5 comments about Lennon Revealed (Book & DVD).

1. I was hoping that this would fill in gaps left out of other Lennon biographies. It does take some stands on issues such as Lennon's supposed homosexuality (this author votes "no"), but the poor writing and editing hurt this biographer's credibility. Not knowing the difference between "waste" and "waist", and using "compliment" when it should have been "complement" makes the author seems like something less than a seasoned journalist. These are freshman-level grammatical errors that proofreading should have caught.
   
   Books on the life of John Lennon seems to have taken a cottage industry status these days. No single one of them is truly complete, but the lot of them makes a sloppy, overlapping patchwork quilt.



2. As a Beatles and a John Lennon fan, I was looking forward to this book... parts were interesting--but, I guess, it was the telling of it, the very writing itself, that was lacking. It seemed a gratuitous effort of a has-been journalist to slap us in the face with "I knew John Lennon!"... (okay, we get the picture, you don't have to keep mentioning it every other page...)--an attempt to attach his name to a legend through all the typical sensationalist-journalistic machinations... I won't say it's completely irredeemable--it has its moments when it does actually seem to actually be about John Lennon... but I can also see why it so quickly made its way to the discount bin......



3. Lennon Revealed is a MUST READ for every Lennon fan who wants to get closer to the truth about John. I've read everything from Ray Coleman's Lennon bio, to John by Cynthia, May Pang's book, Nowhere Man and even that horrible Lives of John Lennon by Goldman - all of them were good in their own ways [except for Goldman's] but I feel that Kane's book is much closer to the truth because he doesn't place a biased theme on John Lennon - it's like he lets the people he interviews tell the story for us and it is up to us readers to make up our minds about John Lennon through them, while those other books are mostly based on the biased point of view of the writer - The Truth is always somewhere in the middle, so it is best to hear everyone's story before coming down to a decision.
   
   I also likes Ray Coleman's Lennon bio just as much as this book by Kane, but I feel Kane's is more complete because he did add May Pang into the mix. If Coleman only had interviewed Pang's point of view, I would've considered his book the most definitive of all the Beatles bios.
   
   So far of all the Beatles and John Lennon bio books that's worth your money, I can truly recommend Lennon Revealed, The Beatles Anthology, The Beatles by Bob Spitz.



4. I couldn't decide whether to give this book 3 or 4 stars,but I really did enjoy reading it,and I would recommend it to anyone who is facinated by John and wants to know as much as possible. There is new info. to be found here,hence the 4 stars. However,I do have a problem with Larry Kane: first,his writing style: He repeats the same words constantly,like in the forward about Dec.8th 1980,he uses the word "fateful night" so many times that it begins to feel like a school report by a 14 year old. Someone buy this man a thesauras! Hey, I hear computers have them built right in now,Larry! His writing is very amatuerish. My second problem with Larry Kane is that he seems to have an agenda: his use of phrases like,"John Lennon and the Beatles" instead of what they were really called,uhh I think it's The Beatles. I love John too but I've never seen anyone who loves one member of the group so much that he reduces the others into almost non existence. It is down right creepy. The Beatles were an ensemble. They weren't Buddy Holly and the Crickets or Elvis Presley and the Jordinares. One reviewer said it very well: 'Larry gives the other Beatles such short shrift that if you didn't know better you would think that almost everyone else was more important in his life than the 3 men who's lives were entwined with his daily, for 2 decades.' Yes at the end of the book this is rectified but the damage is already done. Which brings me to Stuart Sutcliff and his sister Pauline. As others have said,Larry gives her way too much creedance in his book and I don't think that was a good idea because Pauline has an agenda also. She wants people to beleive that her brother was more important than he actually was. She tells Larry that John and Stu spent every waking moment together every single day. Paul?...Paul who? What about all those days spent at 20 Forthlin Road writing all those Lennon McCartney originals? What about the bond between John and Paul over the loss of their mothers? None of that is mentioned. I'm not saying that Stu wasn't important to John or that he wasn't ONE of his best friends. But Larry has the audacity to describe Stuart as one of the four loves of Lennon's life along with Cyn,Yoko, and May Pang. C'mon! The idea of a homosexual relationship isn't even the issue. Maybe John and Stu were physically close. After all John was open to experiment. But love of his life? That's just silly. And why does Larry keep referring to John as "the artist". So pretentious. He even claims that John was really meant to be a painter,not a musician!!! He devotes quite a few pages to this. Enough to make you throw up. However,once you're finally past the chapter on Sutcliff,(whew!... and yuck!) the book gets better. I enjoyed the chapter on May Pang and I have heard that Lennon was in love with her. I've also heard that he wanted to leave Yoko for her,but Yoko had such an inexorable hold on John,that he couldn't do it. A VERY complicated man. It seems that May provided the caring closeness that he (and most men) crave from a women, but Yoko was that omnipotent Mommy Boss that he couldn't get away from and seemed to need also. I loved the chapter at the end,where fans share their feelings about John. That was a very nice idea and it should be in more books like this. It's facinating to read what other fans have to say about someone I've loved and admired since I was 10 years old. I agree with another reviewer that Lennon, by Ray Coleman is a much better bio.,at least from what I remember. I read it years ago but I do remember it being better written, but there's nothing in it about May Pang which is wrong. In order to write a complete bio, you have to include all important relationships. I suggest reading Lennon, by Ray Coleman, John, by Cynthia Lennon,and this one. There are many others also but don't waste your time on The Many Lives of John Lennon. That one is tabloid fiction. Oh wait! I forgot to tell you about the DVD that's included! A facinating Larry Kane interview with John and Paul. It's notable how John dominates Paul, very seldom giving him a chance to speak. Facinating if brief,look at their personal relationship at the time. John seems uptight as it's been said he was at that time (May 1968). Paul seems very uncomfortable, but about what, it's hard to say. The change in John? Nervousness about the launch of Apple? Discomfort talking to Larry Kane? Maybe all of the above. Nice addition to the book though.



