[close] Love him or loathe him, you've got to admit that Richard Branson has drive. And guts. And enough ambition to sink a battleship--or perhaps that should be a jumbo jet--or even a whole company of jumbos if the Virgin Atlantic/British Airways debacle (which takes up a huge chunk of this already sizable tome) is anything to go by.

Branson's autobiography makes immensely fascinating reading. Whatever you think of Britain's most famous entrepreneur the odds are that you will enjoy reading his autobiography. You may snort at descriptions of his "poor" childhood--spent eating bread and dripping while living in the kind of house house the majority of us visit on Bank Holidays and attending a "minor" public school. You may groan at memories of early initiative tests: how about being thrown out of the family car and told by his mother to find his way home--at the age of four? You may flinch at accounts of his early business days as an unwashed, unshod hippy magazine publisher living en famille with his staff in the crypt of a West London church. But all in all you'll get to understand where the guy's coming from--man.

And like the man himself, there's no holds barred here. Richard bares his soul, from childhood, school days (cheating at exams), loves and losses (lost one wife when a spot of wife-swapping went drastically wrong--for him) and death-defying adventures (yes, the balloons are all there) to the rise and rise of the Virgin empire. His interviews for Student magazine and the early days of Virgin Music read like a chronicle of popular music and culture in the late 20th century. Famous names bounce off every page. Prepare to be enthralled by the life and times of a walking publicity machine. --Carey Green, Amazon.com --This text refers to the hardcover edition of this title