No comments about Great Time Coming: the Life of Jackie Robinson From Baseball to Birmingham.

5 comments about No One Here Gets Out Alive.

1. This book helped fuel a serious revival of interest in the music of the Doors and the late Jim Morrison, the band's lead singer. One of the coauthors, the late Danny Sugerman, was a long time employee of the band.
   
   Almost simultaneous with the release of this biography in paperback, director Francis Ford Coppola made extensive use of the Doors' song "The End" for the soundtrack of the Viet Nam war film "Apocalypse Now." Rolling Stone magazine took notice of the trend and putting Morrison on the cover of an issue with a reminder to its readers that he was dead. In a few years time, director Oliver Stone adapted the same story for his feature film "The Doors." It should be noted that Stone's screenplay credited drummer John Densmore's book, "Riders on the Storm," as his source material rather than this title.
   
   Morrison and his band mates, Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger and John Densmore, made some interesting music that combined lyrics adapted from the poetry of William Blake, the classic Greek tragedy of Oedipus Rex and, seemingly, from the labels of countless empty bottles of whisky.
   
   For myself, it was a heady time, playing Doors records on a college radio station, watching "Apocalypse Now" in its original theatrical release, and hearing Manzarek's keyboard synthezier and Krieger's guitar in the dormitories. The title of the book is, of course, taken from the song "Five to One." This is an extraordinary account of a significant band and the decline and fall of their lead singer.



2. If you like the doors, if you are interested in Jim Morrison , this is the definitive biography. Heavily researched, readable, a little sick, its a rock and roll reading classic. Get it.



3. Rock biographies can be wonderful things - Guralnick's two volume life of the king Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley and Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley; the Gillmans' Alias David Bowie; and anything by Lester Bangs rank amongst the best biographies written about anyone - but despite having an undoubtedly fascinating subject in Jim Morrison and good pedigree in the Rolling Stone credentials of its authors, No One Gets Out Of Here Alive fails to impress on any level.
   
   For me a decent biography has to have a thesis: A (perhaps controversial) view of its subject that the authors, having immersed themselves in research, can present, backed by evidence, to put a new perspective or shed some new light on a familiar subject: to tell a new story for a casual reader. Hopkins and Sugarman make no such effort: Morrison is portrayed as a clever, well-read alcoholic with an authority problem and a pretty apparent (but entirely unexplored) general social unease. The events of his life are thus trotted out is a somewhat patchy fashion, without the attempt to stitch together some overlying narrative or explanation where it feels one is called for: after all this phenomenon still occupies some (diminishing) part of the collective consciousness nearly forty years later. Yet James Morrison comes across as no more worthwhile or interesting a figure than Robbie Williams or Amy Winehouse, and while that may be true, I doubt it, and it doesn't explain the eerie and evocative content of nearly all the Doors' records. I can't imagine a Robbie Williams over the opening credits of Apocalypse Now, nor coming up with an album closer like Maggie McGill or Riders on the Storm.
   
   This book doesn't even pretend to be a story about the rest of the band, and therefore leaves this fascinating artifact we still know as The Doors pretty much uninvestigated, let alone unexplained. Ray Manzarek is, at least, a peripheral figure: poor Robby Krieger and particularly John Densmore are barely mentioned, and the relationships, dynamics and creative processes of the band - which led to some undeniably memorable and haunting music, after all - are wholly unexplored. In any case Jim Morrison, even in his own right, can't be understood properly except through that prism, so this feels to me to be a dramatic failing.
   
   Lastly, Hopkins and Sugarman indulge in absurd speculation about Morrison's demise - or more accurately the lack of evidence for it. Yet all of Morrison's behaviour before his, er "disappearance" - as patiently documented in this volume - points to exactly the sort of early death he apparently suffered, and the idea that such a publicity seeking (and utterly recognisable) drunkard could suddenly, miraculously, vanish without trace from the entire planet's conscience simply beggars belief.
   
   There must be more rewarding accounts of The Doors than this.
   
   Olly Buxton



4. I coulnd't stop reading this book once I started, I was truly spellbound by the book. If you love the Doors and Jim Morrison, you will have a blast reading this book. It is pure entertainment for true Doors fans.



5. I just finished this book and loved every page. "No one here gets out alive" really puts the reader into Jim Morrison's and the 60's life. After reading this i am given a much deeper understanding of Jim as a musician, poet, artist and brilliant man. A truly revolutionary and visionary soul, this book does Jim great justice.

