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| Headline | Aware of Simon biography by Marc Eliot |
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| Author | Comment |
Bodo
Sep-21-2010, 18:57 GMT
Austria
 | A few weeks ago we told you that a new biography about Paul Simon by Marc Eliot will be released soon.
In the meantime some details and pages have been revealed on amazon.com - I have read them and have to say: I have never seen such an inaccurate book, full of errors and wrong information.
Check for yourself:
http://www.amazon.com/Paul-Simon-Life-Marc-Eliot/d
p/0470433639/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qi
d=1280126599&sr=8-1
Marc Eliot writes biographies about a lot of differnet artists, he seems to earn his money by doin that. So he does not care about quality or exact information - in my opinion. Check out what other people think about Marc Eliots biography about Jimmy Stewart:
http://www.amazon.com/Jimmy-Stewart-Biography-Marc
-Eliot/product-reviews/140005222X/ref=cm_cr_dp_syn
op?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&sortBy=bySubmi
ssionDateDescending#R3LBO3B3FCRSD7
I can only tell you, if you buy this book then be aware that the information is either not right, or in the wrong order, wrong year numbers appear everywhere.
Example sentence: After Paul broke up with Art Garfunkel he started a solo career releasing Kodachrome.
Or: Paul and Art continued to give concerts together until 1986.
At the moment I can not recommend to buy this book if you want to search for serious information. Maybe it has good and entertaining stories about Bob Dylan vs. Paul Simon (Marc Eliot seems to Love Dylan). Maybe this book also has some really new stories no one knows about, but even than you can not be sure about the time and place and accuracy.
Extra comment: On the back cover is written it includes never seen before pictures, do not coun´t on that. All pictures come from Warner, Sony, gettyimages or wireimages.
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Forum guest
Oct-18-2010, 19:31 GMT
USA - United Staates America
 | not only the mistakes you mentioned but if you listen to the Marc Eliot interview, he keeps talking about "The Only Living Boy In New York CITY" No such song. The book apparently comes out today and I´m going to look for it and will peruse but not buy (probably), but will look for other errors. |
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Suzi
Oct-22-2010, 22:20 GMT
USA - United Staates America
| I just finished reading the book and the only thing I learned from it was that pretty much everytime Carrie took off from Paul it was to go back to Dan Aykroyd, who she had been seeing before Paul.
I think the advertizing was very misleading. It said it would be of a more personal cover of his life and it was just the usual Old musical history.
I´m still glad I read it as there were more interesting stories about the background wars of the industry. |
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Forum guest
Oct-23-2010, 17:39 GMT
USA - United Staates America
| I read it too and was not impressed. In fact, I emailed the author while reading the intro; I wasn´t fully convinced he even liked Paul´s music at that point! We had a lively email exchange & I don´t think Eliot´s too fond of me right now. He´s happy & satisfied with his book & that´s all that counts to him, errors be damned! |
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Ian
Oct-23-2010, 21:13 GMT
USA - United Staates America
| Good on you. The guy´s a hack and desperately needed to be made aware of this-and you did it!! Excellent!! |
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Cher
Oct-23-2010, 22:18 GMT
USA - United Staates America
| I would read it if I get a discount
copy. I really don´t know much about
Paul never having seen him and interviews are pretty much the same.
I want to know what he is really like
with fans for example, what are his
hobbies and interests out side of baseball and basketball, about all I
know of. Don´t we all know the music,
even me who just rediscovered him
two years ago. |
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Mimi
Oct-24-2010, 09:51 GMT
Austria
| Interesting, that he replied to your mails.How can someone be satisfied with a book, that is so full of errors. What´s the use of writing a book about a person, if you don´t get to speak to this person or a least someone in the inner circle that really knows him apart of what has already been written. |
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Bodo
Oct-24-2010, 10:43 GMT
Austria
| Money. |
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Forum guest
Oct-26-2010, 04:36 GMT
USA - United Staates America
| You guys write him too. See if he responds. His email is:
[email protected]
Problem is, the casual reader will believe what he´s written. After all, It´s a "real" book!
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Ian
Oct-26-2010, 08:41 GMT
USA - United Staates America
| Unfortunately,all the guy will probably learn from the experience of having a lot of Paul Simon fans emailing him is to not make his email address publicly known:-( I will try though,now that you´ve blazed the way,but first I better buy his cowpat of a book,so I can throw some specific inaccuracies at him. How can he be proud of this book? It boggles the mind... |
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Mimi
Oct-26-2010, 09:16 GMT
Austria
| If you read to reviews of readers on amazon about his other books, you see, that research never concerned him. I can´t believe that you really earn money with things like that.
But the publishers doesn´t care either, because some of the mistakes or so obvious that simple research on the internet would have shown it. So my conclusion is, that they simply do not care about right facts, they just want to keep it as cheap as possible and make some money out of it. |
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Ian
Oct-26-2010, 10:43 GMT
USA - United Staates America
| Yes,it´s worrying. I wonder how many books I have bought and read,on subjects that I may only have a peripheral interest in,and which may be as inaccurate as this one. I hope this type of book/author are of an extreme minority group. |
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Mimi
Oct-26-2010, 13:55 GMT
Austria
| That´s exactly my concern, too Ian. A lot of people take these things as a fact, because they read it in a book. It is the same problem with newspapers and magazines, there is so little research going on and people take those informations seriously.
Everytime they write about a subject that you know a lot about, it is really annoying how many wrong informations you find in some articles. |
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Klausi
Aug-16-2011, 07:48 GMT
Germany
 | The book will be released in German language this fall, which somehow is a shame, as it might find buyers who should instead read Roswhita Ebel`s great Bigraphy of Paul Simon in German.
This should be supplemented because written about ten years ago.
Ten years come and gone so fast! |
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Carol
Aug-16-2011, 14:12 GMT
Unknown
 | Klausi -- I´ve never heard of this book you mention. I think PS deliberately keeps most of his personal life private, so people who write about him have to start making things up to get a good story. I just quit reading anything unless they interviewed him directly. Wonder if he is more open with people overseas -- I wouldn´t blame him considering some of the irresponsible journalists and photographers we have in the U.S. |
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