Customer Reviews

The John Lennon Encyclopedia

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Everything Bill Harry publishes on the Beatles is always a high quality, well-researched effort and this is no exception. It's not hyperbole to say that this book contains virtually everything you ever wanted to know about Lennon; the details are prodigious, and it spans over 1,000 pages of text. It's an almost day by day chronicle of Lennon's life from 1940 until his tragic death in 1980. Casual fans might suffocate under the weight of all this info, but for Lennon fanatics, like me, this is nirvana.

The book is equally divided between personal material about John, his relationships, marriages, divorce, and two sons, and his professional career. His partnership with Paul is explored in exhaustive and fascinating detail and no discernible bias can be seen. Bill Harry has written about all of the Beatles but one can never tell which one is his favorite. That's a notable strength in his writing, he has no agenda or axe to grind, he just presents the glorious facts of the Fab Four. The index is easy to follow and cross-referenced so you can easily find what you're looking for.

If you are a serious fan of John Lennon, this is an indispensible guide to his songwriting, personality and his life. If only he had been allowed more than 40 years on earth, how many more classic songs would he have written? Sadly, we will never know, but this celebration of his life is as good as it gets.

This book has its moments, but I couldn't recommend it to anyone. It is full of errors, contradictions, omissions, misspellings, etc. Having previously read another of Billy Harry's books,("The Ultimate Beatles Encyclopedia") I knew that he wasn't too keen on hiring a good proofreader, but the Lennon book is just too much!!