5 comments about The Next Better Place: A Memoir in Miles.

1. This is a wonderful book. "A road trip with an alcoholic father and a child? Must be a downer," you'd think. Not so. Never sliding into self-pity, the author just lays out a personal cross-country saga in mesmerizing detail. At times heartbreaking, this book is ultimately an inspirational story of survival by a child who deserved better. I've read a lot of travel narratives, and this is as good as they come.



2. This wonderful hitchhiking odyssey is all thumps up (or outstretched as the young boy would tell us). What a romp across 1960 America. It's the kind of book I'd love to see as a movie. Sure lends itself to the big screen because I have read few more visual stories. This is fun all the way to California and back! What a roll of the camera . . . and sentence.



3. I would normally give this book 5 stars, except I have a strong sense that this book is a fictional fraud.
   
   It's the story of an 11 year old boy who hitchikes the country with his alcoholic, dead-beat father in search of a better life in California. Of course, California is no better than any other place they've been and they take buses back to Albany where his mother lives with his two sisters, only to ***spoiler*** go back out on the road again with his father at the end of the book.
   
   The book is well written and engaging, but only if the book is true, which I doubt. The book often states what a good storyteller the father is and how good said father is at making up things to get what he wants out of people. The author continually expresses his desire to be on the radio or in movies, not to mention how often he embellishes stories, so I wouldn't be surprised if the book was just one big lie.
   
   From the outset, the author states how he went 2 entire months without a bowel movement, which I don't even know is medically possible, much less didn't land him in the hospital. Plus he recounts in great detail names, places, and events that happened 40 years ago. And somehow, all these events involve sexual predators, thieves, and other ne'er-do-well's. Never any average people. Nah, I don't think the book is true.
   
   But if it is true, it's really well done.



4. Smiling ghosts of Mark Twain and Jack Kerouac hover over many pages of Michael Keith's "The Next Better Place." This captivating book places Keith squarely in the same row with America's finest writers of the road adventure story. Which is to say that "The Next Better Place" is so much more than a memoir-cum-novel of a precocious son traversing America's great expanses with an ageing picaro of a father. Keith knows when to embroider his book's perfectly intoned dialogue, tremulous details, and charming teenage bravado with both lyrical pathos and hints at the perverse. The greatest American road novel, Vladimir Nabokov's "Lolita," also came to mind as I devoured Keith's book, and I can only hope that Keith will soon reward his readers with another one.



5. I ENJOYED THIS BOOK VERY MUCH,HOWEVER I'M A LITTLE CONFUSED ABOUT MR. KEITH'S DATES. HE SAYS THESE EVENTS TOOK PLACE IN 1959, WHEN HE WAS 11 YEARS OLD. HOWEVER ON THE "AUTHORS NOTE" PAGE IT GIVES HIS YEAR OF BIRTH AS 1945, WHICH WOULD HAVE MADE HIM 14 YEARS OLD AT THE TIME OF THESE EVENTS. ALSO HE MENTIONS SEVERAL TIMES THE SONG FROM THE MOVIE "THE MAGNIFICANT 7". HOWEVER THAT MOVIE WASNT RELEASED TILL THE EARLY 1960'S. NO BIG DEAL. JUST BAD PROOF READING BY THE PUBLISHERS.

3 comments about Officially Osbourne: Opening the doors to the land of Oz.

1. The Osbournes have gained fame not just for pioneering the reality TV show (and succeeding in it the way pretty much nobody else has), but for letting the masses in on their family life. It's weird, it's wacky, and when you pare it down it's pretty close to anyone else's family life. And that includes dogs peeing on the furniture, music, thongs, the arrogance of big sisters, getting tattoos, and much more.

   "Officially Osbourne" is an episode guide (first season) interspersed with biographies, interviews, and information. Each of the bios includes favorite music, birth date, video games, personal philosophies, what their family members say about them, and then an interview. Each episode has a basic summary (about two or three paragraphs) and a slew of pictures. Also there are best lines ("Bubbles? Oh come on, Sharon! I'm the Prince of #$&*in' Darkness!"), and highlights (a fire in the kitchen -- "the first one in the new house").

