The Saga of Baby Divine follows a new born child through her first night. Birth, first look at the world, first steps (well, okay, she found out at once she could not walk a step, but-Whoopee!-could she ever dance), first friend, first fear, and every first that could be fit into one fifty-page evening. Enhancing the perfectly captured drama of all those firsts is the beauty of the writing and illustration. A pentameter that rivals Seuss in creativity, timing, and rhyming, and pages full of animated color that entrances my little ones. Please, request this be re-published!

This book is divine, it's simply sublime, As Baby Divine's tale's related in rhyme. Bette Midler inspires with her words full of charm As she tells us how Baby Divine escapes harm. How so much talent could be in one girl, To fathom it makes my poor brain start to whirl. She not only acts, sings, and dances, she writes! She's the brightest of stars in a world full of nights.

This book is a wonderful tale of the adventures of Baby Divine. It is a fairy tale that Bette fans will Love. Baby Divine has the sassy spirit, and wonderful charm that only The Divine Miss M could give us. The pictures in this book are outstanding. The colors come right out of the page. This is a book that the whole family will enjoy. It is truly Divine!!!

I am a great Bette Midler fan, so this book was top on my list - especilly when its written by Bette, herself. So far Out of all the books on Bette I have enjoyed this one the best - Its so fun and unique. Bette Makes this book full of laughs and funny pictures. Divine. A book every fan must read.

This is a combination of scrap book and jotter, containing thoughts both real and in the abstract from the time deciding to do her first world tour, prepare for it and actually under take it. There are chapters on all the major cities she visited. Only likely to be able to get it now from a Bette Middler fan. Good fun.

This book is sheet music to the whole album of BathHouse Betty. And if you're a musician, as am I, you will love having the music in front of you to play on your instrument. It truly is a great book.

If you love music, and Bette Midler, this book is a great buy. It is the sheet music to every song on Experience the Divine greatest hits. Great for any musician, singer, or just collector period. Because let's not forget it has a great picture of Bette on the front.

Alison J. Waldman crafts a very detailed and comprehensive review of Bette's career until the point the book was written. The best section is the vivid details of the films Bette has made although box office data should have been procured. For fast facts on Bette, there are many and it is nice that a review was included for both the film and music section. To see how a critic felt about Bette's performance whether musically or cinematically is refreshing because it is difficult to find very old reviews from the 80s let alone the 70s. Another interesting section is the details of Bette's possible and still potential projects: to only imagine the various roads Bette career could have taken had she taken some of these projects. A very pleasing book though not as good and comprehensive as Waldman's BARBRA STREISAND SCRAPBOOK. Look for Bette's upcoming tour, her tribute CD to Rosemary Clooney with Barry Manilow and a 2004 film release of STEPFORD WIVES with Nicole Kidman, Matthew Broderick and Glenn Close. Maybe another of these scrapbooks should be crafted because Bette is getting busy again like she was in the late 90s and 2000.

I thought this book was the most incredible book I've ever read! This is a book for any REAL Bette Midler fan!

Just so you know I am the hugest ~*Bette Midler*~ fan in the whole solar system and this book just reinforces how incredible she is. She's such an amazing woman and if you don't think so before, you definitly will when you're done reading. Even though I'm just sixteen she's my idol and this book is a must for any real Bette fan!!! :)

The book is a good read and is very well reasearched. However, it is one of those books that has got all the information around the actual subject and combines that with information which is in the public domain in order to draw its picture and conclusion. Of course, Bette''s life has moved on considereably since this book was published, right down and all the way back up there again.

For years, I have searched for the ultimate Bette Midler biography - one that is chock full of never before heard or told anecdotes, a fresh perspective and insights into oft told situations or tales.

Mark Bego's book is the closest thing we've got right now to a definitive, somewhat linear bio, but it still leaves much to be desired.

I do appreciate that Bego (clearly a fan in his own right) takes the time to go in depth with Midler's albums, making sure every track is commented upon and giving us loads of quality info about the recording process. I love hearing about why certain songs were chosen, discarded, arranged the way they were, et cetera.

The most in depth album commentary in this book is in regards to Bette's *Songs From the New Depression.* The more I read about this lost possibility, the more curious I am to hear the material. It genuinely sounds like it could have led Midler's career in a completely different, more upward musical direction. I do hope Atlantic Records gives Klingman the master tapes back.

No other book has given me a clear picture of what Bette's days at the Continental Baths were like, and I am grateful for that. Such a vivid description of the place and the time. It must have been a ball.

This is also the first telling of Bette's life that gives an indication that Aaron Russo (Bette's manager in the 70's) and Bette were never romantically involved at all. However, the narrative seems fuzzy on whether or not that is entirely accurate.

The aspect of Bette's career that seems to get shortest shrift is her movies. Each one is given a full plot synopsis, which in my opinion, isn't a good idea, for it ruins the movies for newer fans or people who have not seen them. These plot synopses seem to be masking some glaringly obvious missing information. No 'tales from the set' are told. No comments from co-stars or directors (except in the Jinxed section) on what it was like to work with Bette beyond your standard "press-kit" comments.

Even so, there are still some interesting tidbits spread out here and there. One of them is that Anne Archer and Donna Mills where considered for the role of Hillary Whitney in Beaches!

One rather odd thing is the use of numbers in parenthesis after every single quote. I've never seen a device like that in a book, and it made me feel like I was reading a college term paper. Although, on the flip side, I appreciate the quotes are there -- it ensures a degree of accuracy and if I ever want to look up these articles, it's a good resource.

Also, there is serious need for a fact-checker / proof-reader here. Too many noticeable spelling errors, character or actor names misprinted or mis-spelled, etc. I don't want to blame the writer entirely, because this stuff should be checked before going to press.

All in all, I recommend this book, but more for the fact that there really isn't a quality Midler bio out there to compare it to. Perhaps there never will be, unless Bette decides to tell her own story.

After all this time you'd have thought someone would have informed Mr Bego that Billy Cunningham was a musical director more so than a piano player and that when he stopped playing for Ms Midler at the Baths he didn't exactly exit . Even after writing Cher If You Believe, he still doesn't know who Kenny (Claude )Sasha was and why the off Broadway run of French Dressing at the Village Gate (Top of the Gate) and Cher's Act had a lot more to do with the drag bar scene in "The Rose" than Bette' s wanting to be a legendary movie star. The sad part is by the time he revises the book again even more of sources he should have interviewed the first time around won't be with us.

This book which was first released in the 1980s by author Mark Bego gets updated and reworked here. It is impressive to see such a comprehensive scaling of the Divine's long career. Want to hear about some current projects like Bathhouse Betty and her films such as DROWNING MONA and the like, this is the book. I am someone who enjoys reading about others' perspectives on some of my favorite artists. I especially like to read and hear about recent endeavors. Because there has not been a Bette biography since 1997's spectacular BETTE MIDLER SCRAPBOOK and 1995's BETTE by George Mair, that was a long period of no coverage of some of Midler's material. Well, here goes. Even if one is not a Bette fan, one could still enjoy this biography which provides various aspects of the entertainer in a unique form.

First off let me say I am a huge Bette Midler fan and I was really looking forward to reading this book. However once I started to read it I realized how absurd this mans writing is. I can see writing a book about someone whom perhaps isn't your favorite person in the world but why waste your time writing a book if all your going to do is put the person down? There were many things that ticked me off in this book, the fact that he refers to Bette's daughter as "the princess," the fact that he has a hole chapter on Aaron Russo's life after Bette whom if your a fan of Bette's you'll know wasn't the nicest man in the world to her. I mean if your writing a book on Bette Midler why throw in a chapter on some slime balls life once Bette broke away from him? It just seems that in every chapter this man tried to take something that Miss M has said or done and turned it around. The book just wasn't what I thought it was going to be. As a Bette Midler fan I would defiantly NOT recommend this book.

I knew this book about this fantastic talent was in trouble almost right away. The credibility of Mair's account had to be questioned when I found a huge blooper - he states that "Janis Joplin died on stage in San Francisco". WRONG GEORGE. She was found dead in a motel. If this info is wrong - and it wasn't even dependent upon anyone's personal recollections, but rather could have been verified in numerious reference materials readily available to any layman - then I wonder how many other "facts" in this book are also incorrect. And were we kissing up to Aaron Russo a bit here - like, why the chapter about him at the end? Who cares if he started a political party. Par for the course for this book which repeats itself over and over (count how many times George mentions that "now that Bette had a good marriage and a daughter..." in various forms).

Inevitably, bios that depend so much upon quotes from people whose 15 minutes of fame was during the time the author spent interviewing them, are bound to be caught up in their own sudden value. Like does anyone who's now 50+ really remember such significant details about classmates in 3rd grade? This could have been a great bio - it was the author who messed up.

Not everyone over fifty may be able to remember the significant details of their third grade classmates, but I can, and Bette would remember, too. Her memories run long and deep. Bette Midler is talent, creativity and pizzaz unlimited. We all must start our careers somewhere, and Bette has come a long way from a pineapple factory worker in Hawaii to a illustrious, top-of-the world entertainer. She has played a host of characters, and often odd, characters over the years, but the one constant in her career has been her musical ability. She can belt out a song with gusto and enthusiasm or mellow it down to an emotional, heart-rendering performance. Who can forget the, The Rose", the infamous "Wind Beneath My Wings" from the movie, "Beaches" or the poignant rendition of, "My One True Friend" from the movie, "One True Thing?"

This book is jam-packed with nostalgia, information and events in both Bette Midler's personal and career life. She is the type of lady one would like to get to know better, both for her compassionate side, her strength and perserverance, and her endless witty humour. Overall, this is a great biography and well worth reading.