Customer Reviews

Beatle Books: From Genesis to Revolution

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A number of months have passed since I received my (for the first time for me on Amazon) *pre-ordered* copy of "Beatle Books: From Genesis to Revolution", so the following is perhaps more rational than it might have been back then. As an owner of a fairly extensive library of Beatles books dating back to the mid 70s (including many of the the prized Beatles-related Genesis Publications books), I was very eager to get my hands on a book that I was expecting to not only critique the many volumes on my shelves, but to also fill me in on what missing treasures I might scour the online auction sites for. Not since I naively purchased a widely advertised book on the proven medical secret to avoiding hair loss (100 pages of filler to get to the conclusion: stand on your head to achieve greater blood flow to the follicles) have I felt so cheated by a book purchase upon its arrival. This book is little more useful than a printout of the results of an Amazon search on "Beatles" - except that the latter has an image of the cover wherever available, and in colour to boot. I do notice, however, that Amazon is now selling collected hardcopies of Wiki entries on particular topics, so the author was probably ahead of the curve in that regard. I'm sure he worked very hard compiling the contents, but as other purchasers have already noted here, it's not what any of us were expecting. To potential buyers: caveat emptor. To potential authors: if you write it - properly - they will come.

When I preordered this book I had hoped it would essentially update Bill Harry's Beatles Bibliography 'Paperback Writers', part of a Virgin Books Beatles reference series from 1984, which though good for it's time is now 25 years out of date.

Harry's book describes each listings' content and rates them on a one to five star scale (though I don't remember seeing any one star reviews) This was of some help in directing the reader toward the more essential or interesting books.

Though this book shows the ever blossoming of Beatles in print, it is little more than a listing of books published (in English) from 1963 to 2008 relating to the Beatles.It may be of value to the completist with some knowledge of the books in searching for, or investigating items they may have missed,but

the average Beatlefan looking to build a basic Beatles library will find this book of limited value.

Yes it is a very extensive, current (for now) bibliography but it's not ABOUT the books.