   There are chapters on other topics too: On Melinda Verga, a lower-key employee, on home decor (black, antiques, and crucifixes), the different rooms in the house, and on the pets (dogs and cats, most memorably Lola). One chapter is devoted to Ozzy and Sharon's parenting methods, and what their kids think of those methods. And most tantalizing of all is the chapter where they talk about what never made it onto your TV screen...

   This book captures some of the spirit that infuses the Osbourne TV show. The coverage and interviews with Ozzy, smart wife Sharon and kids Jack and Kelly (Aimee declined to be in the show). Their attitudes are refreshingly honest and open -- in a celebrity subculture where people say prescripted, inoffensive lines, the Osbournes will tell the world what they do and don't like (Kelly hates pop singers, for example).

   The pages are likably colorful, not just black text on white paper. The pictures are a slightly more mixed bag -- there are a lot of them on almost every page in the book, of everyone: The house, the furnishings, the dogs... unfortunately, many are too small to look at easily, and some are blurred. Many are quite good, clear and well-lit.

   "We're not the #$&*ing Partridge Family" -- Sharon said it best. And "Officially Osbourne" takes some of the best elements from the TV show and commits them to paper. Definitely recommended for people who watch the show.




2. Officially Osbourne is an excellent guide to the Osbournes. It shares details of the episodes, profiles of the family members, untold stories, interviews, parents' advice from Sharon and Ozzy, and more. The pictures in this book are mostly animated, and while regular photos would have been great, it does add a more fun approach to the book. This is a must have for fans. You'll learn so much more about the Osbournes.



3. For any Osbourne fan, this is the book to get. It has every detail you ever wanted to know about the show. Great pictures and interviews, as well as info you didn't know!

5 comments about Heavier than Heaven: A Biography of Kurt Cobain.

1. I think this book is a very captivating read. It gives alot of detail about Cobain's childhood, rocky adolescence, the forming of Nirvana, all the way through to his death. By the end of the book, it's pretty easy to understand why he killed himself. Alot of people are going to say that it's not true, that it's the "Courtney sanctioned" version of what happened, that Cross is making it up to cover up a murder, but this is nonsense. Overall, Courtney Love is not portrayed in an overly-flattering way, neither is Cobain portrayed in a bad light. People who say that Cross makes Love look great and Cobain look bad either have not read the book or are reading that interpretation into the book.
   
   Alot of people complain about the end, when Cross fictionalizes Cobain's last hours, but he never says that it's fact - to the contrary, Cross points out that that chapter is a fictionalization of what it might have been like. Does fiction have a place in a biography? In "Heaver Than Heaven," I say yes. It would have been a huge letdown if his death had been muddied over - even though we don't know what happened for sure.
   
   I give the book four stars because it's a very engrossing read. My understanding of Kurt Cobain increased greatly after reading this book, and I think my appreciation for Nirvana's music also deepened. It's a haunting, sometimes disturbing portrait of one of rock music's most mythical legends.



2. By: ANETA BASALAJ
   
   By writing this book, Charles Cross is letting the world know everything about Kurt Cobain, including details even Kurt probably didn't realize about himself. He starts from Kurt's childhood and describes his entire life all the way up to his death.
   
   Cross is a veteran music journalist, which makes him the perfect person to write about one of music's most incredible people. He used to be the editor of The Rocket, the Northwest's highly regarded entertainment and music magazine, which was also the first publication to do a cover story on Nirvana. It is obvious that Cross really knows what he is talking about in this book.
   
   Cross went through over four hundred interviews and an extensive four years of research in order to write Heavier Than Heaven. He goes into great detail, providing not only the facts, but analysis as well, which makes the reader more interested in reading and has him or her thinking throughout the book. Cross did not leave a single important event of Kurt's life out. Not only does the reader have a massive amount of knowledge about Kurt after finishing the book, he or she also gains respect for him.
   
   The obvious strength of the book is the enormous amount of information provided by Cross. This is also a weakness in the sense that readers might find themselves getting restless reading fact after fact, which is not necessarily the author's fault. Another strength of Heavier Than Heaven is the fact that the book is very chronologically accurate. The author does a very good job of not skipping around dates, especially when starting a new chapter. All in all, Heavier Than Heaven is a very well written book that any Nirvana fan should add to his or her bookshelf.



