The book text was not amazing or even new (this being an unauthorized biography), but the reading by Peter Berkrot was first rate. This Early Reviewer came on disk and it was great fun listening to the narration of Berkrot--accents and all. ( )

If you are looking for an in-depth detailed tell all of Ringo’s relationships, thoughts, and experiences, this is not the book for you. It reads like a group of friends sitting around after the funeral reminiscing about the good, bad, and the ugly of the dearly departed. With the telling there are lapses in facts or different memories of what really happened. It is a comfortable story about a unique individual who will always have a place in musical history. Peter Berkrot read the unabridged book on compact disk version. He spoke clearly and it was easy to understand him. The sound quality is consistent throughout. He gave a five star delivery. The book itself only rates a four start for some lapses in fact checking. ( )

I won this Audiobook CD on a Library Thing Early Reviewers giveaway. I found this tale to very disjointed and was constantly having to rewind to understand the context of what the author was talking about at the time. He kept on jumping around in the timeline and I finally had to give up at the 50% mark. This was somewhat of a disappointment as I have been a Beatles fan pretty much my whole life and have enjoyed several previous novels written about the fab four. It might be that I need to donate some more time to this to realize the enjoyment but as of now, I will probably leave it as a DNF. ( )

I found this a fun read (I have it in the audio version). The author (who is no relation -- Starr is his real name) does a good job giving one a feel for the time and place. There was certainly a lot I didn't know about Ringo's background and his life before, during and after the Beatles! Most of what I've read about the Beatles has been either about the group as a whole, or very John-centric. I liked the way this one gives you a view of Ringo as an already strong performer with a great reputation in Liverpool, and then what it was like to come into the group late, as an "outsider", and find his place among them.

The audiobook performer has a decent reading voice but isn't great at accents. Though he does seem to improve somewhat as the book goes on. At first, he made Ringo sound Irish! ( )

New York Post TV columnist Michael Seth Starr's biography of Ringo Starr (no relation) is a thorough chronology of Ringo's life before, with, and after the Beatles. Prospective readers should understand that it is an “unauthorized” biography – in other words, there are no new revelations from Ringo himself. The author relies upon surviving informants and past coverage and memoirs for information. That's not necessarily a bad thing if you want the unvarnished story – a subject's collaboration can obviously veer away from the objective. My point is, don't expect Ringo to shed new light on old incidents.

The book appears to be a fairly objective presentation of Ringo's life story, and he comes off as a likable lad. The good parts of his life and the bad, boozy, parts are dealt with evenhandedly. For readers with more technical knowledge of drumming then I, the Epilogue, interviews with prominent drummers discussing Ringo's influence and technique, will be of interest.

The book, and the author, suffer from lack of a good editor. Several incidents are referred to repeatedly, as if the reader had forgotten about them in the course of reading. Author Starr has a limited stock of phrases, which he uses instead of simpler words. “Come to fruition” and “lost to history” get tiresome if used in the same chapter. Much of the latter chapters, dealing with post-Beatle life, relies heavily on listing the names of other musicians who appeared with Ringo, which isn't scintillating reading.

I received an MP3-CD version of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review, under the LibraryThing Early Reviewer Program. ( )