Now, at last, Norman turns his formidable talent to the Beatle for whom being a Beatle was never enough. Drawing on previously untapped sources, and with unprecedented access to all the major characters, Norman presents the comprehensive and most revealing portrait of John Lennon ever published.This masterly biography takes a fresh and penetrating look at every aspect of Lennon's much-chronicled life, including the songs that have turned him, posthumously, into a near-secular saint. In three years of research, Norman has turned up an extraordinary amount of new information about even the best-known episodes of Lennon folklore—his upbringing by his strict Aunt Mimi; his allegedly wasted school and student days; the evolution of his peerless creative partnership with Paul McCartney; his Beatle-busting love affair with a Japanese performance artist; his forays into painting and literature; his experiments with Transcendental Meditation, primal scream therapy, and drugs. The book's numerous key informants and interviewees include Sir Paul McCartney, Sir George Martin, Sean Lennon—whose moving reminiscence reveals his father as never seen before—and Yoko Ono, who speaks with sometimes shocking candor about the inner workings of her marriage to John.“[A] haunting, mammoth, terrific piece of work.” -New York Times Honest and unflinching, as John himself would wish, Norman gives us the whole man in all his endless contradictions—tough and cynical, hilariously funny but also naive, vulnerable and insecure—and reveals how the mother who gave him away as a toddler haunted his mind and his music for the rest of his days.

    Mark Lewisohn uses his unprecedented archival access and hundreds of new interviews to construct the full story of the lives and work of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. Ten years in the making, Tune In takes the Beatles from before their childhoods through the final hour of 1962—when, with breakthrough success just days away, they stand on the cusp of a whole new kind of fame and celebrity. They’ve one hit record ("Love Me Do") behind them and the next ("Please Please Me") primed for release, their first album session is booked, and America is clear on the horizon.  This is the lesser-known Beatles story—the pre-Fab years of Liverpool and Hamburg—and in many respects the most absorbing and incredible period of them all. Here is the complete and true account of their family lives, childhoods, teenage years and their infatuation with American music, here is the riveting narrative of their unforgettable days and nights in the Cavern Club, their laughs, larks and adventures when they could move about freely, before fame closed in.  For those who’ve never read a Beatles book before, this is the place to discover the young men behind the icons. For those who think they know John, Paul, George, and Ringo, it’s time to press the Reset button and tune into the real story, the lasting word.

    This book reveals how the relationship between the UK’s foremost broadcasting organization and the world’s most celebrated pop group developed between 1962 and 1970.This in-depth account of The Beatles’ BBC appearances features transcripts of broadcast interviews plus photographs of the group and fascinating documents from the archives. From the unprecedented excitement of Beatlemania to the mature reflection of the last interviews before the group’s split, it was all seen and heard on the BBC. Experience the history of The Beatles the way it really happened.

    Agreement that they were far and away the best pop group ever is all but universal. And nowhere is the spirit of the Sixties - both in its soaring optimism and its drug-spirited introspection - more perfectly expressed than in the Beatles' music. Taking all the elements which combined to create each song as it was captured on vinyl - the songwriting process, the stimuli of contemporary pop hits and events, the evolving input from each of the Four, the brilliant innovations pulled off in the studio and, ultimately, the twisting grip of psychedelic drugs - the Beatles are pinpointed, record by record, in precise and fascinating detail against the backdrop of that vibrant era.

    His novels have been shortlisted for the Booker Prize and been translated into over twenty languages. In Will, his first ever memoir, he turns his attention fully to his own self. A brilliant literary work, Will echoes the best of Self's fiction, reminding us how the personal is always historical, and reflecting that personal history through a psychedelic prism. Will spins the reader from Self's childhood in a North London suburb to his mind-expanding education at Oxford, to a Burroughsian trip to Morocco, an outback vision in Australia, and, finally, a nightmarish turn in rehab. From an attempt to score as a teenager by buying a pastry breakfast for a user-dealer friend in lieu of payment (Self also considers buying a banana to rob a chemist's to get his fix), to his university years, fueled with literature but also with "heroin, hashish, cocaine, grass and amphetamine"; to his experiments in sex, identity, and his first relationships, Self takes us on a tour of his young life, letting us inside one of the best minds of our generation. Whether discussing pharmacology: "there's nothing remotely euphoric about methadone: it just makes you feel as if you're buried up to your waist"; religion: "God is great . . . Gear is great . . . Therefore: gear is God . . ."; or economics: "the best things in life are free--while the worst retail at a tenner a bag," Self's mordant humor and vivid writing make this book one of the most powerful depictions of the allure and power of hard drugs ever written. It is also a technicolor portrait of the strangenesses of family, the transcendence of art, and the defiant quest for self-expression in a rule-filled world. Will is an addiction memoir like none before, powerfully bringing to the page the peerless euphoria of getting high, and simultaneously offering a pitiless examination of the lows that follow, a karmic cycle that leads back to the author's own lack of . . . will.Both kunstlerroman and confessional, Will is a tale of excess and degradation, an exploration of the wild experiences that have formed the basis of Self's incandescent fictions.

    As the only authorized biographer, Davies had full access to the Fab Four as well as their help and encouragement. He spent eighteen months with them when they were at the peak of their musical genius and at the pinnacle of their popularity, and he remained friends with each of the members as they went their separate ways. This updated edition addresses recent changes in the lives of the Beatles: Paul's marriage, George's death, and their new books and records.