3. This book is a wonderful tribute to Kurt's life. Charles Cross' writing style makes you feel as though you were watching a movie. His descriptions reach points where you'd think they were best friends and the amount of detail leaves you wondering how he could know so much about someone who isn't even alive to ask anymore. Cross uses many quotes from the people in Kurt's life and fills you in from day one, starting with Kurt's parents before he was even born. I dislike the amount of names mentioned in the book however. Many characters are only name drops, which becomes confusing at times because you're not sure who is being spoken about. Other than the obsessive amount of names, the stories are fairly easy to follow. The author added some pictures about 200 pages in, from mostly Kurt's family that were very touching to look at. I thoroughly enjoy it, and do not regret buying it. I'd say it's definitely worth the money.



4. This is a great buy. The book reads smooth although the timelines are not always constant. There is only one outcome according this book and it tries to cover most sides of Kurt's life, including the bad sides. Fortunately it is not 'don't use drugs propaganda' which I see to often these days.
   
   Still there is some room for discussion because the author does some personal interpretation of facts and stories.



5. Heavier Than Heaven
   
   Kurt Cobain was a small town boy gone big. After living a hell of a childhood he finally found what he wanted. Kurt and two friends started a band. They took the name nirvana which a new state of mind. They took off on American tour. They fired their drummer Chad Channing. They recruited new drummer Dave Grohl. They got famous. Kurt killed himself by overdosing on heroin and shooting himself in the head.
   
   I can say this is one of the best books I have ever read. This book gives you every thing you need in a book. I don't care if this review is not long enough this is all I have to say.
   
   The characters are Kurt Cobain.

5 comments about All Fishermen Are Liars: True Tales from the Dry Dock Bar.

1. "Every date and detail and description is accurate and completely well grounded in fact. Honest." - Author Linda Greenlaw on the tales in ALL FISHERMEN ARE LIARS
   
   Linda Greenlaw, the sometime Maine swordfish-boat captain and lobster trawler, who's entertained armchair seagoing fishers with The Hungry Ocean: A Swordboat Captain's Journey and The Lobster Chronicles : Life On a Very Small Island, breaks new personal ground with this anthology of salty tales ostensibly remembered from one session of yarn spinning at the Dry Dock Restaurant and Tavern in Portland, Maine, which, as Linda states, is one of her favorite watering holes and really does exist (though, according to reviews of the place on the Web, it emphatically doesn't appeal to everyone).
   
   As with any collection of stories based on a profession, whether it's penned by a cabdriver, airline attendant, neurosurgeon, golfer, madam, rodeo rider, astrophysicist, hockey player, test pilot or chef, the reader must have some threshold of interest in the subject or all is lost. Personally, I couldn't care less about hockey, golf or the rodeo circuit. On the other hand, I once found a cabby's workplace stories (No Guns, No Knives, No Personal Checks: The Tales of a San Francisco Cab Driver), which I wouldn't have otherwise read unless urged to do so, surprisingly good. In the case of ALL FISHERMEN ARE LIARS, I used to ocean fish when I was a kid and I find the on-deck assault of marine air across a moving vessel exhilarating, so the potential was there to be entertained. If the prospects of fish as food and water deeper than your bath make you queasy, then perhaps it's best to pass.
   
   In my experience, it's unusual to come upon a five-star compendium of short stories because the inclusions may individually run the gamut from awful to mediocre to quite good. Linda's collection happily avoids the low end. Since all are at least minimally interesting, and Greenlaw herself is personable and congenial, four stars are due.
   
   Vicarious danger thrills. Thus, the chapters "Seamanship" and "Running Out Your Time" are perhaps the best, both involving storms at sea that endanger Linda herself in the former and an acquaintance in the latter. Conversely, the chapter "Navigation", in which Greenlaw's two young nephews learn valuable lessons on a day spent fishing with Dad, was a little too cute for my tastes. The rest fall somewhere in between and, despite the book's title, none are so outrageous as to be unbelievable. Well, maybe the tale about the steamship Royal Tar is a bit tall.
   
   By the end of the author's last book, THE LOBSTER CHRONICLES, she seemed fretful of the fact that, then at 40, she remained unmarried and without children. Her loneliness was uncomfortably evident. ("I have spent much time waiting for Mr. Right, who does not appear to be looking for me.") In ALL FISHERMEN ARE LIARS, she seems to have perked up a bit.
   
   Sail on, Linda, into fair weather and calm seas.



