James Paul McCartney (TV special) cars", while "The Washington Post" criticised the amount of screen time allocated to Linda McCartney, saying that "her previous careers ... certainly don't qualify her to perform in public." Writing for "Rolling Stone", Lenny Kaye found McCartney "remote and distant from the camera" and added: "if the consequent production did nothing to heal McCartney's ongoing image problem, it certainly didn't help his musical offerings, which came off as forgettably ordinary and certainly disappointing." Referring to the former Beatle's return to television, Alan Coren of "The Times" wrote: "["James Paul McCartney"] was not the sort of programme you make a come-back
Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now perhaps surprisingly, retain 75 per cent of the royalties, meaning it was really going to be Paul's book". Their interviews coincided with McCartney reuniting with his former bandmates George Harrison and Ringo Starr to work on the "Beatles Anthology" project. The publication was further delayed due to his wife Linda McCartney's deteriorating condition after she was diagnosed with breast cancer in late 1995. "Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now" was first published in the United Kingdom on 2 October 1997 by Secker & Warburg. McCartney promoted it on 12 October during an interview with Michael Parkinson on the BBC Radio