Rating: 
Summary: A Mad Genius!!
Review: There was a time when I hated reading
autobiographies/biographies of any kind. My thought
process was simple: what could be possibly so exciting
about stars' famed people's lives that I could not
incorporate in mine? I was so wrong. I just realized
it. The biography of Jim Morrison was handed down to me by
my very close friend and one time my partner. He told
me "You must absolutely read this one" and I did. If
not for the dispassionate kisses that transpired
between us, I thank him profusely for introducing me
to the life of one of the legends of rock and roll. Who was Jim Morrison? A freaked out personality, a bad
dream, a bad childhood, an insane creature of the
night or just a plain normal human being. Who was he
and why was he that way? After reading the book, I
tried answering these questions but gave up. Gave up
to let Mr.Morrison be. This book deals with hiss life
and more. His poetry. His life. For most part it does
deal with Jim Morrison the way he was : A person. The
very rare smiles, the even more rare sensitivity, the
ideals, the philosophies - everything that made the
man a person. The madness existing is explained beautifully. The
demons etched out rather well. The book takes us
through three stages: When the bow is drawn, to the
arrow flying to the finale with the arrow falling... From his indepth intellectual lyrics to the
soulfulness to the brashness of the person...In short
this one's a must must read....and I am glad I did
cherish it!!
Rating:
Summary: I WAS 16 WHEN I FIRST READ THIS BOOK IN THE EARLY 80'S
Review: One of my all time favorite books how many times in history do the forces of the universe converge and bring together the talent such as this? I read with fascination about Morrison's early life. His study of the great poets and philosophers and his understanding of them. He graduated from Cinematography school at UCLA in the early 60's before meeting up with equally intellectual and talented minds to form one of the most successful groups of the 60's. His professors called his papers "worthy of a dissertation" and assumed that he had researched at the library of congress. Sure, he is portrayed as a alcoholic and a drug abuser, but this book focused on the positive as well. imagine the day he reunited with Ray Manzarek on the beach after a year of partying on rooftops and writing poetry. He dropped to his knees in the sand and recited the lyrics to moonlight drive: Lets swim to the moon
Lets climb through the tide
Penetrate the evening
That the city sleeps to hide I was hooked and life was never the same................
Rating:
Summary: a good page turner
Review: Reading this book was a lot of fun. It takes you from the time Jim grew up as a military brat, his father was a rear admiral in the navy, to becoming an institution in and of himself. He's sometimes very lovable, and at other times, extremely rude. Quite a character, and a lot of interesting little stories. The author is a bit in love with Jim, but I agree with him that if there was anyone who was ready, willing and able to die, it was Jim. BTW, the movie was alright, but this book is much more informative and insightful from Jim's early life to later in life.
Rating: 
Summary: A Drunk or A Hero
Review: I had read this book and i have come to be even better of a fan of the late Jim Morrison. I can connect with the way he acts and I can connect with some of the stunts he pulls. However, this book was poorly written. I loved the start but,towards the end it got extremely boring. I had to keep flipping back to the funny parts during the book just to stay interested. Hopefully the other books on his life are a little more interesting.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Photos, Zilch Insight
Review: If you want any kind of insight into the mind of Jim Morrison, read his interview with Lizzie James. In fact, read any interview with the man himself. Let him speak for himself. It's not as if he isn't articulate enough. These two-bit hacks can't get anywhere near the truth.