5. I was interested in many of the details - conversations and public appearances that garnered little fanfare "in the day". I was looking for a less sycophantic and more honest account. According to the dewey-eyed Kane, John really wanted to be a great father, but... He really loved Julian, but... He really wanted to do right by Cynthia but... There is no but, according to Kane. John was just Wonderful John, with a license to hurt, ignore, brutalize and abandon his original family (and others) because he's, well, Wonderful John. It reminds me (with some irony) of John's own lyrics to "Bungalo Bill", where the children ask if it's wrong to kill, to which his mom (or Kane) answers "Not when he looks so dear". This book reads more like it was written by an adoring groupie than an experienced, balanced journalist.
   I loved John's music, his humor, his genuis. I can take the truth though. I don't need to beatify him. He had some rather serious flaws, and they shoud be acknowledged honestly, or it shoud be stated in the foreward that "this book is by an ardent admirerer who wants to paint a picture with no rough edges". I can't help but think that John would verbally tear Kane a new one if he read this harmless, suck-up account.
   Get the other half by reading Cynthia's book. Don't miss the forward by Julian.

2 comments about George Orwell.

1. Outstanding writing and research. By the time you finish the book you probably know Orwell better than his friends, his women and himself. It drags a bit in the middle but it lead me to re-read Down and Out and to order most of his publications.



2. The only other biography of Orwell that I have read is the two-volume Stansky-Abrahams one, which I read when it appeared over 25 years ago. Of course, one gets to know Orwell pretty well if one reads Orwell's own essays, etc. This seems to be a very good biography, though. I particularly want to commend Bowker for writing at this length, rather than writing something twice or thrice the size. Furthermore, there's a sense that the story has been well told, the people and events adequately identified, etc. One feels human interest not only in Orwell but in others, such as his two wives.
   
   Bowker thanks his copy editor by name, and perhaps that person is not to be blamed for a few errors of grammar and spelling (e.g. the same person is both Frances and Francis) that appear.

No comments about Deutschlands literarische und religiöse Verhältnisse im Reformationszeitalter: Band 1. Mit besonderer Rücksicht auf Wilibald Pirkheimer.

No comments about The Scottish Diaries of Queen Victoria.

No comments about Sylvia Pankhurst: A Life in Radical Politics.

1 comments about Robert Owen: Owen of New Lanark and New Harmony.

1. This is especially interesting for the light on his early life and the society of late eighteenth century Manchester. Robert Owen is probably best known as an utopian socialist with worthy but fuzzy ideas. He has always stood out from other early socialists because, as GDH Cole (I think) said he was able to beat the capitalists at their own game when he put his mind to it by running successful businesses. This book shows how one of seven children of a Welsh saddler could rise in the world of the early steam engines and factories. I was fascinated by his life in his twenties in Manchester, where he was friendly with Dalton (the originator of the atom) and lent money to Fulton (the inventor of the steamship) and discussed religion with Coleridge. The later life is already well known. The narrative livens up again describing travelling west in the United States. I should have liked more explanation of how he acquired his technical skills after what sounds like an apprenticeship only in retail trade. Some of the financial transactions remain obscure. The author pursues a Robinson Crusoe metaphor at puzzling length. I thought he used too many lengthy quotations from dully written sources (including Owen's own flat and boring autobiography). I should like to have known more of what finally became of New Lanark, Ormiston and New Harmony (where Donnachie apparently met Owen family descendants) and about the birth control ideas and accusations of sexual immorality. Nice illustrations. On the whole this is more a scholarly biography than one that can be read through for entertainment.

No comments about Life of Lord Kitchener.

1 comments about Permanent Waving - The Golden Years.

1. "O' to be rid of the albatross of incessant and unproductive meetings!", is the mantra of people throughout the business world. Sometimes there are even meetings in an attempt to determine why there are so many meetings. Everyone is convinced that an enormous amount of potentially productive time is wasted in this way, yet there never seems to be a great deal of action to prevent it.
   In this short book Shessel puts forward a simple, effective strategy to reduce the waste of unproductive and unnecessary meetings. Her plan is based on the acronym P.O.I.N.T., which is
   
   P - purpose
   O - organization
   I - involvement
   N - navigation
   T - tasks
   
   Her advice is simple and if followed, would be effective. The problem here is of course wrapped around the phrase "if followed." There is a great deal of inertia loaded up into the perceived requirement for meetings that is hard to overcome. However, if you muster the courage to try, reading this book will provide the blueprint for success.

No comments about King Edward And His Court.

No comments about The Life Of Her Majesty Queen Victoria.