Sting and I: The Totally Hilarious Story of Life as Sting's Best Mate

by James Berryman

One of the most successful artists in rock history, Sting is often perceived as an intensely private, overly serious do-gooder. Many biographers have tried to get beyond the image, but Jim Berryman is... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 184454107X
• ISBN13: 9781844541072
• Release Date: March 2005
• Publisher: Blake Publishing
• Length: 301 Pages
• Weight: 0.51 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.2" x 7.8"

Customer Reviews

This is a great, great book!

I got this, and read it over a couple of days just recently. It is a book written by an old friend of Sting's, with the first half being mostly about their childhood days at a catholic school, and the second half being about their exploits in later years. It is unbelievably funny, and entertaining! You can really tell that they've had fun together and love one another. Lots of good hearted poking fun at Stingo. Jim has a wonderful way of telling a story. Makes you feel like he'd tell the story the same way to a group of friends in the living room or something. The book made me laugh throughout, as well as think about some things in my own life. If you love Sting this will give you even more of a look at him and more appreciation for who he is. I would think, though, that even a person who didn't know about Sting would really have fun reading this book. Good job, Berryman.

A very different kind of biography

James Berryman's book is (much) less a biography of Sting than a humorous tale of life in Catholic school in England, where he happened to be friends with the-boy-who-would-be-Sting. This is not a criticism of the volume, though readers looking for deep insight and more detailed information on Sting's early years would do better to read the man's own memoirs, "Broken Music". Berryman's book instead takes an episodic approach to the misadventures of the boys of St. Cuthberts, from the first day of school when he first met on Gordon Sumner to their graduation and beyond. School days take up about three-quarters of the book, the remained covering the years that followed and occasional meetings with Sting as his star began to rise. It's a fun story that does present a decidedly more down-to-earth view of Sting than we've read or seen elsewhere, even if afterwards one does wonder if the whole book hadn't just been a cheap ploy to cash in on Barryman's lifelong friendship with a celebrity. Nevertheless, it is entertaining and probably worth a read by any dedicated Sting fan, as well as those interested in a humorous read about growing up in 1960s Newcastle.

Great for Sting fans, good for others!

This book is written by one of Sting's personal friends. James Berryman shares his impressions and relationship with Sting from the first day of grammer school through the present. It is a fast read, great for Sting fans but also a good book just for the stories James Berryman tells about his life growing up.