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Summary: A great book; if only...
Review: I know the sheer size of this volume would probably make this idea unworkable, but I WISH they had been able to caption all the photos. I have been a Beatles fan since 1964, and so recognized most of the people and places, but I still would have enjoyed the confirmation complete captioning would have provided.
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Summary: those were the days
Review: For us baby boomers, it's a wonderful book, and would be a fabulous gift.
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Summary: My First Kiss!
Review: I was eight or nine years old and vividly remember my girl friend Joy Ferris inviting me into her bedroom. Her mother wasn't home and her brothers were out in the nieghborhood so I felt at ease when she asked me to sit on her bed in the darkened bedroom. Joy put "I Want To Hold Your Hand" on the record player and slipped into her bathroom to change. When she came out she modeled her swim suit and kiss me on my cheek, God how I loved those exciting Beatles.Needless to say that for my generation few artist have reached this level of ICON that these guys have. I wonder if every generation has someone they love as much as we loved the Beatles. Oh yeah the book, I think it is great! Curtiss De Vedrine - author "The Second Coming Of Age"
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Summary: Incredible Magical Mystery Tour
Review: I'm not ashamed to admit it. I am a Beatlemaniac. They weren't of my era growing up in the 70's but I didn't care. While my friends were chiding me for being so behind the times, I for once didn't listen to peer pressure. I took my Beatle habit underground until I got old enough to realize..if you don't dig the Beatles, I can't be your friend. I'm old now, 38, and I don't have time for the lovable mop tops. But every once in awhile, something happens that sends me back to the "comfort music" of the Beatles. This incredible book has got me going again and reminding me why I loved them. With the perspective of being inside the band, the stories and the photos are like nothing else. So much has been written about them, it's refreshing and timely to have the four members speak out. The interviews with John were so well edited and all four of them had incredible insight that time wisdom and age have cristalized into this masterpeice of pop culture, music and history. No wonder the Beatles 1 album tops the charts, knocking of the BackStreet Boy franchise. It proves in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make.!
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Summary: Had to have it
Review: I had to own this, but as a starving law student with no time for recreational reading I was planning to wait until the summer. My mother sent it to me as a gift knowing what a Beatle fan I am and I must say, it is a treasure. Just owning it is a pleasure, the book feels like a an item of fine craftsmanship, like a custom chair, a fine watch or my old Thorens turntable, it is simply exquisite. The pages are thick and heavy and the printing quality is such that it is a pleasure to behold. That the contect is equal to the presentation is what makes this such a treasure. I've read most Beatles books, but this was the first one that felt more like sitting down and talking with them rather than being given a history lecture (well, the second, I have a little British book full of quotes that does rather well). Lastly there is the photography, including many photos I had never seen before. All reproduced large enough and of sufficient quality to be really enjoyed. Well worth the money.
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Summary: "Beatlemania" in America in 1964
Review: The Beatle's Anthology is much more than another peek at the Fab Four.Turning as I almost always do from back to front, I stopped first to see what was shared In 1964. The pictures accurately portray a time of innocence in America captured by the happy and fresh "look" of these four young and extremely high energized young men. All teenage girls adored the Beatle's because they were so cute but I believe their energy is what actually captured our attention. The pictures through-out the anthology portray not only the Beatles but showcase the mood that was prevalent,as well. The feelings are totally captured by the story each picture tells about not only the evolution of the Beatles spirituality and evolution of their consciousness but the feelings that were felt not only in this country but around the world at the time, and so this is also a book that unintentionally chronicles the pulse of America, as well. (I was going to rate it a four because I would have rather had a collection of smaller books but since it also tells another story it warrants its massive bulk and is definitely a coffee table book.)It surprised me to feel and see this as I looked at the book the first time, it really was amazing and you can see by the pictures how young and fresh the Beatles looked and how their energy traveled around the world, and the pages remembering this time showed the Beatles totally happy and the energy level in the country was extremely high and they were the personification of that time! And as the pictures change it is easy to remember each time by the changing somber and reflective moods as each year brought more serious issues to our awareness.But 1964 was my year for experiencing the