Customer Reviews

Glass Onion: The Beatles In Their Own Words

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Glass Onion: The Beatles in Their Own Words showcases rare, exclusive interviews with the Beatles, their families, friends, and musical colleagues. Also featured is an eclectic array of uncensored press conferences, letters, FBI memos, contemporary reportage, and dozens of previous unpublished photos. Herein recorded are the inimitable voices and views of John, Paul, George, and Ringo, alongside those of Yoko Ono, Linda McCartney, Pete Best, Julian Lennon, Brian Epstein, Billy Preston, the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Ravi Shankar, Denny Laine (of Wings), Bo Diddley, Jerry Rubin, and a host of others. Readers will learn of Elvis Presley badmouthing the Beatles to President Nixon; a boozy conversation between Lennon and Samuel Beckett; John Lennon's last will and testament; Paul's feeling son God, John, and linda's death in 1998. Glass Onion is an intimate, candid, kaleidoscopic, revealing, illuminating portrait of the world's most popular rock band as expressed by the "Fab 4" themselves, and those who knew them best, personally and professionally.

Geoffrey Giuliano is the pack rat of Beatles historians. Any little scraps of clippings on them or interviews, he'll put it between covers, which has often resulted in some lousy books. (That he's a lousy writer doesn't matter with this book, as it is a collection of previously published interviews). And in this book are a lot of interviews the diehard Beatles fan will have read elsewhere. But, like a good pack rat, there ARE some interviews, and some very good ones, that you likely have not read before, of the Fab Four. So, if you are an obsessive Beatles fan like myself, there's enough good stuff (along with the bad) in this book, that I recommend it. It's a bit thicker than most of the author's books, so you get a decent collection of interviews.

It was the most interesting beatles book i've ever read. It had inside information and opinions of each beatle. I felt like i knew them personally. It wasn't helpful in writing my papers but it was the most intriguing. Once I have the time i'd like to read it from cover to cover. It is good for pleasure reading but not for research.

This time Geoffrey Giuliano decided to make life easy for himself and present a book full of interviews, press conferences, letters, FBI memos etc., and so he didn't have to write a lot himself (Bob Wooler wrote the foreword). The book consists of 8 parts; The Beatles (interviews & articles from 1964 - 1996), John Lennon (1963 - 1983), Paul McCartney (1968 - 1998), George Harrison (early 1960's - 1991), Ringo Starr & Pete Best (lumped together for all of 2 articles; 1976 - 1985), Family (1979 - 1984), Friends (1961 - 1984) and Newspaper Reportage (1967 - 1998).
Of course this book will almost certainly feature some interviews that you haven't read before and at 349 pages this book is thicker than the average GG book, but why the interviews etc. provided in this book were selected, when there is so much more to choose from, remains a mystery (the author's introduction doesn't shed any light on this either). There is no specific `theme' in any of the sections, so it's not a book you could easily use as a reference. It includes things that I just can't place in a book like this, for instance `Forty Beatles Trivia Questions' (answers provided) - why? And there is also a single page that claims to be All About Apple Corps Ltd (when there are complete books about Apple alone). Once again - why when the subtitle is The Beatles In Their Own Words? And there are many more puzzling examples.
A lot of the interviews don't have the exact date and/or location where they were recorded and this limits their value somewhat.
The photo sections include quite a few snaps I hadn't seen before, so I found that part interesting (of course the author has made sure he features in a few of them, like he does in most of his books).
I read in another review of this book that it probably took him a weekend to put this one together. If he gets himself a faster PC, he could probably do 3 of these in one weekend.

I sure did. So should any serious beatles fan. Great shots too. I keep it a reference book and go through it often.

As if we need any more evidence that Geoffrey Giuliano is a opportunist hanger-on disguised as a "expert" - this book is strictly the work of a clerk, not an author. Collate a bunch of old, dubious interviews, insert one's own impressions, call it a book. That great effort of journalism must have taken, what, a weekend to toss together?

And isn't it nice Geoffrey Giuliano can take credit for this "monumental" work and collect royalties off it.

Some expert.

I have been a Beatle fan for thirty years, and it is great to finally hear the Beatles own story as told in their own words. Not only are the Beatles featured, but so are their closest family and friends. It was a great read, as are all Beatle author Giuliano's works.

Geoffrey Giulano is the best author in the world. The people who rate him, well they probably haven't even read the book. People do not understand is gift. He can write anything. He is nowhere near a losy writer, like some say. Everyone should read this book, even if they do not like the beatles. Geoffrey Giulano is a best seling author, and a wonderful person as well.