James Patterson by James Patterson: The Stories of My Life by James Patterson is an autobiographical account of his life growing up becoming a best selling author. If you read this book for insight on the man’s incredible streak of best sellers, then this is not the book for you, it spends maybe 30 percent on writing, and there are some good insights there. But this book is about his life and how he came up from humble beginnings to become the writer he is today. So I already told you it is is 30% about writing what else is this book about, 5% about him growing up, 5% about his family in the present (they seem very nice), 20% about working in advertising, 15% about golf, and 25% about name dropping and celebrity encounters. You will come out of this book knowing James Patterson is a loyal, genuine, at time humble human being who cares about young kids reading and love celebrity encounters and golf. I have read 20 or so James Patterson novels most of them being from the Alex Cross series, and I’ve read 6 under his Jimmy Patterson publication, a small portion of his over 300 titles. The man is a machine and it come from detailed outlines of scene breakdowns, that he takes the reigns or lets the co-writer take it after the outline. I came away from this book wanting a lot more about writing he only talks about 15 of those 300 plus novels in this book. The books talked about are Along Came a Spider, 1st to Die, I Funny, Run Rose Run, The President is Missing, The President’s Daughter, The Last Days of John Lennon, Walk in My Combat Boots, The House of Kennedy, All American Murder: The rise and Fall of Aaron Hernandez, Filthy Rich: The Jeffery Epstein Story, Woman of God, Zoo, Suzanne’s Diary for Nicolaus, and The Thomas Berrymen Number.

What I Learned: To outline your stories is what James Patterson does and preaches. He has made 9 hole in ones, that’s repeated through out the book (being a golfer I was impressed by that). He got a private concert from James Taylor when he was in the nut house. Gives a Christmas bonus to independent book stores. Worked at the Fillmore East where he met Jim Morrison of the Doors and Jimmi Hendrix. He attended Woodstock. Alex Cross was originally a woman named Alexis. Hates all the film adaptations of his work. Talked about his collaboration with his many co-writers.

What I Liked: You can feel his character through his writing which seems very pleasant and easy to talk too. I liked his story about being recognized from Castle as the guy that plays James Patterson. I liked his chapter on actually writing it made me want to read Suzanne’s Diary for Nicolaus, Walk in My Combat Boots and I, Funny. I did like the Jim Morrison story a lot. I did like his story about collaborating with President Clinton and with Dolly Parton, and what they added to the story.

What I Disliked: I wanted this book to be a lot more about writing how did he create his characters especially his bad guys. a lot more insight. He does seem to like true story’s more than fiction right now. The advertising chapters were so boring, should have been cut way down. I felt the biography skipped around way too much. I like golf but I felt it was a little bit too much.

Recommendation: I’m a fan of his Alex Cross series where I have read 18 novels (I haven’t reviewed any for this blog but will reread at some point) and wanted a whole lot more from this book. He talks about all Shakespeare biography’s are made up since we know nothing of the man an his process, with this book we know the man but for got to add the insight to his writing. I will keep reading this man’s very well paced works, but may skip his next biography. I can not recommend this book to my followers but do check out his writing if you need a good fast paced novel. I rated James Patterson by James Patterson: The Stories of My Life by James Patterson 2 out of 5 stars.