The Great Getty: The Life and Loves of J. Paul Getty--Richest Man in the World

Rating:
Summary: The Great Getty is a Great Read
Review: Robert Lenzer does an excellent job of showing every side of a very multi-faceted man. J. Paul Getty may be described as a horrible father, an unsurpassed lover, a great business man or a paranoid eccentric. Lenzer finds a way to portray all these descriptions and more in just 235 pages. Lenzer does not drag down the conversational tone with technical business terms. Although business was of central importance to Getty and, as such, of central importance to the book, Lenzer throws in pieces about Getty's personal life to keep the reader entertained.
My sole complaint is that sometimes Lenzer appears to be stretching to make the book longer. Many times Lenzer goes off on tangents, describing a particular favorite beach of Getty's, or giving the history of some of Getty Oil Company's rivals. It seems that Lenzer does not feel he has enough primary source material about Getty alone, so he makes the most of the sources he does have.
Despite the stretching, The Great Getty provides a few hours of entertainment (and often shock) as Lenzer shows us just what it might be like to walk in the shoes of the richest man in the world.