2. After two books of no-nonsense stories about life at sea, first as a swordboat captain and next as a lobsterman, Linda Greenlaw kicks back at a Portland, Maine, watering hole with a few fellow salts to swap yarns. And, while the title clearly states that "all fishermen are liars," these brine-encrusted adventures are all purportedly true -- if perhaps a bit stretched. Bracketing the stories themselves are Linda's efforts to convince a dear friend and mentor to consider full or partial retirement or risk a lonely death at sea. The text is also brimming with Linda's thoughtful musings about life, love and family, much of which she weaves into a series of fisherman's metaphors.
   
   Linda's book is populated, as usual, by an assortment of characters, most of whom would be equally fun to meet over a pint and chowder. Foremost among them are Alden, Linda's flawed but faithful friend, and George and Tommy, two ne'er-do-wells who have been thoroughly shredded by Linda to the extent I'm surprised they consented to join the bar crowd for her book jacket photo, much less be identified by name. But the meat of "Liars" is the collection of sea stories, some harrowing, some funny, some sad, some inspiring. Linda Greenlaw has a gift for bringing her narrative to life.
   
   by Tom Knapp, Rambles.(n e t) editor



3. Linda appears to be running short of material in this book.



4. This is a fun book for those of who like to sit around and swap sea and fish stories. It has a lot of interest and a very "easy read". Linda also gives you a feel for the "community of North Atlatnic fishermen" that participate in this often very unforgiving and dangerous profession. This book is clearly the best of her books that I have read.



5. 
   If it's a salty yarn you hunger for, you can't go wrong with swordfishing boat captain Linda Greenlaw's latest adventure All Fishermen Are Liars: True Adventures At Sea. Her sea stories are true and involve both death-defying and some funny challenges of professional sailors - from surviving a shipwreck by swimming 10 hours in a hurricane to using rock music as a tuna lure. Marine science, diving adventure, boat regulations and management and more blend with riveting adventure tales.

No comments about Pope John Paul II: The Biography, By Tad Szulc, Unabridged 13 11/2 - Hours, Audio Cassettes, Read By John Edwardson.

5 comments about The Summer of a Dormouse.

1. Using this imagined pronouncement from God as an introduction to his third autobiography, author John Mortimer, barrister, playwright, novelist, and creator of the Rumpole series, muses on aging and the fact that time passes far more swiftly in old age than in youth. He expects the rest of his life to pass as quickly as "the summer of a dormouse." More a diary in book form than an autobiography with a series of strong controlling themes, Mortimer comments on recent events in his life, jumping from topic to topic, then backing up and revisiting those topics when events change or he learns something new.
   
   The beginning of the book emphasizes his relationship with Franco Zeffirelli, for whom he wrote the screenplay for "Tea with Mussolini." He was fascinated by the casting and filming of that production, and his comments about Judy Dench, Joan Plowright, and Maggie Smith, all Great Ladies of British theatre, who shared billing in the film with the American Cher, add life and spice to the behind the scenes stories, especially when they appear nude at Zeffirelli's pool. He jumps quickly from this to his problems with his own broken leg, followed by leg ulcers that will not heal, and his experiments with a "black box," and electrical treatments which have a healing effect.
   
   Soon he is onto the subject of running a campaign to rebuild the Royal Court Theatre, the problems he has had with government financing, with foundations, and with donors. His liberal political goals and his anti-establishment screeds add contemporary British political information to the autobiographical mix, and his reminiscences about growing up with his father, a blind barrister who was carefully tended to by Mortimer's solicitous mother, put his own pre-occupations with the family house and garden into perspective.
   
   Unfortunately, his discussion about his father's blindness, the surgeries his father underwent, his homage to his patient and long-suffering mother, and his own problems and surgeries for detached retinas (apparently inherited) are virtually (if not, actually) lifted from his previous autobiography, Murderers and Other Friends. His story about visiting Sir John Gielgud with his wife and baby daughter Emily in her "pink carry-cot" is also virtually identical to his previous reminiscence from "Murderers and Other Friends." Though he discussed at length his relationship with playwright Harold Pinter in that book, he sees Pinter in this book and comments as if he's never seen him before! Fascinating for anyone who loves Rumpole and the Mortimer writings, this third "autobiography" is more like a Mortimer reminiscence written for Mortimer himself than it is for a wider audience of Mortimer fans. n Mary Whipple
   
   Murderers and Other Friends
   Rumpole and the Penge Bungalow Murders
   Rumpole Misbehaves: A Novel (Rumpole Novels)



2. Mortimer, with what I'm sure was a subtle twinkle in his eye, had the words Aedes Gliris -- Latin for "Summer of a Doormouse" -- stitched onto his shirts, as a motto for a happy life that in retrospect passed quickly.
   
