General-partnership

You've really got to wonder why it is that publishers keep turning to Geoffrey Giuliano for Beatles books?

Is it the publishers' assumptions that we only want to read about the seedy underbelly of popstars? Is it because dirty stories sell better than honest ones? Does he come cheap?

The shame of it is that people keep buying them - and to those of you who are lead to believe that he's an expert and writing the truth - it's not so. Geoffrey Giuliano clearly does little real research, he goes on basic stories available anywhere (or dredged up from scandal sheets) and turns them into "history."

Geoffrey Giuliano books offer NOTHING to readers wanting to learn about the Beatles (or any of his other targets). He goes straight for the scummy side of his subjects and where finding not enough, elaborates. Look, I have NOTHING against truth, and there is no value to books that ignore the bad side of a celebrity's life. But to simply focus on dirt, rumor and scandal just to sell books...awful.

Geoffrey Giuliano books are to literature as Jerry Springer is to television. Avoid, please...

Lennon's a genius, McCartney is boring and pretenious, Starr is a no talent hack and Harrison merely a brat... riiiiiiiiiiiiight.

The writing is amatuerish in nature, with an overabundance of exclamation points where none are necessary; a clear bias towards one of his subject matters over the other; and inaccurate information even the most casual Beatle fan would be quick to point out.

Author doesn't stay on the topic implied from the title of the book, that being the relationship between the two men. The subject quickly mushrooms to a boring, shallow book on the Beatles.

Avoid.

So far I had only read Lennon In America by Geoffrey Giuliano - a book that I absolutely hated. It was therefore that I wasn't expecting a lot from this book, but I must say that at least this one is better in style. An entertaining read.
The focus of the book is the relationship between Lennon & McCartney and how they collaborated on songs in (mainly) the early stages. Later on they didn't write together anymore (well hardly), but because of the rivalry that existed between them, each motivated the other to come up with some of the best songs ever written in this world.
George and Ringo hardly feature in the book, which seems a bit strange as the book deals with the career of Lennon / McCartney and The Beatles in a strictly chronological order and of course George and Ringo played a major role in that. To be fair though, in the author's notes Giuliano already announces that the book mentions the works of George and Ringo only in passing, without the amount of detail that is given to Lennon & McCartney.
The book describes how John and Paul met, started playing music in Julia's bathroom, wrote their first songs together, became The Beatles, how they worked in the studio, how their relationship grew from bad to worse and briefly describes their song writing after the Beatles broke up. All of this interspersed with quotes and bits of (mostly well known) interviews.
Right from the start, it is very clear that the author likes Lennon a lot better than McCartney. Lennon is always the genius, McCartney always has other motives in anything he does and is just waiting for a chance to take control of The Beatles.
Lennon's music is innovative and (often) provocative, while McCartney writes songs that are sugar coated and suitable for old age pensioners....
In summary, an entertainingly written book, but not a must have.

For someone looking for very light reading on Ike and Churchill, this may be an appropriate choice. I could envision a high school history teacher assigning this to 16-18 year old students. It is generally enjoyable but it certainly isn't thorough or definitive. It can't be compared to masterpiece works of history,... This, indeed, is "history lite."

But what is supremely disappointing about this book is its factual errors. For instance, at one point in the book Mr. Humes writes of Ike and Churchill meeting in '59, apparently AFTER their respective political tenures were completed, with Ike lamenting JFK's handling of the Bay of Pigs and Berlin Wall crises, and Churchill disparaging Anthny Eden's tenure as PM of Great Britain. But they certainly DID NOT have this discussion in '59. Ike's Presidency lasted until January '61 and our setbacks in Cuba and Berlin didn't happen until later in 1961-62. How could Humes, or more importantly the editor, get this wrong? At another point in the book, he dates the Suez Crisis to 1959 - it happened in October 1956! Earlier he writes of the tragic death of Ike's son at age 3. Hume identifies the baby as Dwight David. His actual name was Doud Dwight, his first name being Mamie's maiden name. He dates Wilson's entry into WWI in 1916. It was 1917, after the 1916 election wherein Wilson campaigned on the "He Kept Us Out Of War" slogan.

If it weren't for these inexcusable factual errors, I could endorse this as light summertime reading for the casual historian... I'm also surprised that David Eisenhower wrote a forward to the book (well done) and that Bill Buckley provided a jacket-cover recommendation. These guys obviously didn't read it - they surely would have noticed the aggravating factual errors I found.

Finally, while I'm an Ike fan and believe he's one of America's finest leaders of the 20th century - both as General and President - I think Humes gives too much credit with the suggestion that he "saved the world" along with Churchill... Professor Humes would be advised to remember,... that other heroes ... deserve lots of credit...

The decision to allow esoteric traditions to become widely available is not in itself a mistake; sometimes the prudent choice is to hide valuable knowledge in a public place. But the consequences will usually include a merchandising of the information at the level of a parlor game by persons whose consciousness is dominated by what Eckhart called "merchant-mindedness." Those with serious interests in spirituality should consult the work of Helen Palmer, Claudio Naranjo, Oscar Ichazo, Sandra Maitri, and A. H. Almaas.

I am a law student and bought this book for a paper I was writing. This book was useless. It does not cover any of the "real" issues surrounding Family Limited Partnerships such as IRS scrutiny and valuation discounts. I do not think this book would be helpful to anyone considering a Family Limited Partnership. I would go so far as to say this book could be misleading to someone considering a FLP.

I awaited the arrival of this book with great anticipation, but was extremely disappointed by the actual product. The authors are consultants and it shows. The book is filled with a lot of nice buzz words which don't really say much of anything. My impression is that while their actual presentations to clients are probably useful, they tried to make this book so generally applicable as to render it largely useless.

This is one of the first books that I have read in a long time that never inspired that "aha" moment... when you say... wow, I'd never thought of that before. I slogged my way through the entire book hoping that I might find that moment. Instead you get such amazing insights as listen to your employees and manage interpersonal relationships. In addition, the authors spend a lot of time talking about Chaos and Complexity without really telling you much about how to use those concepts. For those interested in complexity and chaos and the work of the Santa Fe Institute I would suggest you skip this book and instead go for James Gleick's "Chaos" or Mitchell Waldrop's "Complexity" - a much better investment of your time and effort.