Losing my Virginity - Richard Branson > Reviews > Thankfully Virgin planes go all the way

Author's product rating:   

Degree of Information	Very high
How easy was it to read / get information from	Very easy
How interesting was the book?	Compelling
How useful was it?	Very useful
Would you read it again?	Yes
Value for money	Good

Advantages:	A fascinating read, a page - turner
Disadvantages:	Always difficult to tell with autobiographies what is NOT being said

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

If this book had been pressed into my hand and I had been told it was a work of fiction I would have ended up being very disappointed with it. I would have come away thinking "what a load of far-fetched nonsense". The fact that this story is true, and even taking into consideration that the author is going to paint the best possible picture of himself, this really is an amazing read.

After reading this I WANT TO WORK FOR VIRGIN! I don't care what section of this highly diversified company I might end up in, I just want to work there. Somehow it seems that anyone coming in contact with this man must be filled with enthusiasm for the endless possibilities in life and see the clear product of the rewards for hard work and measured risk-taking. Either that or they feel entirely inadequate!

Well, after that gushing introduction I had better try and contain myself a little now while I review the book. First off I should say that before reading this book I knew little about Branson - only that he was this millionaire entrepreneur who seemed to have a finger in very many business pies and was more likely to wear a silly costume than a business suit. So, I came to this book with a very open mind.

Branson starts off with his parents and his early years, and right from the first few pages you are intrigued. His parents seem quite extraordinary people and treated their children as equal partners from a very early age. Some of the stories about how his mother cultivated an independent streak in him are amusing but also alarming! As a teenager he was sent to boarding school. Although he was dyslexic he soon became a school favourite as he was an excellent sportsman. An accident on the soccer field put an end to this one day and he found himself a poor student without the glory of sport to balance this.

During his later years in school he started a magazine called Student with a friend. Here we are first introduced to his sheer "where there's a will there's a way" attitude as he used every means available to him to obtain advertisers, subscribers and interviewees. Within a short while the magazine was being sold in many schools across Britain and there were now a team of people working on it. Branson had to wheel and deal to ensure the money was always there for the next edition. Recognising that music was very important in the lives of young people, and that the major record shops were colluding to keep prices high, the team at Student started a mail-order record business. This became more and more successful until a postal strike threatened their viability. They needed swiftly to find a premises from which to sell their records. Within a week of the postal strike being announced the first Virgin record shop was opened and so the dynasty began.

From these small beginnings we are brought through the rollercoaster of Branson's life - through the setting up of the Virgin record label, his first marriage with wife-swapping episodes, his second marraige, his various record-breaking balloon trips and cross-Antlantic boat trips, the birth of his children, the many many different business deals he made, and the major confrontation with BA after he set up Virgin Atlantic. I have not covered everything in that last sentence - there have been so many episodes to his life that I am sure he could have written 5 or 6 books, and perhaps yet will!

So, how does Richard Branson come across? As an entrepreneur who has learned to trust his instincts his story is extremely impressive. I cannot express adequately how frankly stressful this book is at times to read. The money worries that he has had, and the huge amount he has had to endure from banks would have seen a lesser person reduced to a wreck. This man knows how to listen to customers and staff and is never too proud to see that he can learn as much, if not more, from “the man on the street” as from a whole team of advisors. As a person I don’t believe we are let very deeply into the soul of Richard Branson. Perhaps he would disagree and thinks he revealed an awful lot of himself in the book. This is true in the area of his business dealings and his daring balloon trips where we get to feel his fear, adrenaline and drive. On the personal side though I feel he kept much of his emotions there private to himself. For instance he does not go into much detail about his feelings when his first marriage came to an end, nor does he go into great detail about his courtship of his second wife, although I imagine this in itself would be a fascinating tale. That is not so much a criticism of the book, but more a mention of fact. This is not the kind of autobiography where the author is striving to constantly show you he is more caring, loving or clever than the next guy, it is more fact-based.

Would I recommend this book? Would I what?? This should be compulsory reading for students. Inspiring.

Now, for some balance, I’m off to read Tom Bower’s biography of Branson which, according to the blurb on my book, is “a tale of greed, ambition and ruthless self-creation”. Even if I feel disillusioned after that something tells me anytime I’m feeling unimpressed with how my life is going I will return to “Losing my Virginity” for some enthusiasm.