This compression of Isaac Asimov's earlier autobiographical works will principally be remembered as the book that announced to the world that Asimov died of AIDS. But as a one-volume summary of his life, it enjoys only mixed success.

This book both benefits and suffers from its source material: the best chapters are those on Asimov's early life and career, and were extracted from his first volume of autobiography, In Memory Yet Green, which was strongly narrative and, as a result, stronger; the second volume, In Joy Still Felt, was more anecdotal and quotidian, as Asimov settled into the routine of a workaholic full-time writer, and as a result yielded less insightful material to excerpt.

Like Asimov's third autobiography, I. Asimov: A Memoir, and his collection of letters, Yours, Isaac Asimov, the chapters are topical. While some chapters are solid, others are quite thin: the chapters that simply collect funny anecdotes could have been dispensed with. For example, Chapter 26, "The Bible", includes a couple of not-very-illuminating anecdotes related to Asimov's Guide to the Bible, and could have been folded, along with the chapter on humanism, into a longer chapter on religion and unbelief. I would have preferred fewer, longer chapters that went into more depth. Substantial introductory and connective material to piece Asimov's own work together would have strengthened the book; instead, we're given passages that sometimes look like they were excerpted, word by word, with a razor blade.

On a more mundane level, the proofreading is sometimes surprisingly bad, with several misspelled authors' names and even one book title ("I, Robert"?!?) -- just the sort of thing that Isaac would have found bothersome.

It's been a good life is a good way to describe Asimov's life as he describes it in his own words. An autobiographical account of his life, with inserts by his wife, this book details Asimov's life in a funny and interesting volume.
He starts with his birth and childhood, which is an interesting feat. Not many people can remember their young lives. From there, he describes how he became interested in reading, then writing and finally how he first became published. From there, he describes his academic and writing lives in a clear, paced fasion. Everything blends in perfectly, from birth to death.
I was paticularly fasinated by his writing life, as a fan of his. For most of the book, he describes how he became a novelist, then how he stopped in favor of scientific resources and then how he returned to fiction. Because he wrote this in the first person view, it is entirly too easy to fall right into his head, and see things the way he did. This is expecially true towards the end of the book and his life. I really got the sense that he had too much to do, that he wanted to do and didn't have nearly enough time to accomplish it all.
I have read many of his science fiction novels, and from this book, learned a lot about what drove him to writing the stories I enjoy, but also about his life in general. There was much that I had no idea about. For example, he was in the Army, died of AIDs, due to a blood transfusion, and went through writing cycles.
Paticularly helpful was the editing that his wife did. On almost every section, she inserted references to his life that explained what he was talking about a little better. This book would have been very difficult and/or confusing if they had not been put in.
In addition, this book is an extremely fast read. I finished it in nearly five to six hours and enjoyed every minute of it.
The only complaint that I have with it is that it's too short, almost abridged in sections, that could have had more to it. Other than that, it's a wonderful and entertaining read.

Isaac Asimov can justifably lay claim to having been one of the most prolific writers of modern times, producing science fiction, fantasy, essays and other works. His wife Janet Asimov here edits her husband's personal thoughts about his life and works, including excerpts from his letters and insights into his life experiences throughout the process. Fans of Asimov will find It's Been A Good Life to be a warm and revealing literary biography.

Alright, I read this book several years ago, but since the only reviewer so far only got two chapters in, I can at least add to his assesment my thoughts on the remainder of the chapters. I was a very naive teenager when I read this book and although I've always been very fond of science fiction, I'd never encountered the more mature writings of Heinlein, Orson Scott Card, etc. So I was rather shocked by the opening sex scene. As it was far from the only sex scene, it was my adolescent fascination with the rather sordid details (none of which were left to any semblence of imagination) that kept me going. There's really not much plot here, but there is a LOT of bedding of people and androids in every possible combination. If you want complete and utter smut and Harlequinn just isn't meeting your needs for robotic fantasy, this is your book. If you want anything remotely resembling a though-provoking tale that interweaves the enticing possibilities of science with the complexities of the human soul, well, you won't find that here.

Let me start by saying that I didn't finish this book. Some may say it's unfair to review it if you didn't read the whole thing, but here I am writing a review anyway. The truth is, I could not make it past the first two chapters of this book. The writing was so poor, and the mess of characters introduced at such a rapid pace, that I was literally writing down all the relationships between the characters on a white-board, just to get it all straight. When I say poor, I mean extremely, completely bad writing; poor grammar, sentences that didn't make sense, and a very confusing way of telling a story. A textbook case of bad writing, if I can be allowed to make such a pun. I think that the only reason Ms. Asimov got this book published was because of her famous husband. I was actually embarassed for the Asimovs after trying to get through this book...