Rating: 
Summary: The Arrow Flies: This is the Essential Morrison
Review: Co-written by someone who knew Jim, the Sugarman-Hopkins bio does not escape idol worship of Morrison. Despite its flaws, it makes for a great primer on Jim Morrison and the Doors, capturing his trajectory from his awkward childhood, to poet, intellectual, drug user/experimentor, to rock star, to angry drunk and abuser. Morrison is a complex character, perhaps more interesting, introspective, well read and intelligent than any popular muscian has been since. Recognizing Morrison's Nietzschian influence, Sugarman-Hopkins capture Morrison as the personification of Nietzshe's Dionysus. Their thesis is compelling and obviously an influence of Oliver Stone's filmography. For those interested in the Doors or American Pop Music Culture, I throughly recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book! The only Morrison bio you will ever need
Review: I read this book for the first time when it first came out over 20 years ago. It still stands the test of time and was the start of my personal love affair with the Doors. This book introduced me to The Beat Poets, shamanism, and some of the greatest music ever created. The Doors were a rare band that comes along once in a generation (in fact they were one of the important fore runners to Punk rock as well as Grunge Rock). Jim Morrison was larger then Life and changed the face of rock and roll forever by how he lived his life. While others were singing about peace and love, Morrison took it a step further by breeding art as a driving force into rock Music. While using a mixture of visionary poetry and a flair for the dramic on the stage, he fused the power of dark imagery into a heroic tragidy that has been the blue print for rock stars and artists in their expression and delevery. Jim Morrison was step beyond the mythic in everything he did. No One Here Gets Out Alive is an important and powerful read and a great introduction to the life, death, and mind of a great man that lived his own idea of his own personal tragidy.
Rating:
Summary: Pretty Good Account of the start of the Doors
Review: I read this book several years ago. I still remember that it was a pretty good book. Especially recalling about how the doors got started. It also mentions many of Jim Morrison's love interests, mostly Pam, with some mention to Patricia Kennely. Overall, worth the time.
Rating:
Summary: a stain on morrison's memory
Review: this book has about as much substance to it as a song by britney spears. it is written more like a comic book and less like a biography, and the reader with even the slightest bit of critical intelligence will be in awe that two grown men could be capable of such blatant idolatry and hero worship. what's more, they actually think of the public as so stupid that we're going to take some of this obviously fabricated crap as truth. as if they could know some of the incidents so minutely described here even with the most painstaking interviews and research. i have a great admiration for jim morrison and believe that in the final equation he was nothing less than a great man, albeit one whose considerable neurosis and self destructiveness kept him from being acknowledged as such, but the only way people are ever going to take morrison's message of personal freedom seriously is if his warts are shown for what they are:warts. drug abuse (after a certain point) is simply drug abuse, alcoholism is simply alcoholism, and aberrant behavior (beyond what is inevitable in the creative process) is simply aberrant behavior. none of these traits necessarily indicate some deeper genius or an underlying philosophy of life. actually, they are almost always the rather pathetic signs of stunted growth, and in morrison this was clearly the case. if fans of morrison try to disguise his purely individual and purely unfortunate flaws as some 'spiritual approach' to life, they inevitably cut off their noses to spite their face and end up by making the man look like a big, goofy, misguided joke. there is the morrison that matters, who sang about people disintegrating societal barriers and pushing lived experience to the max, there is the morrison who wrote eloquent reams of surreal (if occasionally amateurish and unpolished) poetry and song lyrics, and there is the morrison who both existentially and professionally represented freedom through open defiance of convention and personal rebellion. then there is the simply sad morrison, hooked on drugs and unable to relate to people, inconsiderate and in some occasions perhaps bordering on psychotic. the two are as separate and distinct as two different people. romanticizing the second invalidates the first entirely.
Rating:
Summary: Almost Great
Review: This is the musician biography to be read by all high school Doors fans. They'll love the anecdotes (many of which have been acknowledged as fabrications, but have since been accepted as 'truth'). "No One Here Gets Out Alive" builds Morrison up to be an intellectual superman, an incredible lover and a top singer. Read his poetry, and you'll learn he wanted to a pop version of Pabla Neruda but didn't know the craft well enough. He was a great rock singer, but didn't have the range of a Freddy Mercury (Queen's lead singer). Read "No One Here Gets Out Alive" by keep in mind it is a mix of what was true, was almost true, and "would've been cool if it was" true. Anthony Trendl
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