I know, I know, it’s another bloody Beatles book, but you can never have too many can you. Anyway, just a heads up to say that this Sunday Times bestseller by Ian Leslie, is currently selling for 1.89 on the old kindle store. I’ve just bought it, and it’s on a limited time deal, so grab it while you can.
John & Paul – A Love Story in Songs
I recall it got a bit of a showing on here upon release, but I thought it was fab.
The review here was by @Steven-C if I remember correctly. World class Beatles podcaster and a “Beatle brain of Ireland”. He knows what he’s talking about
Went to buy this, only to be informed by Amazon that I purchased it in June. Will have to get round to reading it one day.
Yes you can have too many.
Love the Beatles but there is a need to move on.
Certainly too many to sustain my interest.
Colour me Beatled Out, in the sense of reading about them or audio & video documentaries, for the forseeable future.
There are almost certainly better things anyone could do with their life than read book after book about The Fabs.
I know what you mean, but I do have an obsession with music related books, and keep snapping them up when I see a bargain. It is incredible that new books are being written about them, 55 years after they split up. Will it ever end? Will there one day in the future be the last book ever published about the fab four? Somehow I don’t think so. I certainly won’t be around when that day comes.
Well they are still writing about Shakespeare hundreds of years after his death so don’t think The Beatles have any special claim on this one.
They represented a seismic shift in music in the UK that has endured to this day but let’s be honest they started off as a boy band.
They were extremely popular with teenage girls (and boys), but were not specially created for that market and had 3 songwriters so no they weren’t a boy band
Didn’t start writing songs until they were signed and got George Martin as their producer. They were very much a cut above most pop groups (not a boy band, they were a pop group) in being able to write good pop songs. Hardly any of their competition wrote songs.
And I’m not interested in reading books about Shakespeare, either.
No, John and Paul were writing songs in the late 50s. And they sang a few of their originals at the Decca audition, some time before they met Martin.
If you are a Beatles fan and you don’t have this book you must get it no matter how many Beatles books you already own it’s that good
I suspect the average Beatles obsessive has nightmares about meeting a fellow obsessive and discovering the other guy has a book he doesn’t have. Arrgh….
So you’ll be looking forward to Anthology:2
I’ll correct that – Anthology 4
I picked up a copy of Tony Barrows’ book from a chazza at the weekend. Is it worth reading, or a quid wasted?
Stuart Maconie has written his own Beatles book. We don’t all have to move on, do we? I believe some of us still listen to Deep Purple. 😉
Everybody’s got their own Beatles book to do. Not every Beatles book is worth a read but many are. As the WIYE boys have said, just pick a day, there’s always so much that happened, so many details to explore. You might tire of the constant hooha but even an agnostic can find a lot of value in the best books.
Looking forward to Maconie’s book, when it gets knocked down to 99p on a kindle daily deal.
This is one of the best Beatles books I’ve read and I’ve read quite a few.
It’s being reduced to 99p tomorrow.
Thanks for that, I’ve just bought it. How did you know about it the day before? I would post about it being on offer, but I think people have had enough about Beatle books.
Stuart Maconie posted it on his own Bluesky feed yesterday morning.
There was an entertaining Word in Your Ear podcast about the book a few weeks ago with Maconie Hepworth and Ellen all on fine form
The latest Word Podcast, among other subjects discussed, wonders if Coldplay and Oasis have hoovered up all of the cash in the industry.
I doubt it, I think a lot of people who go to these gigs may not be particularly regular attendees of smaller bands/venues. They did make some good comments that everybody who has paid several hundred quid for a ticket is automatically going to classify the event as “incredible” and “best ever”. I paid 30 quid to see Oasis in the 90s and they were shit. Are they better now? Possibly.
“Civilians” who go to see Coldplay or Oasis in big halls and stadiums probably only ever go to free-entry cover band gigs in pubs, apart from them.
Has anyone told those boys from The Word Podcast that women play music too? I believe Taylor Swift, Pink, Beyoncé and Lana Del Ray fill stadiums, too.
I bought a Deep Purple compilation this week – it was missing from my collection.
Also bought the Alan Toussaint scepter recordings which is sensational.
There is room for a little bit of everything.
Apparently contains quite a few errors.
Where is Beatles Band Book?
For the Festes de Gracia in Barcalona, Joan Blanques from Baix de Tot has been decorated in tribute to the Beatles band, this summer marking the 60th anniversary of the their legendary concert in Barcelona.