   This book made me smile very often, with its understated hilarity and reminiscences of adventures that would exhaust most men, never mind a man of 80 years. Mortimer celebrates his good fortunes in art, in the law, and in love. We learn that women friends had dubbed him "the thinking woman's crumpet."
   
   I enjoyed this small book, but then I should confess to having read all the Rumpole stories many times. I see Mortimer as full of joy, self-effacing, and very wise at this time of his life.
   
   May he write much more.



3. I read a little of this book and then found that I just didn't want to waste my time reading any more. And it sounded so interesting in the NYTimes review! I feel this book is pure garbage. He seems to be under the impression that every thought and memory which flits through his head is of great value. Just as power corrupts, fame insufflates the ego - unless you have the supreme wisdom to resist it. I read halfway thru another book called something like 'the delights of aging'. It was just as disappointing. And I'm aging. Are there any books which genuinely make you believe aging isn't as bad as it feels? Like that music isn't as bad as it sounds? Maybe self-delusion is the only way to joyfully tolerate the whips and scorns. Maybe that's Mortimer's real message here - message by example.



4. Everybody and their brother and sister, which includes Gertrude Stein, of course, seems to be penning memoirs. A caveat to the form practiced at its best: The memoir of a man nearly eighty should be read quickly. In part to raise demand - if the recounting is revisited in prose artfully and summons forth a brilliant life - for a return engagement of cottage industriousness from the un-retiring pensioner, and chiefly because the best memoirs offer frothy recollections and musings which naturally propel alacrity.

   In the case of "The Summer of a Dormouse" by John Mortimer, the episodic visits taken around the world and within the circle of the celebrated novelist, Queen's Counsel, playwright, knight (bearing a unique coat of arms), and "champagne socialist" end all too soon. We need some levity to dispel the infirmities of old age, septuagenarian John Mortimer advises.

   The adapter of "Brideshead Revisited," Mortimer compares his life to scriptwriting's pace, "scenes get shorter and the action speeds up towards the end." And sped-up indeed it is for Mortimer. He plays the strolling scribe and player, from the "Chiantishire" to San Francisco and Watford to Antibes, respectively. He loosely adapts Franco Zeffirelli's life in "Tea with Mussolini" and Laurie Lee's (with whom he worked in government films during WWII) "Cider with Rosie"; for the former he is whisked off to Cinecitta - enclave of la dolce vita for the film industry set.

   Back in London, Sir John chairs the Royal Court Theatre's - presenter of George Bernard Shaw and John Osborne - rebuilding. Despite stupefying behind the scrim skirmishes, he soldiers on through meetings with overly sensitive playwrights of the cut-off-your-nose-in-spite-your-face variety. Finally, Mortimer's common sense prevails and the theatre gets built. The redoubtable David Hare, none the worse for bygone artistic differences, writes a play for the new stage.

   Goaded by a politico hostess to "have a go" at [then] Labour Home Secretary Jack Straw, this former barrister uses a lunch encounter to argue the defense of civil liberties and Magna Carta, and he hosts another lunch, a fundraiser on behalf of prison reformation, where a CEO is drilled over the company's annual report by a major stockholder--a convict--at the prison's groaning board. He also dispatches his opinion to the newspaper on the crisis in farming, easily deducible from the vantage point of his countryside home that is roundly ignored by Tony Blair's New Labour government. In fact, Mortimer questions whether "the promised land of a Labour Britain" looks or acts any different from its Conservative Party predecessor.

   Mortimer recalls, from his youth, the Shakespearean passages his father quoted and conjures the blinded in middle age, intrepid, yet reliant for personal matters such as daily dressing on his wife (Mortimer's own Shavian, strong-willed mother), barrister that mirrors Mortimer's own age-related frailties - from use of a wheelchair to not being able to put on socks anymore - to wistful effect. A tinge is likewise evoked during a visit to an old artist friend with late-stage Alzheimer's who has, nevertheless, recapitulated a radiant painting he had done twenty years earlier, "this was only an echo, something left stranded on the beach after the sea had retreated."

