He Is . . . I Say: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Neil Diamond
Wild, who's written companion books to the sitcomsFriendsandSeinfeld, doesn't pretend to any objectivity on the subject of Neil Diamond—over the years, he's interviewed the singer-songwriter forRolling Stone, written liner notes for a retrospective box set, even produced an episode ofBehind the Music. So this isn't so much a biography as a book-length case of pure, unapologetic fandom that traces every step of Diamond's life, from his childhood in Brooklyn and his rise to fame in the 1960s and '70s to his most recent comeback albums. (Wild is not, however, critically blind; an attempt to watch the film ofJonathan Livingston Seagull, for which Diamond wrote the soundtrack, ends in frustration.) The cutesy references to song titles can get annoying—Wild runs the phrase I'm a Believer as a self-description into the ground—but perceptive insights into the biographical circumstances of Diamond's artistry abound. If you are not a Neil Diamond fan already, this book is not likely to change your mind, but Wild knows he's preaching to the converted: If you hate Neil Diamond, he jokes, then you may actually hate yourself.(Nov.)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.