as the very privledged son of a very wealthy man. He was on the outside though, as his family was Jewish. In college he attended a college in Iowa, and that is what started the biggest change in his life. He became part of the counter culture that was running rampant in the 1960's. He literally was able to experience both sides of life.
December 16, 2015
Maybe good if you really care what Peter Coyote has to say. I don't. Also his attempts to explain away the crass materialism of thousand dollar suits and fancy cars in terms of Buddhism is both laughable and insulting.
January 3, 2016
There is much of interest in Coyote’s life story, from his New York childhood to his life as a writer, actor, activist, and Buddhist priest, but I felt this memoir (not his first) lost momentum and focus as it progressed.
June 13, 2015
I usually find biographies and autobiographies to be rather dull but this one is pretty good. Peter is an interesting guy.
December 14, 2015
This was an excellent book I enjoyed reading his account of his life. I won this book on good reads.
August 28, 2015
Great read and wisdom. I'm a neighbor of his in Mill Valley and now I know more of the story on his truck.
September 20, 2015
well, maybe 3.6. I enjoyed this book even though I had read his earlier autobiography. This has more about his childhood and later life.
May 1, 2016
Interesting, though it needs some editing for grammar use and organization.
September 17, 2016
Self indulgent but I guess that is what memoirs are.
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February 28, 2018Book 10 of 2018: the autobiography of Peter Coyote shows that behind the sublime documentary voice of so many great American stories is a classic, eclectic tale of riches to rags to riches reinvention and an intensely curious soul.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews