Rating: 
Summary: a good page turner
Review: Reading this book was a lot of fun. It takes you from the time Jim grew up as a military brat, his father was a rear admiral in the navy, to becoming an institution in and of himself. He's sometimes very lovable, and at other times, extremely rude. Quite a character, and a lot of interesting little stories. The author is a bit in love with Jim, but I agree with him that if there was anyone who was ready, willing and able to die, it was Jim. BTW, the movie was alright, but this book is much more informative and insightful from Jim's early life to later in life.
Rating: 
Summary: A Drunk or A Hero
Review: I had read this book and i have come to be even better of a fan of the late Jim Morrison. I can connect with the way he acts and I can connect with some of the stunts he pulls. However, this book was poorly written. I loved the start but,towards the end it got extremely boring. I had to keep flipping back to the funny parts during the book just to stay interested. Hopefully the other books on his life are a little more interesting.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Photos, Zilch Insight
Review: If you want any kind of insight into the mind of Jim Morrison, read his interview with Lizzie James. In fact, read any interview with the man himself. Let him speak for himself. It's not as if he isn't articulate enough. These two-bit hacks can't get anywhere near the truth.
Rating: 
Summary: The Arrow Flies: This is the Essential Morrison
Review: Co-written by someone who knew Jim, the Sugarman-Hopkins bio does not escape idol worship of Morrison. Despite its flaws, it makes for a great primer on Jim Morrison and the Doors, capturing his trajectory from his awkward childhood, to poet, intellectual, drug user/experimentor, to rock star, to angry drunk and abuser. Morrison is a complex character, perhaps more interesting, introspective, well read and intelligent than any popular muscian has been since. Recognizing Morrison's Nietzschian influence, Sugarman-Hopkins capture Morrison as the personification of Nietzshe's Dionysus. Their thesis is compelling and obviously an influence of Oliver Stone's filmography. For those interested in the Doors or American Pop Music Culture, I throughly recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book! The only Morrison bio you will ever need
Review: I read this book for the first time when it first came out over 20 years ago. It still stands the test of time and was the start of my personal love affair with the Doors. This book introduced me to The Beat Poets, shamanism, and some of the greatest music ever created. The Doors were a rare band that comes along once in a generation (in fact they were one of the important fore runners to Punk rock as well as Grunge Rock). Jim Morrison was larger then Life and changed the face of rock and roll forever by how he lived his life. While others were singing about peace and love, Morrison took it a step further by breeding art as a driving force into rock Music. While using a mixture of visionary poetry and a flair for the dramic on the stage, he fused the power of dark imagery into a heroic tragidy that has been the blue print for rock stars and artists in their expression and delevery. Jim Morrison was step beyond the mythic in everything he did. No One Here Gets Out Alive is an important and powerful read and a great introduction to the life, death, and mind of a great man that lived his own idea of his own personal tragidy.
Rating:
Summary: Pretty Good Account of the start of the Doors
Review: I read this book several years ago. I still remember that it was a pretty good book. Especially recalling about how the doors got started. It also mentions many of Jim Morrison's love interests, mostly Pam, with some mention to Patricia Kennely. Overall, worth the time.
Rating:
Summary: a stain on morrison's memory
Review: this book has about as much substance to it as a song by britney spears. it is written more like a comic book and less like a biography, and the reader with even the slightest bit of critical intelligence will be in awe that two grown men could be capable of such blatant idolatry and hero worship. what's more, they actually think of the public as so stupid that we're going to take some of this obviously fabricated crap as truth. as if they could know some of the incidents so minutely described here even with the most painstaking interviews and research. i have a great admiration for jim morrison and believe that in the final equation he was nothing less than a great man, albeit one whose considerable neurosis and self destructiveness kept him from being acknowledged as such, but the only way people are ever going to take morrison's message of personal freedom seriously is if his warts are shown for what they are:warts. drug abuse (after a certain point) is simply drug abuse, alcoholism is simply alcoholism, and aberrant behavior (beyond what is inevitable in the creative process) is simply aberrant behavior. none of these traits necessarily indicate some deeper genius or an underlying philosophy of life. actually, they are almost always the rather pathetic signs of stunted growth, and in morrison this was clearly the case. if fans of morrison try to disguise his purely individual and purely unfortunate flaws as some 'spiritual approach' to life, they inevitably cut off their noses to spite their face and end up by making the man look like a big, goofy, misguided joke. there is the morrison that matters, who sang about people disintegrating societal barriers and pushing lived experience to the max, there is the morrison who wrote eloquent reams of surreal (if occasionally amateurish and unpolished) poetry and song lyrics, and there is the morrison who both existentially and professionally represented freedom through open defiance of convention and personal rebellion. then there is the simply sad morrison, hooked on drugs and unable to relate to people, inconsiderate and in some occasions perhaps bordering on psychotic. the two are as separate and distinct as two different people. romanticizing the second invalidates the first entirely.
Rating:
Summary: Almost Great
Review: This is the musician biography to be read by all high school Doors fans. They'll love the anecdotes (many of which have been acknowledged as fabrications, but have since been accepted as 'truth'). "No One Here Gets Out Alive" builds Morrison up to be an intellectual superman, an incredible lover and a top singer. Read his poetry, and you'll learn he wanted to a pop version of Pabla Neruda but didn't know the craft well enough. He was a great rock singer, but didn't have the range of a Freddy Mercury (Queen's lead singer). Read "No One Here Gets Out Alive" by keep in mind it is a mix of what was true, was almost true, and "would've been cool if it was" true. Anthony Trendl
Rating:
Summary: Interesting, Well-Assembled.
Review: "No One Here Gets Out Alive" is always signaled as the definitive biography of Jim Morrison. I see it more as a good read, a very good read. There have been some plausible accusations of serious myth-making taking place in the writing of this book (Ray Manzarek is said to have crossed out "the bad stuff"). James Riordan's "Break On Through" is a better, more-detailed and captivating book in my opinion. But "No One Here Gets Out Alive" plays like what it has been accused of being, a great myth. It is kind of appropriate, considering Morrison is essentially a myth onto himself. His image has not died and the music is still alive and well among the youth (I'm not complaining, hot chicks love "Light My Fire" whenever I put it on). The book is a must for Doors fans, it is a document of the life and times of Morrison, of the era in which he flourished and it celebrates the power and poetry of his songs. It is a neat visual experience in the descriptions of Jim's stage performances and in his primal acts we see a blue-print for the madness we so regularly see in today's rock acts. Reading the book is like reading some kind of modern legend. It is also packed with some great photos of Jim and the band (some album covers are included). The story of The Doors has always been a big epic drenched in excess, insane genius, artistic tenderness and even tragic romance. You can see where all the great songs come from. Jim Morrison was a brilliant artist, his songs are timeless and he was also a fantastic poet capable of creating very captivating images in wonderful songs like "The Crystal Ship" and "End Of The Night," he took us on dark, hypnotic journeys in "The End" and "When The Music's Over" and simply recorded some great music. "No One Here Gets Out Alive" celebrates more the image than the man, and yet is also a fascinating examination of the life. I will never tire of reading Jim's lyrics and hearing The Doors' best songs, "No One Here Gets Out Alive" is a book for fans who feel the same.
Rating:
Summary: Yes, the Doors are a band
Review: Every person has two sides. One is visible at all times. It projects what that person wants thought about him. The other, and the more important one, shows the person himself. A very lucky and select few get the opportunity to glimpse at this side. Jerry Hopkins and Danny Sugerman got their glimpse, and after four years of research, proudly present it to the world. Of course, the obvious is included. Jim was in the Doors. He didn't like authority, and he had a drinking problem. Unfortunately, this is the basis of most biographies. That's why there are 100 books on Abraham Lincoln. But these authors chose to go beyond that, creating a piece of art instead of a manual. They gathered quotes from family, friends, producers, managers, police, and even his favorite books. They pieced together entire conversations. To the best of anyone's ability but Jim's, they showed the man that he was. To write a full-length novel on a person who didn't see his 30th birthday is incredible. To make it enjoyable to read is even more so. With the help of too many people to count, they traced his childhood, teenage and college years, entrance to music, rise to fame, and fall into oblivion. All leading to his mysterious death. They followed his rapid transitions of temperament and progressive changes in wants and beliefs as well as his day to day life. To be frank, there is no need for any other book about Jim Morrison. To write one would be to tarnish the current one, not because it will be greater, but because it will most certainly be worse. To all the fans of the man or his band, and to all who are just curious, do yourself a favor and find this one.
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