The long-awaited memoir by the superstar of stage, screen, recordings, and television
PLEASE NOTE The audiobook edition is read by Barbra Streisand. Features additional anecdotes and music that are exclusive to the My Name is Barbra audiobook.
Barbra Streisand is by any account a living legend, a woman who in a career spanning six decades has excelled in every area of entertainment. She is among the handful of EGOT winners (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony) and has one of the greatest and most recognizable voices in the history of popular music. She has been nominated for a Grammy 46 times, and with Yentl she became the first woman to write, produce, direct, and star in a major motion picture. In My Name Is Barbra, she tells her own story about her life and extraordinary career, from growing up in Brooklyn to her first star-making appearances in New York nightclubs to her breakout performance in Funny Girl on stage and winning the Oscar for that performance on film. Then came a long string of successes in every medium in the years that followed. The book is, like Barbra herself, frank, funny, opinionated, and charming. She recounts her early struggles to become an actress, eventually turning to singing to earn a living; the recording of some of her acclaimed albums; the years of effort involved in making Yentl; her direction of The Prince of Tides; her friendships with figures ranging from Marlon Brando to Madeleine Albright; her political advocacy; and the fulfillment she’s found in her marriage to James Brolin.
No entertainer’s memoir has been more anticipated than Barbra Streisand’s, and this engrossing and delightful book will be eagerly welcomed by her millions of fans.
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"I started listening to this audiobook and felt like Barbra was talking to me, on my patio, sharing stories of her life and loves and tragedies and triumphs and everything in between. I think she's my best friend now. Does she know? I listen when I turn out the lights...and fall asleep to her voice, and the book plays all night while I sleep (so I'm sure I dream of being in FUNNY GIRL and singing "Isn't this the height of non-chanlance...foinurishing a bed......in restaurants!" I wake up to her talking to me...and then I have to rewind the book back to where I feel asleep...so I'm still listening and re-listening because I don't want to miss a word! Barbra is a true beauty and so ahead of her time. She amazes me more with every story she tells....and every person who was part of her life. I'm now watching every movie she was in....My family wants to know why I don't listen to their every whim...I tell them "I'm still listening to my best friend, Barbra!" If I could buy this audiobook for everyone I know, I would....I want to discuss each and every story with someone!! If Barbra wants to call me, I'll discuss it with her! My husband used to be Jim Brolin's insurance many in the 1970s...maybe he can call my husband and we can have dinner with them??Thank you, Barbra, for sharing this amazing life with me. And all the others, who I am certain, are having the same response."
— Leanne Helfman (5 out of 5 stars)
“Listeners will likely be charmed by the conversational style of both her prose and performance. The production is peppered with the briefest of recorded excerpts; through those musical interludes we see Streisand’s evolution…Listeners will also likely enjoy her highly personal reflections on working with and knowing others such as Brando, Redford, Wyler, and her husband, James Brolin…Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.”
— AudioFile“Exuberant and glorious.”
— New York Times Book Review“The book is undeniably moving—it does not, even for a moment, read as false…Streisand’s chatty, discursive presence hums on every page.”
— New Yorker“Dispels rumors and myths but doesn’t hold back on scintillating tales of love affairs, on-set drama, and unfiltered anecdotes about her discomfort with fame.”
— Los Angeles Times“What a talent, what a career, what a life, and what a treat to relive it all with this most down-to-earth of demigods.”
— Kirkus Review (starred review)My Name Is Barbra is not to be dismissed, even at its astonishing length. It shows a busy intelligence at work and a fair degree of self-knowledge. I find much to admire about Streisand in her memoir, including her refusal to play down her own innate power.
— Daphne Merkin, New York Review of BooksThis memoir is as extraordinary as the woman who wrote it.
— Booklist (starred review)Charming . . . funny . . . . Chatty and sincere, the book reads like a conversation, complete with asides and self-corrections. . . . The effect is like she's sharing coffee cake with us. . . . It feels like it's Streisand telling us all the things she's wanted to say for all of her 81 years on Earth. . . . If you've ever been a fan, even if it has been a while, I can't imagine you'd want to miss it.
— Chris Hewitt, Minneapolis Star TribuneThe book is undeniably moving—it does not, even for a moment, read as false. . . . Streisand’s chatty, discursive presence hums on every page. . . . Riveting . . . . All the usual memoir forms rear their heads. There’s the sob story, the gallant bildungsroman, the louche chronicle of various addictive behaviors, the righteous making of an activist, the victory lap. Streisand’s book, in its sheer breadth and largesse, attempts to be all of these things, and thus becomes something incredibly rare. . . . If something interests her, then it is interesting, full stop. In a way, she draws on an old-fashioned idea of celebrity: to be a star is to be golden, and to make everything you touch look the same. . . . Streisand has never thought it necessary to contain herself, and there’s no reason to start now.
— Rachel Syme, The New YorkerThe question of her talent was never really in doubt. . . . In Streisand’s book, though, there’s more than just talent; we are shown craft, intelligence, a winning, rare curiosity.
— IndependentMy Name Is Barbra dispels rumors and myths but doesn’t hold back on scintillating tales of love affairs, on-set drama and unfiltered anecdotes about her discomfort with fame.
— Los Angeles TimesA gloriously massive memoir from a sui generis star. . . . What a talent, what a career, what a life, and what a treat to relive it all with this most down-to-earth of demigods.
— Kirkus Reviews (starred review)The question of her talent was never really in doubt. . . . In Streisand’s book, though, there’s more than just talent; we are shown graft, intelligence, a winning, rare curiosity.
— IndependentMy Name Is Barbra dispels rumors and myths but doesn’t hold back on scintillating tales of love affairs, on-set drama and unfiltered anecdotes about her discomfort with fame.
— Los Angeles TimesEverything you could want from a Barbra Streisand memoir. . . . Scintillating. . . . The memoir is as sharp, funny and refreshingly candid as Streisand herself.
— USA Today[My Name Is Barbra is] enlightening. It’s shake-your-head funny and hand-to-mouth surprising. The lady who wrote it is in touch with herself, loves being herself. . . . Streisand’s boundlessness, her capaciousness — the lack of precedent for her whole-enchilada ambitions, the daffiness, the sexiness, the talent, orchestration, passion, originality; her persistence and indefatigability; the outfits; the hair — were a watershed.
— Wesley Morris, The New York TimesThe celebrity memoir I've coveted most is that of the singular Ms. Barbra Streisand. . . . We don't see a diva, we see a genius. . . . In a society that tends to value women's passivity while lauding their accomplishments in hindsight, it's a distinct pleasure to look back with My Name Is Barbra and marvel at how the real she came to be.
— Brittany Luse, NPRA 970-page victory lap past all who ever doubted, diminished or dissed her. . . . Exuberant and glorious. . . . There are just so many scintillating Streisands to contemplate over so many years: singer, actress, director, producer, philanthropist, activist, lover, mother, wife, friend, autobiographer.
— Alexandra Jacobs, New York Times Book Review" Loved this book, Barbra is funny, charming and down to earth…I felt like we were sitting across from each other at her Malibu home, eating a nosh, naturally and talking about her career. If you download it, you won’t regret it… "
— Sandy , 3/4/2024