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Charles Bukowski Hardcover – July 1, 2005

by Barry Miles (Author)

12 ratings

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Fear makes me a writer, fear and a lack of confidence. A major new biography on an increasingly important American literary icon, by the most acclaimed writer on the Beat Generation, Barry Miles. Miles knew all the key players in the Beat era, including William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, and also recorded with Bukowski. Having spoken with people close to Bukowski, and with a full examination of Bukowski's extensive writings, Miles has written the definitive story of the laureate of American low-life.

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Charles Bukowski

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About the Author

Barry Miles is the author of The Beat Hotel, The British Invasion, Hippie, Paul McCartney, Zappa, and many more popular culture titles.

Product details

Item Weight : 1.38 pounds
ISBN-10 : 1852272716
ISBN-13 : 978-1852272715
Hardcover : 314 pages
Product Dimensions : 6.5 x 1.25 x 9.75 inches
Publisher : Virgin Books; First Edition (July 1, 2005)
Language: : English

Best-sellers rank #4,896,145 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
#17,124 in American Literature Criticism
#23,158 in Author Biographies
#28,921 in American Poetry (Books)

Customer Reviews:
12 ratings

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5 star		51%
4 star		20%
3 star		8%
2 star		13%
1 star		8%

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DanD

Good biography

Reviewed in the United States on December 12, 2018

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I usually buy and read everything about Charles Bukowski, whom I love. I've read all his novels and most of his short stories. As written in dealing with Linda King's book, I usually like things written by and about Bukowski, because they keep me in touch with him. It's just because I learn more and more about him and his work. Now my personal adage is, 'No book is perfect, but if I have fun I love it!' What about this one? Yes, I did have fun and so I do love it...

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Ralph Gordon

Not great

Reviewed in the United States on March 12, 2006

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I'm a huge Bukowski fan. This is the worst biography about Bukowski that I've read.

There were a few interesting things that were uncovered through research - histories of some of Buk's women, for example. Unfortunately, there were far too many case where the author jumps around in time, for no good reason. He'll be talking about Bukowski publishing a book in the 70s and then jump back and have a few sentences about 66 when Bukowski did something strange when he was drunk. C'mon! If there were good dramatic reason for it (the Godfather films, for example) I'm all for it. Here is just seems sloppy.

This is an example of how the author figures out if something really happened or not (I'm paraphrasing here): "Bukowski wrote about this a few different times, so it must be at least somewhat true!" Thanks pal, I could've figured that one out! The author does this repeatedly and it gets tiring. Sometimes, the author tracks down someone who was actually there, but not often.

I really only gave this 2 stars because it's about BUKOWSKI, which is welcome. I could even tolerate the weird "proving" of events. But I cannot stand the jumping around, it's distracting. Peace.

7 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

fan like me. altough i'd read a lot about bukowski's ...

Reviewed in the United States on April 28, 2018

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you probably read this book if your a buk. fan like me. altough i'd read a lot about bukowski's life before this really connected all the dots.
d

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Robert J Walkowski

Good Book

Reviewed in the United States on June 10, 2015

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A good, honest overall biography. It gives a total picture of Charles Bukowski. Barry Miles is on of the best biographers. I have read a number of books by and about Bukowski.

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S. S. Harrison

The Best Bukowski biography

Reviewed in the United States on June 22, 2006

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Barry Miles has covered a lot of ground in his life. Someone should wrtie a book about him. But when it comes to Bukowski I am in a strange position. I corresponded with him in a minor way. (He wrote me 20 times, I wrote him about 55) I own a bookstore in San Francisco where I've gotten to know many people whom Bukowski knew well. Neeli Cherkovski works down the street at New College. Harold Norse lives on my block and will be turning 90 in two weeks. John Bryan is a regular fixture. Jack Micheline painted the back room. Linda King sculped the head of A.D. Winans in my store. But my point being that unless you know better it is very very difficult to know if a biographer is on target. You might get distracted by purely trivial things...you might like the writing and decide it also must be acurate. Often it is not. But look the essence is did he fairly and acurately capture the man? For me Barry Miles book is definately the best. For instance he covers Bukowsk's bad habit of hatcheting old freinds. Like Jon Webb and John Bryan. He gets so many things so right. Yes he slips a bit now and then but I kept reading this biography and marveled at how he nailed one thing after another. Jesus he must have read 10,000 Bukowski letters carefully. Well, ok, he didn't mention how I wrote Bukowski and convienced him to buy a MacIntosh computer. Which I did. I forgive him. But Miles has written an excellent work well worth buying.

8 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

Good

Reviewed in the United States on April 18, 2017

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A good account of Bukowskis life.

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Enus

Average biography about a deeply flawed person.

Reviewed in the United States on September 17, 2016

I was bored a long way from the finish. This book is on par with the Sounes biography and about the same quality with similar anecdotes and material. The one thing that Miles did better than most was not let Bukowski off the hook for his outrageous lies or stretching the truth at best. Also Bukowski's treatment of some of his friends was appalling especially people that helped him early in his career. He used people up and often wrote about them. Bukowski the man was not very likeable but he was sometimes a great writer especially in the first half of his career. Apart from the odd collection his later writing did not have the same impact as earlier works as he had had said it all before and said it better. The subjects for his stories and poems never varied much and there was too much filler in most of his later books. The fictional Chinaski was a much better person than Bukowski was. Too often the real one was a drunk bore and also manipulative. In Bukowski's case the fiction was much more interesting than the truth and more entertaining. The irony is that many of the fans thought he was Chinaski in real life.

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J. Boley

A fresh look at a worn subject

Reviewed in the United States on January 11, 2006

With so many works on the life of Bukowski out there, I was skeptical about this new biography. However, I have read many other good bios by Miles, and was looking forward to this one. It did not leave me disappointed.

The best way to get to know Bukowski is through his numerous autobiographical writings, but I enjoyed this independent take on his life. Unlike Cherkovski's biography of Buk, this book is written by someone who was not intimately familiar with the man. That, in and of itself, was refreshing. Miles is a competent biographer, and at times his resourcefulness for following through with sources and information really come through in the book. The reward for the reader is some new information on Buk that I hadn't read before elsewhere.

The book does have some weaknesses. This book does pull from most of the expected sources a Buk reader would expect, like "Ham on Rye" and interviews, so some of it is repetitious. But Bukowski teetered on the edge of vagrancy most of his life, so you can imagine tracking down a paper trail of facts after his death is not an easy task. Also, at times the author, I think, makes some stretches in his conclusions. But on the whole I thought it was a fresh and balanced look at the life of Bukowski. I think that this will become the preferred biography of Buk over the Cherkovski biography.

5 people found this helpful

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