   Famed as Mortimer is for his Rumpole of the Bailey series, he acknowledges that when filling up his writing pads he draws more interest from failure than success. Coincidence, perhaps fate, abounds in his lifetime, and he attends the funeral of his first wife, Penelope, with his wife, Penny (for Penelope), surrounded by children of the first marriage and his teenaged daughter from the later union. The couple of years chronicled in this memoir include an eclectic cast of friends and colleagues: Muriel Spark, Neil Kinnock, Stephen Daldry, Sir John Gielgud, Sir Alec Guinness, Lord Richard Attenborough, Joss Ackland, and twins, Vicky and Jackie, who married Deep Purple band members. When an elegiac tone sets in, as birthdays come and friends die, Mortimer says the "cure is to be found among the living..." And so it is.

   In the interim between another trip down memory's lane, once past the surfeit of this writer's well-lived life is consumed, the reader can go back to John Mortimer's catalogue of autobiography (now in three published books), novels, and plays. Then, with delight still at the fingertips, perhaps the champagne-tippling dormouse will serve up yet another rich and textured morsel from a gracious and blessedly prolonged summer for Sir John Mortimer, Esquire.




5. John Mortimer is a wonderful English author. My husband is a great fan of his work. I read of this book this summer in England and when I returned home I rushed to buy it.
   My husband hated it! He said he had already read most of the stories in other works. The author also gives his opinion on the wonderful Labor Party in England. His mother should have taught him not to discuss politics in polite society.
   It is really a dreadful book. Only useful as a door stop on a windy day.

4 comments about Henry VIII.

1. Scarisbrick's book is a scholar's book and remains recognized after over three decades as the definitive work on the subject. It provides the background for other, equally valuable books, such as David Starkey's "Six Wives: The Wives of Henry VIII". This, though, is not to say that Scarisbrick can't be read for pleasure. It can, but you will not find it the brezzy read of a popular history; instead, you will find a wealth of information that will serve you well in future reading on the subject. And it is a very enjoyable read itself. If you are serious about your understanding of this period of English history then Scarisbrick is essential, and I can't imagine a personal library on Henry or Tudor England without a copy.
   
   As another reviewer remarked, this is not the book for an extensive treatment of Henry's wives. For that, I recommend turning to Starkey, and it too is essential for an understanding of this period of the history of Tudor England. What I've said about Scarisbrick's book can also be said about Starkey; although, I don't think it has quite the stature of Scarisbrick's.



2. I read this book right after reading Carolly Erickson's biography of Henry VIII, and on balance this book is better and easier to read. I love that Scarisbrick has modernized the spelling and punctuation of the original documents he quotes. I think the picture of Henry presented is well-balanced, and does not minimize the faults of the subject of the biography. The careful examination of the question of the validity of the marriage of Henry and Catherine of Aragon is the best I have ever read, and partisans on either side of that question will see that there is indeed another side to the view they favor. The examination of the religious views of Henry is detailed and enlightening. I have always had a negative view of Henry VIII and I still have after reading this book, but the book was instructive and enlightening. The footnotes are where they belong (at the bottom of each page) and the bibliography is detailed though of course a bit dated in the 1968 edition I read. After you read this book you will know that you have read a really good biography of this important figure in world history.



3. I did not like this book at all! I have read most everything out there regarding Henry VIII. I found this a very hard go. It was extremely difficult to read. It focus's mostly on Henry's policies and the religous issue and a lot of assumptions as to why Henry acted a certain way. It is very date heavy. He barely mentions his wives except to say married on this date, died on this date. If you are beginner to Henry, this is not the book for you.



4. Prof. Scarisbrick has written the definitive biography of Henry VIII and his times, even though this book is about 30 years old. Scarisbrick brought an interesting view to the subject: as a Roman Catholic he was the first British author granted access to Vatican archives for his research on the subject. The result is a still cogent, absolutely exhaustive book on the subject. Entailing a practically week by week account of Henry VIII's reign is overwhelming but of the upmost help for students of the subject. If you are looking for a light introduction to Henry VIII, this is probably not the place. But if you want *all* the (mind-numbing) details on Henry VIII, look no further than Scarisbrick's brilliant work.

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