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Rating: 
Summary: Good collection of Disney trivia
Review: For trivia buffs, this book is chock-full of Disney vitae. Since I'm not interested in the year, actors/actresses, gross revenues, etc. of all of the Disney movies, about 80% of this book was unnecessary. My purpose was to compare the Walt regime with the Michael Eisner organization. Clearly, the Eisner story is a lesson in a hurting kingdom, in search for a white knight, with major doses of pixie dust and how the kingdom's economy turned around. Informational, not really enjoyable. I read it for a doctoral class.
Rating:
Summary: Good collection of Disney trivia
Review: For trivia buffs, this book is chock-full of Disney vitae. Since I'm not interested in the year, actors/actresses, gross revenues, etc. of all of the Disney movies, about 80% of this book was unnecessary. My purpose was to compare the Walt regime with the Michael Eisner organization. Clearly, the Eisner story is a lesson in a hurting kingdom, in search for a white knight, with major doses of pixie dust and how the kingdom's economy turned around. Informational, not really enjoyable. I read it for a doctoral class.
Rating: 
Summary: One of the three best books about the Walt Disney Company
Review: How Eisner and Wells revamped Disney and made it what it is today. I consider this book as being part of a triptych of Disney reference books about the history of the company: first the official biography by Bob Thomas (1901-1966), second Storming the Magic Kingdom by John Taylor (1967-1984) and third this one (1985-today). Those are for me the three best books about the history of the Walt Disney Company.To those books I would however add a fourth one that was recently published and that comes to the top of my list and is in a way the fourth of the three mouseketeers: Watts, Steven: The Magic Kingdom, Walt Disney and the American Way of Life published by Houghton-Miflin; 1998.
Rating: 
Summary: This book is unreadable, it's so bad.
Review: My first question is whether or not Grover even reread his own book. Was this book edited at all? It is ridden with distracting typo after distracting typo. I forced myself to read about 100 pages, and it was absolutely maddening. The first sentence of the book has a typo, for goodness sake!!!! It's like writing, "It was the best of tymes, it was the werst of times." Can you imagine???!!! That set the tone for the rest of the book. I am amazed with Grover's inablilty to communicate a coherent thought. It's as if he wrote each chapter in a vaccuum, repeatedly and painstakingly reminding us of the background of each player in the Disney story. For example, at some point one would think he would give the reader enough credit to remember who Richard Rainwater is without repeating his full name and telling us who he is everytime he's mentioned. This ranks right at the top as one of the worst books I have ever TRIED to read. The best thing about it is the picture on the front. A 4th grader could write better than this. Do yourself a favor and don't make the same mistake I made by buying this garbage. There has to be something better on the Disney story out there...somewhere...even if you just read a review of Mulan.
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