Customer Reviews

Complete Idiot's Guide to Beatles (The Complete Idiot's Guide)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It is a good book for new Beatles fans. A good start for one to know about the Beatles' life and music. I had more than 20 books on The Beatles before I read this book, and it still gave me some insight which I didn't know before.

I really like the ending bit where the author wrote about the reunion, the Anthology albums and the the two new singles. However it was a little short and I wish that it was much much longer.

It's a must buy for beginners and for hard-core Beatles who like to have more books on their Beatles collection.

As a hippie kid, I grew up in a house where the Beatles were at the top of the musical heirarchy. I knew a lot about them as a result of being into them for so long, but this book fills in the little gaps of knowledge I'd always had. Buskin knows the Beatles history inside and out. His coverage of their career is complete, even delving into the social and historical forces that shaped the Fab Four and set the stage for their ongoing success and eventual demise. I've read few rock history books that go so far to paint such a complete picture of the people and events that shaped a rock and roll band.

So why the four out of five stars? Call me picky, but I can't stand when historical authors fail to move in a chronological sequence. There's just no reason why he couldn't have taken it one year at a time with this book.

But while I dislike the structure of the book (which may not have been the author's fault, it is a complete idiot's guide after all), you still come away knowing a LOT more about the Fab Four by the time you're done. So, while it's not the best format to tackle the subject, it certainly succeeds in making a novice knowledgable, which is what these books are all about.

This book did everything I needed it to do. I wanted to get a good history of the Beatles and know how the got to the top. This book certainly did that. The trivia and asides that the "Idiot's" series always does were great and very illuminating. The chronology and Appendix have proven very helpful to me, too, as I try to experience the Beatles in the same order that they were exposed to the world. I found the book to be engaging and difficult to put down. That's always a good sign.

I did have a problem with the format in one case. The author looked at the Beatles from all the different perspectives (music, tours, movies, etc) both before and after they hit it big. To do that he went from the beginining to the end of the 60's in every chapter. It made it difficult to know what albums were out when they were filming "Help!" or when the went to the Maharishi's place. The chronology appendix helped but it still led to some confusion.

In the end though, I can't give this a lower score simply because I enjoyed the book so much and now am inspired to get more Beatles info.

This is just a fun book that is tailored to folks becoming familiar with the Beatles, their music and their long reaching influences on the world at large.

Although it does not move in a chronological sequence, it does a nice job of providing a foundation on which to build Beatle knowledge. As a Beatles' expert, there was little if any new material in this work for me, but I did enjoy it from a "teaching" perspective.

This is not meant to be a scholarly or comprehensive work about the Beatles nor is it a "Dick & Jane" format of merely simplifying their works to the basic "Hear/See the Beatles Play. ...." To describe it from either extreme is to do it a grave injustice; to view it is a harmless teaching tool that also has humorous passages is indeed, I believe the more accurate approach.

I enjoyed it. This book is a good resource tool for the person who is "newly" coming into the Beatles.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Beatles is a gret book. I'm one of the younger beatles fans (not even in highschool yet) and ,unfortunately, didn't get to live through the excitement of Beatlemania. This book gave great details of what is was like before, during,and after the rise of the greatest rock band in history. I really loved it. Buy this book!

If anyone out there truly /is/ a complete Beatles idiot, then this is the perfect first book to read. Filled with little tidbits and choice behind-the-scenes items, it sketches out the Fab Four's story from the skiffle days as the Quarrymen to the last Apple rooftop concert. Perhaps not as in-depth as some titles out there, and certainly written with a view through rose-colored glasses, but still and excellent intro to the magical mystery tour that is the career of the greatest rock group of all time.

I bought this book because I thought, maybe I can learn even more about the famous beatles. And I was right. It contains lots of quotes and facts about the beatles and it's history. I wish there were more pictures, but overall I enjoyed it.

This is a great book for beatles begginers.It takes you through their births and parents.To their school lifes.To their stints in Hamburg until they invade the U.S.A.Then it tells there slow decline of friendship between each other.Then they break up and it takes you to the anthology (1996).Great book,very up to date.

I've found this book is a good read, with a serious mistake. The author claims that McCartney's Sgt. Pepper's uniform bears the patch Officially Pronounced Dead (O.P.D.). Actually the patch is O.P.P for Ontario Provincial Police. McCartney got it from an officer giving to him during one of the Beatles' visit to Toronto.

I was just perusing this title last night at Tower Records. I've been doing some research on the Beatles' concerts in the Philippines and I noticed that this book kept referring to the capital city as "Manilla" instead of the correct spelling "Manila". I didn't notice any places in the book where they said "Londdon", "Pariss", "New Yorrk" or "Tokyyo"... maybe the editors of the book just didn't care.