Beatle's and that is what I would like to share...definitely a fun year! So I was thinking about the Beatles, because I have been hearing and reading about them recently, and stepped back in my memory to 1964, when the Beatles music made its way to our high school, in a small town in the California desert, and how the music was part of our daily reality. We all ate lunch outside by the football field, and there was a little ticket booth that we used for a music shack during lunch each day, and we played the Beatles everyday at lunchtime. My girlfriends and I worked at the Fox and Crest theaters and all of the Beatle movies were playing and we thought all of the Beatles were so cute. My boyfriend at the time became my husband and he hated the Beatles because he had to watch their movies every night when he came to pick me up after work! They had so much energy and were so cute and had such wit that they amused us. We loved the Beatles and thought Paul was so cute, and John was so deep, and George was so quiet, and Ringo always amused us with his wit. Enjoying the fun memories of a time of innocence when just like the teenagers in "American Graffiti" we all dragged main street then through the Fosters Freeze parking lot in a loop thru Bakers then back over to Fosters Freeze over and over seeing who was out and especially to make sure we were seen! My boyfriend let me drive his baby blue 1960 Dodge with the huge fins in back, and it had push buttons so I thought it was great, and I found out later the reason he trusted me with his car was because he wanted to make sure other guys knew I was his girlfriend! Which scored huge points with me as a result of his caring enough about me to do something so romantic! Fun memories and I see I have a Rubber Soul album with the price still on it... the price $3.96.
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Summary: THE Best Book - How could you not like it???
Review: First of all, I would like to say that I was not a huge Beatles Fan before I read this book. I mean, I liked the Beatles and I had a couple CD's, but the thing was I didn't really know enough about them to like them. This book changed all that. I actually purchased this book for a speech that I had to do in school on "The Musical Journey of the Beatles." I started out using it like a refrence book. You know, look in the index, then go the page and read about the subject you want to put in your speech. I soon found, however, that this was impossible. It was so interesting that I just kept on reading after I had found the topic I was looking for. And reading and reading and reading and.... well, you get the idea. There are so many little factoids here that you can't find anywhere else. Like, where Sgt. Pepper came from. "The orginal idea for Sgt. Pepper came from Paul. While on a trip to the West Coast, he encountered a trend of long group names. 'People were no longer The Beatles or The Crickets, they were suddenly Fred and his incredible shrinking greatful airplanes' as John explains in THE BEATLES ANTHOLOGY" That's a line from my speech, and there are tons more like that. So, it doesn't matter if you are or if you are not a Beatles Fan. If you have even gotten to this page, you have some intrest in them, so go ahead, spend that $36.OO (it's a 40% discount!!), and invest in the single most useful tool to prevent Beatles ignorance. (By the way, just in case you cared, I got an A on my speech!)
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Summary: The Beatles Anthology Book
Review: This book is worth so much more than it costs. Trust me, get it! If it's for a present, get it! You can't go wrong with this. I also suggest getting a plastic cover to protect the paper cover. I love the Beatles and I miss John. :(
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Summary: Magical History Tour
Review: Even now it's tempting to think of the Beatles as a cultural force so powerful they not only transformed popular music but impacted everything from fashion to politics. But as John, Paul, George and Ringo tell it in this long-awaited group recollection, their view was decidedly different. "It was crazy," says George Harrison, describing the height of Beatlemania. "Not within the band. In the band we were normal. The rest of the world was crazy." That unique perspective -- along with more than 1,000 snapshots, handwritten notes and business letters -- gives this epic volume its considerable charm. Even Beatle experts will enjoy the fresh anecdotes uncovered in interviews with the three surviving band members. (Lennon's contribution is cobbled together from various interviews.) However, their alternating recollections don't always get to the emotional heart of their experience -- which only makes Lennon's demise the more poignant. For while the interviews he gave prior to his 1980 death are refreshingly frank, we're left wondering how the most unvarnished of the Beatles would have seen it so many years later. A magical history tour for devotees and naivaetes alike.
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Summary: Beatles Very Pro-Union!
Review: Excellent pictures and quotes. But the biggest surprise for me was realizing how pro-union the Beatles really were! I guess coming from Liverpool they really appreciated the importance of having unions to protect workers' basic rights. From their manager to their bottle boy--this was one unionized band! Go Beatles! Go union!
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