"One of the stranger memoirs of late is “The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man: a Memoir,” by Paul Newman… It’s a rich, largely ego-free glimpse of the enigmatic performer who wore modesty as casually as a pair of sunglasses."

"The book is surprising for the remarkable candor of its subject, one of the most accomplished and reticent actors from an era when the perpetual documentation of daily life was not a precondition for fame... The vulnerability that Newman reveals in the book is astonishing..."

"There is much to cherish here. The book is in Newman’s voice, with occasional interjections... It’s a familiar voice: genial but shrewd, self-deprecating but resolute, not so different a persona from the flawed good guys he tended to play on-screen."