Rating: 
Summary: Quote on the book!
Review: This book was really good,but it had couple mistakes on dates that events ocurred people's names were mention on the wrong stories.Also some chapters dragged didn't give enough info on things.jumped place to place to much.
Rating: 
Summary: Well written book with too little information about Bob.
Review: This book, Catch a Fire, was a very well thought out book. However, it gave more of a summary of the history of Jamaica rather than talking about Bob Marley and Reggae Music. The book gave too much information on the history of Rastafarianism and Jamaica. Timothy White did a sufficient amount of research on Bob Marley through his interviews with relatives, but did not tie enough of the information about the man himself into the book. Overall, a good book for learning about Jamaican culture and a small amount of Regae history.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful book about Bob Marley and his people
Review: This is a great book to fully understand bob marley's music, ideas and life. It may lacks a more profound look on his works, but still is THE BOOK if you want to understand the jamaican culture, specially the music. You'll feel like travelling through time and space. You almost can see, feel or smell places and people. Mr.White has done a labour of love and takes you to a incredible journey. It also includes the best Marley's discography so far. Essential.
Rating: 
Summary: a great book!
Review: this is one of the best books I have ever read it takes you all trough the life of bob from deep jamacian routs to the wailers to his death if you think you know every thing about bob read this book a promise it will teach you more
Rating:
Summary: the Best Ever
Review: This is the first biography of Bob marley that I have read. But I have read (and written) numerous biographies of people in popular culture, social history, military history etc. This book is written in a way that is hard to describe - it uses the jamaican patois so cleverly and appropriately that you realise there is no other way the events in Bob's life could have been described. So detailed are the descriptions that it is obvious the author writes from a personal knowledge of Bob, his family, his friends and his musical associates. Absolutely rivetting, and impossible to put down, it stays with you. I listen to the music now with a quite different appreciation of what is going on in the songs.
Rating:
Summary: Intense Read
Review: This was a purchase after reading the same writer's book on the Beach Boys, which I enjoyed for its many facts and all the historical insight. But it was not a regular bio at all which made it refreshing The same aspects arise here but in an even more intense way. Without the knowledge given on the country, its sociology, politics, religions and superstitions, and so forth, it would get stuck in the category of the generic music biographies, which are getting to be a major bore. Marley and his people live! This book certifies it with lots of interesting layers. So it's cool.
Rating:
Summary: the truth
Review: this was the best book about Bob Marley
Rating:
Summary: A Must read
Review: Whether you are a Music lover or a Passionate historian like myself Mr. Marley is simply a fascinating individual. Born in poverty in one of the worst ghettos of Jamaica he found Music to be his passion, and through it he weaved Politics, history and love into a common mosaic. Marley's new style, his conversion to Rastafarianism, much to the surprise of Haile Sallaise when he visited Jamaica and was almost crushed by crowds, and his exporting of his music and values to America and Africa is an extraordinary story. From Marley's impassioned plea for feuding politicians Manley and Seaga to `come together' as well as Marleys succesful tours of the States and his appearance at independence celebrations in Africa. This is the standard text on Marley and it covers everything from the intricate details of his musical breakthroughs, to the history of his religion and even the current affairs of Jamaica. You will not be disappointed with this excellent, fast paced read which brings the story to a close with Marleys cancerous toe, discovered while playing Soccer in Central Park. Seth J. Frantzman
Rating:
Summary: A Must read
Review: Whether you are a Music lover or a Passionate historian like myself Mr. Marley is simply a fascinating individual. Born in poverty in one of the worst ghettos of Jamaica he found Music to be his passion, and through it he weaved Politics, history and love into a common mosaic. Marley's new style, his conversion to Rastafarianism, much to the surprise of Haile Sallaise when he visited Jamaica and was almost crushed by crowds, and his exporting of his music and values to America and Africa is an extraordinary story. From Marley's impassioned plea for feuding politicians Manley and Seaga to 'come together' as well as Marleys succesful tours of the States and his appearance at independence celebrations in Africa. This is the standard text on Marley and it covers everything from the intricate details of his musical breakthroughs, to the history of his religion and even the current affairs of Jamaica. You will not be disappointed with this excellent, fast paced read which brings the story to a close with Marleys cancerous toe, discovered while playing Soccer in Central Park. Seth J. Frantzman
Rating: 
Summary: Social History and the Power of Personal Destiny
Review: With the current 'Definitive Edition' of CATCH A FIRE: THE LIFE OF BOB MARLEY, the book is nearly 200 pages longer than when it was first published in 1983; indeed each of its over 2 dozen printings in the U.S. alone has each featured much new information. From the start, the aim was to create a social and musical history that also encompassed the unique belief systems of the story's central figures. In the foreward of the book, titled "Riddim Track," the sober historical realities are spelled out, but once the book begins the reader crosses the threshold into a world in which faith and personal destiny are intertwined with documented fact. The text and the extensive appendixes in the back of the book are also designed to be helpful for reference purposes and for those seeking further deep background into the political, cultural and professional/legal pitfalls Marley faced enroute to personal fillfillment. Doubtless, there is a good deal of information here, including a 66-page fully annoted discography that is the most extensive such recording history extant. Still, an author can only hope his audience will approach all this material carefully and digest it completely. Throughout Marley's adult life, Jamaican Prime Minister Michael Manley repeatedly charged CIA surveillance of and interference in Jamaica's internal affairs, with kindred charges that tabs were kept on Marley's activities. Through in-depth reporting and formal requests filed through the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, my book provides details and documents that for the first time illuminate CIA/State Department/U.S. Information Service intelligence activities in Jamaica regarding the Jamaican government and Marley. In terms of musical history in the book, the organic source of Marley's music and body of songwriting is detailed throughout the text, literally from "Judge Not" and "Simmer Down" onward, but also the business framework and recording climate that helped shape or hinder such efforts. For example, on page xiv of the book's preface, I reveal in a single concise paragraph that "Coxsone Dodd" (who is clearly identified in that same paragraph as the man who operated one of the earliest labels for which Marley recorded) has inexplicably been taking writing credit/copyright credit since the early '60s (under the pseudonym "Scorcher") for Wailers songs like "Simmer Down." Marley and the Wailers had of course released "Simmer Down" on Dodd's Coxsone label, but the paragraph offers corroboration that Marley was known to have written and performed that song years before he ever hooked up with Dodd. Thus it plainly appears quite impossible Dodd was the author of "Simmer Down." To quote the concluding sentence in this same CATCH A FIRE paragraph: " 'Who the hell is Scorcher?' commented Rita Marley in exasperation, saying she was aware Coxsone Dodd had claimed credit for some of her husband's ska standards: 'Bob had a problem with it.' " Such are the obstacles against which Marley and his inheritors have had to struggle. Yet Marley prevailed, and found his true path, purpose and fulfillment in life, and he left behind a kindly and inspirational, two-word credo that still inspires us all: "One Love."
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