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This is an edited review I m not changing my mind about the writing, just trying to be a little kinder Full disclosure I gave up on page 35 Here s why My first hint of something amiss came with the author s admission that he d never seen a full Leonard Cohen concert While I m sure it s possible to write a biography of a living and currently touring performing artist without having ever caught a whole show, it s inexcusable.Hints started piling up as I had to re read sentences for meaning I gave [...]

They say do not judge a book by its cover but on hindsight this book is exactly like it s cover A man in a suit who you can t clearly see and the clothes themselves are like a detective show disguise A portrait on the wall, which we later discover only vaguely looks like the man portrayed within, a vase of roses pity they weren t gardenias that would have worked with the story much better , and a small boat which I now think would be a Greek boat I must also mention the man in the photo has beau [...]

It took me a couple of years to get around to reading this book which is odd because Leonard is a lifelong hero of mine Perhaps it was the lame title that stalled me Anyway, Anthony Reynolds has obviously done his homework sorting out chronological events over a period of forty years Because it s Cohen s life, you stick with it even if Reynolds never saw one of his concerts until Cohen was in his seventies and has had no personal contact with him whatsoever Sadly, Reynolds or his editor neglecte [...]

Anyone familiar with Reynolds work will know that his books in particular avoid the obvious whilst offering incredible detail and information.This work is no different, drawing on scores of new interviews with Cohen s collaborators and colleagues allowing you to feel as if you are right there in the studio during the making of Cohen s seminal albums Reynolds is not one to focus on the day to day private life of his subjects The angle is always the work Speaking of which, the proof reader could a [...]

This was horrible Where was the editor Turgid, purple prose, misused words, alliteration so heinous that one wishes there was a stiff fine for committing it, greengrocer s apostrophes everywhere and perhaps worst of all, the author s drunken presence at a concert at the start of a book about Mr Cohen Did I finish it No Can I judge it anyway Yes, indeed I dipped and sampled throughout, just in case it improved I would love to read a good biography of Leonard Cohen This is most emphatically not it [...]

I am a huge fan of Leonard Cohen and have already read the Sylvie Simmon s biography which, in my opinion, is a lot better This is an interesting read at times, and I like the structure, following the subject through each of his major albums However, the syntax was clunky and I didn t get the sense from the author that he himself was a fan, which made the whole thing seem slightly cold and passionless.

I have complete sympathy for those who commented on the remarkable number of editing issues in this book, but I persevered and such issues almost disappeared in the second half Given that the author is something of a poetry aficionado, and thus presumably a person who cares about words, I am left thinking that perhaps the issue is not one of poor editing although I still think it is , but one of style With that out of the way, I really enjoyed this book Although it goes off into details that wer [...]

The subject of this biography remains elusive and enigmatic throughout, cultivating various deliberately surface, pleasant, cinematic personas to keep his interior intact and unknown For many years intoxicants further blurred his interactions with the world Others describe him as gracious gentlemanly pragmatic workmanlike Despite his many lovers, passion does not figure into this narrative Leonard Cohen s conversations and interview answers are pretty bland.But there are the written words, the p [...]

Leonard Cohen is without a doubt one of the greatest musicians I ve had the opportunity to listen to again and again Naturally, a biography in his honor piqued my interests However, those interests might have been piqued a little higher than I realized Author Anthony Reynolds is certainly an avid Cohen fan himself and puts a wealth of detail into this door stopper of a book, doing semi detective work on the side by taking note of Cohen s friends and fan s opinions of him However, the book suffer [...]

Two stars It was ok Leonard Cohen A Remarkable Life , published 2010, I found to be a somewhat unremarkable biography Certainly the author Anthony Reynolds has done the homework on his subject, but I just got bored with the continuous turgid details of Cohen s times in the studio or on tour Maybe I ve outgrown this stuff from the discography world of fandom.There were some brighter details, for instance Cohen s Montreal upbringing, or his sojourn on the Greek island of Hydra, or his stint as a Z [...]

Okay, so it wasn t the worst biography in the world In fact, it s amazing the amount of detail there is in the book considering how private Leonard Cohen is I really wanted to like it, however the most disappointing and distracting feature of this book was the poor editing spelling mistakes, repeated words, using their instead of there , and so on And before anyone decides to pick me up on my own grammar spelling I m not doing this as a commercial venture, and I am not writing about the life of [...]

I can honestly say this is one of the worst written Books on the great man I ve ever read Mr Reynolds seems to be unable to make up his mind whether he is a North of England Writer using fragments of that dialect or if he is an American Writer who has picked up some West Midlands and Yorkshire dialectics It is a badly written book on nearly every level except for occasional flashes of hero worship which Mr Reynolds sets off with even occasional forays into very weak investigative journalism As [...]

Ouch The author must be spitting blood over this A thoughtful, well researched and interesting read that appears to have been given the rush release cash in treatment by the publisher It s not just the lack of proofreading it s the editing Not good enough for a twenty quid bio of a serious artist.Aside from that the section on Death of a Ladies Man is fascinating, as are the accounts of how Cohen put together his later albums It might have been down to the difficulty of talking to the people con [...]

I read this to the end despite that difficult and dense writing that would have benefitted from an editor Typos and grammatical errors are easy enough to get around but the author seems to get lost in detail that is often superfluous and appropriate to footnotes of which there are none I finished the book because I was interested in the subject Apparently the author had not only never attended a Leonard Cohen concert but he also relied entirely on third party sources in his research Hopefully t [...]

I m very sad to admit this, as I really enjoyed Anthony Reynolds books about The Walker Brothers and Jeff Buckley, but this is not a masterpiece It s very detailed, but not in an interesting way The writing was repetitive and uninspiring, which was an unpleasant surprise as AR usually uses words so well I must admit that I am not an obsessive fan of Mr Cohen, perhaps others would find the level of information entertaining than I did, but overall I can t recommend this book Sorry.

Okay, this should have been edited with a better eye Other than that, it was well worth the read for me Reynolds follows Lennie s life, chronologically by his work, from the earliest poems to the just completed world tour As a lifetime lover of almost everything LC has created, I couldn t put the book down My four stars are for the content and presentation.

Although I thought the author wrote a poorly structured story, I found the essence of the saga very interesting probably because I find Leonard Cohen s music to be compelling with a cadence that fits his poetic mind Reynolds defined Cohen in much the manner I hear him.

Well, I am glad I read it because I did learn a lot of Leonard Cohen, but man, what a slog Also, it was rife with typos in spacing, missing words, and incorrect words, which really surprised me My favorite was that something got his heckles up.

, Sylvie Simmons book show 1 , .

Nice enough, workmanlike but marred by an unconscionable amount of typographical errors.

A good biography about the greatest of men, but I feel like there are a few serious omissions.

Rating for Leonard millions, but this book does not do his story justice Better to read I m Your Man by Sylvie Simmons.

A poorly edited hagiography It has to say about the music business than it does about the music and lyrics of this great modern poet.

Comprehensive Inspiring Warts all Up to date A must for any dedicated fan as I am.

Ive read a lot of books about Leonard and this was a very good one and I learned alot about him The writing was good and his research excellent.