Customer Reviews

Michael Landon: Life, Love and Laughter

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I picked up this book thinking that it would provide information about Michael Landon from the people who knew him best. And to a certain degree at least, it did. The book contains some great photographs of Landon behind the scenes in his many television projects and with his family and friends. But the book is essentially a disconnected group of stories told to the authors by friends and former coworkers of Landon's, with a very thin thread tying them together. What you walk away from after reading this book is a sense that Landon was a good man, a great father, and a perfectionist in his work -- with wonderful stories to back that up. But what the book is missing is depth. I would have preferred to see lengthy interviews with a fraction of the people this book quotes, because those would have been more illuminating about Landon as a person. Instead, the reader is left to piece together the half-page anecdotes of dozens and dozens of people, some of whom knew Landon for years and others of whom knew him only briefly. Maybe this was the intention of the authors and of Landon's family. Any fan of Landon's work will certainly enjoy what's here. But I think a man like Michael Landon is deserving of a more substantial treatment, and I was left wishing the authors had taken some more time and done a better job (the kind of job Landon himself apparently would have done if the job had been given to him).

I absolutely love this book!! It is my second favorite book about the late and great Mike Landon, (next to "Conversations with Michael Landon"). I just absolutely love that this book has so many pictures of ML that I had not seen before, even a pic or two of him directing in the birdsuit during the episode of Highway to Heaven "Bird of a Feather"!! If anyone wants to read a wholesome good quality book about the greatest actor, director, producer, writer of all time, then get this book!! A+++ from me!!

After ordering the entire 2nd season of LHOTP impulsively late one night while watching infomercials and eating onion rings from Fudruckers I absolutely fell in love with Michael Landon. He's everything I wish I could be. I mean, here I am; forty-four years old, unemployed, pretty overweight, recently diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and not doing a great job controlling it, rarely cleanly shaven, divorced, childless (as far as I know), and without so much as a decent american made car that runs reliably. But Michael, now there's a quality guy, a real role model.

I heard from a friend in my favorite gaming chat room that there was a great book about Michael. I don't really care to read much, aside from an article every once in a while about Dale Earnhardt that my mom will send me. But I picked up this book and read it cover to cover in only a month.

If you have any self respect, you'll probably be disappointed by this book. Hopefully you'll at least be embarrassed to admit that you considered buying it. But, if you're like me, without many other quality sources of entertainment, it might be just the thing.