Enter Laughing

Carl Reiner's semiautobiographical "bio-novel" depicts a young man from the Bronx trying to sort out work, love, and family while making a beginning in show business. His narrating voice has the frail, slightly hoarse sound of age but has not lost expressiveness, and it changes suitably to indicate other characters. He's at his best doing the immigrant Yiddish-inflected accents of old New York. Reiner weights his reading, consistently but subtly, with the amused sympathy of an older man contemplating a younger man's--or a younger self's--hopes and follies, a tone only he could provide so authentically for this particular story. The book is warm and humorous; his heartfelt reading makes it a charmer. W.M. (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine