The life of Henry Miller really derves the talents of someone like Robert Caro, since it can be seen as the basis for a broader history of the American West in the 19th century. Miller himself was self-made, a dynamic, visionary, and fantastically successful land and cattle baron. He also seems to have been welll-liked by the men he hired, and (at least for a land baron) by his neighbors. The story as told by Treadwell is factual enough, but devoid of personal and cultural detail. Miller's business papers are mostly in the collection of the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley, raw data awaiting the talentrs of a more skilled biographer. An out-of-print but fairly easy to find book written by one of Miller's foremen, "California Gringos", is also informative

People generally speak of this bio when talking about "the good ones" on Henry Miller. I disagree. While in-depth, many facts listed are incorrect because of a lack of checking (although many checkers were used) with factual records. Dearborne's biggest angle seems to be to show that Miller was always a closet homosexual & June was a lesbian junkie. While interesting to fans of Miller, a much better written, more accurate biography is available from Robert Ferguson & I would highly recommend reading his version over Dearborne's if you were to only read one Miller bio.

This audio version contains none of Miller's best known works: nothing from the Tropic books, Black Spring or AirConditioned Nightmare. Everything is from one publisher during the 1950s and 1960s.

This is a pleasant book about a life in the practice of the law. It got a very favorable review in the ABA Journal, so I bought it. It was a nice read, but pretty light-weight, and I do not feel that I had gained much from the reading. There are better books available on the subject.

Most people know Henry Miller from his Tropics & The Rosy Crucifixion. This is a Henry Miller that comes off more as a Paul Harvey type commentator. In the book, Miller pays homage to his bike & some friends of his. Miller wrote this book at an old age, and it sure does show as he keeps rambling on, continually repeating himself, struggling to lift these people & his bike to heroic levels. I enjoyed the section on his bike most of all. I'd really only recommend this title to die-hard Miller fanatics. The casual reader will probably just be bored to death or put to sleep by it. Miller has written much, much better books than this.