    Martin’s working-class childhood, his education, and his musical influences at London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama profoundly shaped his early career in the BBC’s Classical Music department and as head of the EMI Group’s Parlophone Records. These musical influences would become the fount out of which flowed the genius behind his seven years producing the Beatles’ incredible body of work, including such albums as Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and Abbey Road. The first book of a two-part series, Maximum Volume traces Martin’s early years as a scratch pianist, his life in the Fleet Air Arm during the Second World War, and his groundbreaking work as the head of Parlophone Records during the 1950s, when Martin saved the company from ruin after making his name as a producer of comedy and spoken-word recordings. In its most dramatic moments, Maximum Volume narrates the story of Martin’s unlikely discovery of the Beatles and his painstaking efforts to prepare their newfangled sound for the British music marketplace. As the story unfolds, Martin and the band craft numerous number-one hits along the group’s progress towards The Ed Sullivan Show and such landmark songs as “Yesterday” and “In My Life”—Beatles tunes that bear Martin’s unmistakable musical signature.

    Beatles.

    It's likely that Du Noyer has spent more hours in formal, recorded conversation with McCartney than any other writer."Conversations with McCartney" is the culmination of Du Noyer's long association with McCartney and his music. It draws from their interview sessions across 35 years, coupling McCartney's own, candid thoughts with his observations and analysis.

    Through the voices of those who witnessed it or were swept up in it indirectly, The Beatles Are Here! explores the emotional impact—some might call it hysteria—of the Fab Four’s February 1964 dramatic landing on our shores. Contributors, including Lisa See, Gay Talese, Renée Fleming, Roy Blount, Jr., and many others, describe in essays and interviews how they were inspired by the Beatles. This intimate and entertaining collection arose from writer Penelope Rowlands’s own Beatlemaniac phase: she was one of the screaming girls captured in an iconic photograph that has since been published around the world—and is displayed on the cover of this book. The stories of these girls, who found each other again almost 50 years later, are part of this volume as well. The Beatles Are Here! gets to the heart of why, half a century later, the Beatles still matter to us so deeply.

    Ken McNab's And in the End: The Last Days of The Beatles is an in-depth look at the Fab Four's acrimonious final year...

    Fab is the definitive portrait of McCartney, a man of contradictions and a consummate musician far more ruthless, ambitious, and moody than his relaxed public image implies. Based on original research and more than two hundred new interviews, Fab also reveals for the first time the full story of his two marriages, romances, family feuds, phenomenal wealth, and complex relationships with his fellow ex-Beatles.

    The mythic moments are all here. Magical Mystery Tours is a tour de force." ---Entertainment WeeklyGrowing up in a postwar Liverpool suburb, Tony Bramwell was boyhood friends with three of the Beatles long before they were famous. And by the time he caught up with George Harrison on the top of a bus to check out "The Beatles, direct from Hamburg"---one of which George turned out to be---Tony was well into a life story absolutely unlike any other.Tony carried George's guitar that night, and he stayed with the band from the first Number 1 to the last. From overseeing the tours of Brian Epstein's Merseybeat stars to producing shows for Jimi Hendrix, the Who, Cream, and Pink Floyd at Epstein's Savile Theatre; and from producing and directing Beatles videos to heading Apple Films, Tony's life really did encompass a who's who of rock.With an insider's shrewd eye, Tony describes the rise and fall of the Apple empire, Brian Epstein's frolics, Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters, Phil Spector's eccentric behavior, and stories never before told about Yoko Ono. He uncovers new information about the Shea Stadium concert footage, John Lennon's late-night "escapes," and more. From the Cavern Club to the rooftop concert, and from scraps of song lyrics to the discovery of the famous Mr. Kite circus poster, Tony Bramwell really did see it all.It's a story in which every character is one of the musical 1960s most colorful. Conversational, direct, and honest, the ultimate Beatles insider finally shares his own version of the frantic and glorious ascent of four boys from Liverpool lads to rock and roll kings.Praise for Magical Mystery Tours"A must-read for anyone interested in the history of the Fab Four. Bramwell doesn't hold back with his tales of the grand insanity that tailed The Beatles."--The New York Post "Energetically written…a vivid and intensely personal look at not only the Beatles but at a storybook trip from the docks of Liverpool to swinging London and the very epicenter of the British invasion."--Publishers Weekly "A sprawling, amiable account of life near the world's most famous and most gifted pop group. A welcome addition to Beatles lore."--The Globe and Mail (Canada)

    Anyway they didn't get me. I attended to varicous schools in Liddypol. And still didn't pass—much to my Aunties supplies. As a member of the most publified Beatles my and (P, G, and R's) records might seem funnier to some of you than this book, but as far as I'm conceived this correction of short writty is the most wonderfoul larf I've ever ready. God help and breed you all.

    She’s since returned to the United States, but this distillation of incisive—and irreverent—insights, now updated with a new preface, is just as illuminating today. And perhaps even more so, in the wake of Brexit and the attendant national identity crisis.While there may be no easy answer to the question of how, exactly, to understand the English, The Anglo Files—part anthropological field study, part memoir—helps point the way.