Thank you! I thought I’d bought it before now, but it must have been one of the many other ones. “You can never have too.many Beatles books” I’m not sure about that.
I bought this at the time that it got a bit of a drubbing on here, so I wasn’t expecting much. In the end I thought it was one of the most enjoyable Beatles books I’ve read, even if there is some truth in the argument that the facts are selectively used to fit the theory.
Stuart Maconie’s book on the other hand was a hard slog that I ultimately gave up on. It tries to cover too many people in too little detail.
Thanks for the heads up on this book.
It will be added to my long list of Beatles books.
Picked up the notorious Goldman book for a pound at a local market recently.
Reading about it the man obviously disliked Lennon. However he thoroughly researched his subject and having read the first couple of chapters it is very readable and well written.
John is one of my musical heroes and I won’t let the book alter my opinion of him as great musician but extremely flawed human being.
I haven’t read any Beatles biographies, but the Beatles pop up frequently in Dominic Sandbrook’s books about Britain in the 50s and 60s: Never Had it So Good and White Heat. By far the most likeable Beatle portrayed in these books is Ringo, followed by George and Paul who are pretty much tied at 2nd place. John gets pretty short shrift (though even he comes across a lot better than Brian Jones).
Dominic Sandbrook’s books are wonderful. I bought each one on release, and devoured them all. The attention to detail, and the subjects covered are varied and highly entertaining. If anyone is interested, Never Had it So Good is currently 99p on the kindle store.
The Goldman book is good when he sticks to facts, when it comes to conjecture and his own critical opinion, he is way off.
I’ve never read the Goldman book, but I do remember all the fuss over it when it came out. It was all over the news for weeks. Might try and find a cheap copy and give it a go.
It never ceases to amaze me that people are still fascinated by them after all this time. Obviously for those of us who grew up with them they are pretty much ingrained into our DNA, but plenty of authors, commentators and music fans have come to them later and many of them seem more obsessed with them than seems logical. Clearly a big part of this is the music (duh!), but something else must be going on here surely…? The Fabs and their peers in many ways created the world we now live in in terms of popular music, so it is very accessible – literally, of course, via multiple channels, but it also in a cultural sense. I hear music from the 60s and 70s everywhere – supermarkets and shops, pubs with covers bands, you can’t escape it. The Beatles even still look modern – one of the revelations watching stuff like the Get Back footage was how they looked incredibly like young people do today.
I finally got round to reading the Hunter Davies authorised bio a few weeks ago. Of course it only goes up to 1968, and as it was authorised it considerably downplays things like drug use and groupies, and he wasn’t allowed to refer to Epstein’s homosexuality (though God knows he makes it pretty clear, even referring to him as a ‘gay bachelor’). However I thought it was surprisingly perceptive and open for the time, and in many ways sets the template for how The Beatles are still viewed and written about. He interviews all the surviving parents which no one else was able to do and captures well the working and lower middle class 50s background they all came out of. Still worth a read.
Incidentally, with reference to Goldman who @John-Walters mentions, there is an entertaining BBC interview with him, with Hunter there to offer a critical view. He doesn’t pull his punches…
I think it’s a brilliant book. And he is right there when they are making Sgt Pepper. When you read his descriptions of Lennon in particular at that time you can understand the life changes he made just after the book came out.
I’ve read it twice. The first was as a teenager nearly 50 years ago, and then I bought the 40th anniversary edition in 2008. Him being there as he’s writing the book, puts a completely different perspective on it, compared to other biographies. The Lewisohn book(s) though, will always be the definitive ones, when future generations want to know the full story of the fab four.
My top 5 Beatles books:
Hunter Davies
Lewisohn
Illustrated Record (Carr/Tyler)
Beatles Forever (Schaffner)
Many Years From Now (Barry Miles with Macca)
I am in the middle of the Craig Brown book and am enjoying it
That’s a great list. It’s given me an idea to go through all my Beatles books, and list them on here in the order I bought them. I reckon I have over 30, so will try and list them later this week on a new thread.
Thanks. I have a small shelf unit devoted only to Beatles books (and magazines)
Recommended:
Tune In – Mark Lewishon
You Never Give Me Your Money – Pete Doggett
And In The End, last days – Ken McNab
Beatles ’66 – Steve Turner
Living With The Beatles Legend , The Untold Story Of Mal Evans – Ken Womack
Dreaming The Beatles – Rob Sheffield