Vanity Fair Review of the Books

[Needleinthehay]

I'm more interested in Mike's, he actually wrote his.

Um, they both used ghostwriters...

And 99.9999 percent of celebrity "autobiographies" are ghostwritten.

The only ones that aren't are people who are actually professional writers themselves, off the top of my head tina fey, amy pohler, mindy kaling, etc.... i doubt Brian or Mike, while great at writing songs, would be able to put together a great book all by themselves. Also, I doubt they would want to. Sitting down at a blank page and trying to write 300 pages is really, really hard if you've not spent your life doing it.

[Shady]

I'm more interested in Mike's, he actually wrote his.

Where are you getting your information from, Shady? Do you have info on how the books were written to make that statement?

I didn't really mean pen to paper, my bad.

But can we all agree that Mike is probably much more involved in the writing process of his book then Brian, I mean that in all due respect.

[Rocky Raccoon]

But can we all agree that Mike is probably much more involved in the writing process of his book then Brian, I mean that in all due respect.

No, I don't think there's any reason to make that assumption.

[MarcellaHasDirtyFeet]

I would make that assumption, given Brian's usual level of engagement in these kinds of things and Mike's hard-on about setting the record straight.

[pancakerecords]

Brian appears to have been pretty hands on with the writing of this book.

[marcella27]

I think it's entirely possible that Mike remembers more than Brian does about a lot of things.  This is by NO MEANS a slight against Brian, but I would think that given his mental illness and substance problems, some of the memories of certain periods could be less than crystal clear.  This could have an impact on the content of the books (neither of which I've read or seen yet). 

[Don Malcolm]

What is probably irking Mike a bit, I suspect, is the fact that Brian's book is lapping his in terms of pre-sales (check the Amazon pages: Mike is #4, Brian is #1). It could be that the Lovester is trying to get his sales numbers boosted...if so, expect to see several more reviews of this type in the next 3-4 weeks.

I welcome Mike's tales, even though I will take them with some as-yet undetermined number of salt grains. As will also be the case with Brian's book. I find Steve Desper's writings about the music far more illuminating...if, admittedly, a good bit less titillating!

As for the question of when the "rift" in the band first materialized...one doesn't have to read the lines to know that problems between Brian and Mike surfaced almost from the first blush of success, and that Brian was looking for other creative collaborators as early as late 1962. It has never sat well with Mike, and that continues to be the case more than five decades later.

[the professor]

History is not just one winning narrative. . . . I love Mike and Brian, and I just want to see them on stage singing together--and writing songs and "being" what they are in their souls and hearts: Beach Boys. Nothing else matters.