cover image Take Me Home: An Autobiography

Take Me Home: An Autobiography

John Denver. Harmony, $23 (262pp) ISBN 978-0-517-59537-4

Singer-songwriter Denver, now 50, uses this self-indulgent autobiography to review his career and muse about the naivete that has characterized his personal and professional life. Writing with freelancer Tobier, he describes a troubled relationship with conservative, middle-class parents, the failure of his two marriages, deception by a manager and his admiration for people like Werner Erhard of est, Wernher von Braun of the National Space Institute and architect Buckminster Fuller, who he claims have inspired his efforts on behalf of the environment and other causes. In spite of his great success as a performer and his accomplishments as a social activist, Denver, who derives the book's title from his song ``Take Me Home, Country Roads,'' says he is still trying to find himself, and he wallows in a great deal of soul searching and simplistic philosophizing, none of which makes for engrossing reading. Photos not seen by PW. (Nov.)