John Lennon: The Life - Softcover

Norman, Philip

Softcover

ISBN 10: 000727825X ISBN 13: 9780007278251

Publisher: HarperCollins Entertainment, 2008

Synopsis

The final word on music’s greatest legend, in which Philip Norman reveals a John Lennon the world has never seen. With ground-breaking insight into the pain, beauty and frustration that shaped the genius of modern music, John Lennon: The Life redefines a legend.

John Lennon - the iconic songwriter, composer and one quarter of The Beatles - was a giant of the twentieth century. As the founding member of the world's most successful group ever, he changed lives.

Now, the bestselling author of Shout!, recognised for over 25 years as the ultimate Beatles biography, turns his formidable talent to the Beatle for whom belonging to the world's most beloved pop group was never enough.

Drawing on previously untapped sources, and with unprecedented access to all the major characters, Philip Norman presents the most complete and revealing portrait of John Lennon ever written. The book's hundreds of key informants and interviewees include Sir Paul McCartney, Sir George Martin, Neil Aspinall, Sean Lennon, whose moving reminiscence reveals his father as never before, and Yoko Ono, who speaks with sometimes shocking candour about the inner workings of her marriage to John.

This masterpiece of biography takes a fresh look at every aspect of Lennon's much-chronicled life as Norman shows us the whole man from Lennon's schooldays to his death outside his New York apartment building on December 8, 1980.

Honest and unflinching and featuring previously unseen photographs this truly is the definitive John Lennon.

About this title

Review:

‘Reading this book brings the John Lennon I knew vividly back to life.’
Bill Harry, founder of Mersey Beat

Praise for Philip Norman:
Shout!:
‘This stands as the first (and still the best) collision of Beatles history and literary depth... just about everything is rendered with beautiful prose and laser-like insight’
Q

‘As beautiful and unsettling as any late Beatles record’
Daily Express

‘Conscientiously researched... his command of his material is faultless’
George Melly, Observer

'Although more than 800 pages long, this book is nicely paced, well researched and will not disappoint.'
Glasgow Evening Times

‘Meticulously researched, compulsively readable book.’
Sunday Times Culture magazine

‘The Rock biography of the Year.’
Metro

‘The best all-round Lennon biography.’
Sunday Herald Magazine

From the Publisher:

Since John Lennon's assassination in 1980 neither of the two attempts at a full scale biography of this towering 20th century icon have succeeded in getting to the bottom of the story or bringing John alive on the page. Philip Norman's John Lennon: the Life is thus the first definitive biography and the best ever likely to be written. During three years of research, Norman had access to all the major players in the story, notably John's widow, Yoko Ono, who speaks with sometimes shocking candour about the inner workings of their marriage, and their son Sean, who provides a moving reminiscence of the father he lost at the age of five. Co-operation has also come from the likes of Sir Paul McCartney; the Beatles' record-producer, Sir George Martin; and the late Neil Aspinall, the band's closest associate, who broke a 40-year rule not to talk to writers in speaking extensively to Norman. The book in addition has unprecedented access to never-before-seen letters, family documents, artworks and photographs. Its masterly narrative is presented with the historical sweep and literary verve that has made Philip Norman's Shout: the Beatles in their Generation a classic of biography, in any genre, since 1982.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins Entertainment
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 000727825X
• ISBN 13: 9780007278251
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 864