No comments about Mia Hamm: Soccer Player (Ferguson Career Biographies).

No comments about Ronaldinho (Robbie Readers) (Robbie Readers) (Robbie Readers).

4 comments about The Autobiography: Liverpool's Greatest Striker, Liverpool's Greatest Era, The True Story.

1. The transcriptions in this book may provide one with the ability to play something that sounds something like the recordings, but are not completely accurate. Tones are missing. Fingerings are incorrect. One may argue that the musicial notation is somewhat accurate, but the tablature seems to indicate that it was produced only by translating the notes, not by listening to the recordings (e.g., by listening to the recording one could determine whether a note was played higher on a low string or lower on a higher string).
   Pass on this book if you wish to play a Rush song exactly as recorded. Instead, look to back issues of guitar magazines (especially Guitar for the Practicing Musician, no longer in print).



2. I'm glad I got this book and can stop shuffling pages of printed amateur tab off the internet. However I do agree with the other reviewer that some of the fingerings indicated here seem to be inaccurate. I was watching the Tom Sawyer video from Rio and it's clear Alex is using different fingerings on the opening chords than indicated. Not a huge deal but a bit frustrating because one reason to buy these books is to play it "just like" your heroes. (To be fair, it may be that the book is an accurate rendition of studio versions and Alex changes his fingerings in concert for ease of play, lack of overdubbing etc...)Even with that quibble, any new or intermediate guitarist who likes Rush will like this book.



3. I saw Rush at the Chicago Ampitheater in 1981, for their 'Moving Pictures' tour. During the performance of 'Red Barchetta', at the break where there's that 'vroom-vroom' sound, on a giant on-stage screen there was displayed this cartoon footage of an undulating roadway. It was like, everyone in the audience became a Ferrari, dude.
   
   Yeah, thinking back it was kinda' cheesy, but at the time it was all totally cool and really freaky.
   
   So, do you know what 22,000 joints, bongs, pipes, and one-hitters sound like - as they're toked on all at once? Well, to paraphrase H. Ross Perot - it makes a giant sucking sound.
   
   Alex Leifson is a premier and singular guitarist. The solo riffs on 'Working Man' sound like a chainsaw cutting through a block of ice. Way cool!
   
   And this book fairly depicts what's going on. Although, a few of the chord voicings and phrasings aren't how I play. But, the key signatures and changes are there, as well as most of the notes. What's lacking, and rightly so as only play yields such secrets, are tips to things like wrist motion (loose) and fortitude (tight). Then of course there is the issue of phrasing. The solution? Practice! Experiment! Then practice some more!
   
   The transcriptions in 'Anthology' are quite similar, if not exactly the same, as any other proper transcriptions I've ever seen published elsewhere.



4. I've always loved to play guitar as well as keyboard. This book was very satisfying and when you see the details and complexities of Alex Lifeson's riffs and solos, you realize how underrated he is. The tablature makes it very easy for anyone to learn, particularly for beginniners. My only real complaint is that the book really should have had at least 5 more songs or so. The book does include 20 of Rush's greatest hits, all of them worth learning, but you can't help noticing that songs like Cygnus X-1 and 2112 are missing. Don't get me wrong, this is still a great book, and it even transcribes most of the keyboard/synth and bass guitar parts for guitar, which can help you stay with the music. For Rush fans as well as prog rockers who want to challenge themselves, this book is a trip worth taking.

No comments about Chelsea FC: The Official Biography: The Definitive Story of the First 100 Years.

No comments about Finn Mccool's Football Club: The Birth, Death, and Resurrection of a Pub Soccer Team in the City of the Dead.

No comments about The Busby Babes: Men of Magic.

3 comments about Hillsborough: The Truth.

1. Read this book and you will come to understand just why, years after the tragedy, the families of the victims are still campaigning for justice.

   This is the story as it should have been told, all those years ago. However the South Yorkshire police, the media, successive governments and finally, the law courts have all seen to it that the truth remains untold. 96 people died going to watch a football match. Many thousands more are still troubled by the traumas of that day and all they want is the guilty parties to own up.

   It is a sometimes harrowing read, but Phil Scraton has reclaimed the book's title from the headline of Sun newspaper, which to this day, is still despised on Merseyside.




2. this is a brilliant book, it shows how absolutly disgusting the s*n "newspaper" is, vile scum, please please please buy this book



3. Like Scraton, I am a supporter of Liverpool, the greatest English football team. Also, I was confused over how 90+ fans could be killed in a football game. After doing lots of research on what occurred in April 1989, I was hoping for more insight from Scraton.
   
   And although he did provide some interesting facts, I couldn't help but find the book to drag dryly. The style is not visual which made it difficult for me to see, feel, and understand the commotion that occurred in Hillsborough. In deference to the families of the victims, I'm not intending to mean that I need gory descriptive details. What happened was extremely sad. But I had difficulties placing myself at Hillsborough on that dreaded April day.
   
   Despite the dry style, the book offers tremendous facts as to what happened. I would not recommend this book to a casual student of violence in stadiums, but would to any Liverpool supporter who understood the inaccurate account of what happened that day when the media immorally and manipulatively blamed this tragedy on the Liverpool supporters and not on England's incorrect focus on how to control crowds or the Hillsborough police who had ignored lessons learned from previous crowd crushes and stampedes when they created a negligible contingency plan in the event of a disaster at the stadium which obviously failed.
   
   Scraton does succeed in eliminating the overstated generalization of drunken soccer fans as the primary cause for deaths in stadiums. He also effectively delves into the lack of accountability by the security practices in place.
   
   How the families were insensitively treated by the authorities was eye-opening. It seemed as if the police were interrogating families of the victims instead of assisting them during the grieving process. How the bodies of the victims were deemed "property of the coroner" was absurd.
   
   Scraton also provides and excellent historical context which proves that there had been previous studies in stadium catastrophes that had been ignored. Had the police learned from the previous lessons, 90 fans would still be supporting the Reds.
   
   Finally, this book does stand alone as the most accurate historical account of what went wrong on that sunny spring day in Sheffield where something unfortunately perilous occurred.
   
   God bless those who perished in Hillsborough.

No comments about Behind the Dream.

No comments about David Beckham: Made in Manchester. An Unofficial Photographic Record.

1 comments about Soccer Superstars (Boys Rock!).

1. My child took this book out of the school library. We found it very interesting and we are going to look for some more books from the Boys Rock! series to read together.