The Beatles Archives - Bob on Books

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Destination Bookstores

Last Saturday, my son and I made the pilgrimage to John K. King’s Used and Rare Books near downtown Detroit. A banner outside the building boasts of it being “Named #2 Book Store in the World” in 2014 by Business Insider. Having wandered through the aisles of books packed into four floors of this former glove factory, I can believe it.

It is a destination bookstore, one of those unusual and incredible places booklovers put on their bucket list. The closest thing to it in my home town is The Book Loft, boasting 32 rooms of books. But whereas the books in the Book Loft are new, everything at John King’s was used. It had the feel of being the place where books from estate sales go to live. There were lots of old hardbacks without dustcovers, the titles barely readable on the spines, books that were the “thing to read” back in the Seventies, and lots of old paperbacks.

Three of my finds were among the paperbacks. I love the mystery novels of Michael Innes, that I just noted are back in print. I like to find the old Penguin paperbacks and I found three I’ve not read in great condition. Score! I never see these at my local Half Price. I picked up a few others as well.

In one sense, any bookstore is a “destination” bookstore. I rarely go looking for a particular book and delight when a book finds me! But if I could travel, I’d love to visit some of the great ones like Powell’s, The Strand, Book People, Parnassus Books (Anne Patchett’s bookstore), and many others.

Of course, part of the fun was the traveling company. I don’t often get to spend a whole day with my son, solving the world’s problems, enjoying good Lebanese food along the way, and comparing our finds. This is a day I will treasure, and not just because of the great bookstore we visited.

Five Articles Worth Reading

I still remember the first time I saw the Beatles on Ed Sullivan. Now, T. Bone Burnett, in “Beatlemania: A Penetrating New Book Celebrates Lennon and McCartney” offers a marvelous review of the new book, John & Paul, chronicling their genius and relationship.

Jordan Kisner asks “Who Needs Intimacy?,” exploring the trend in modern novels (perhaps paralleling modern life) where women are foregoing intimacy and child-bearing.

Another challenge of modern life, at least in the States, is the cost of housing. “Invisible Crisis” explores the “hidden phenomenon of working homelessness,” a review of There Is No Place for Us. The article notes “[i]n no state today can a minimum-wage worker afford a two-bedroom apartment.”

On a very different note, Open Culture features “The Only Illustrated Manuscript of Homer’s Iliad from Antiquity“. In addition to text and images, the article includes a video on the Ambrosian Iliad.

Finally, Matt Dinan’s “Saul Bellow’s Ravelstein” discusses the novel, twenty-five years after publication. This is a Saul Bellow I’ve not read but Dinan’s conclusion intrigued me:

“Ravelstein seems to speak to a problem that its author could not have known would be so acute a quarter century later. Reading a novel can’t solve the problem of the loss of the world to abstraction and distraction, but insofar as the problem is intellectual, an intellectual response is required.“

Quote of the Week

Sadly, one of the symptoms of the “loss of the world” described above is the erasing of the history of peoples and events that don’t fit the ideal of a national story. George MacDonald Fraser, born one hundred years ago April 2 observed:

“I think little of people who will deny their history because it doesn’t present the picture they would like.”

Miscellaneous Musings

I noted above the re-publication of the mysteries of Michael Innes as a welcome event. Publisher’s Weekly announced that another of my favorite author’s works are being reissued: Picador to Reissue More than 100 Novels by Georges Simenon. Both men were marvelous writers, first introduced to us on those green-spined Penguins!

One cannot help but write from the perspective of one’s time. But I’ve wondered if several books I’ve read recently would have been written differently after January 20 of this year.

The one pleasant surprise of yesterday was three new books I ordered from Barnes & Noble, arrived five days earlier than promised. I also used up a generous gift card, a retirement gift I finally redeemed. That was fun.

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: Wesley Hill, Easter

Tuesday: Christine Marie Eberle, Finding God Along the Way

Wednesday: William Kent Krueger, Vermilion Drift

Thursday: James F. McGrath, John of History, Baptist of Faith

Friday, David T. Koyzis, Citizenship Without Illusions

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for March 30-April 5, 2025!

Find past editions of The Weekly Wrap under The Weekly Wrap heading on this page

The Beatles: The Biography, Bob Spitz. New York: Little, Brown, 2005.

Summary: A biography of the band from its beginnings, rise, Beatlemania, studio work, and demise, with mini-biographies of each of the Beatles, their manager, Brian Epstein.

One of those “where were you?” moments for those of us of a certain age is “where were you when The Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan show for the first time?” I was a fourth grader, watching them on my grandparents television while the adults tut-tutted about the “long hairs” and their music. Inside, I was fascinated, as were all my classmates, especially the girls, who talked endlessly about “my favorite Beatle.”

The 2005 “biography” of the Fab Four brings back all those memories and so much more–much that was fascinating and some that I’d rather not have known. Spitz traces the history of the band from its beginnings with John Lennon and The Quarrymen, the meeting with Paul McCartney, the Liverpool years and the various combinations of musicians including the fan favorite drummer Pete Best whose home was a favorite hangout until he was unceremoniously ditched and Ringo brought on board on the eve of their fame. Spitz writes abbreviated biographies of each of the Beatles and their manager, Brian Epstein.

We learn how formative their time in Hamburg was and the significant advance they made under Brian Epstein’s management. Spitz takes us through all the things he did to polish their image, how they became “The Beatles,” his efforts to get them recorded and promoted, and the mistakes he made in setting up recording contracts. As their records hit the charts and they toured Great Britain, we see them reach the “toppermost of the poppermost.” Then Ed Sullivan. America. Beatlemania with its surging crowds, shrieking and swooning girls, and ever-increasing danger to the Beatles leading to their end of touring in 1966.

Spitz takes us behind the scenes and we see the genius of the songwriting duo of Lennon-McCartney as well as the eventual strains in their relationship, the guitarwork and growing skill of George and how Ringo not only provided the musical foundation for the band but also a certain emotional glue. We learn what it was like to record at Abbey Road. We observe the self-effacing genius of George Martin, who never profited beyond his modest salary, helping with the innovative work on albums like “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.”

Spitz reminds us of the trip to India to learn meditation as the band sought both to grow spiritually and mend the growing artistic and personal rifts that would ultimately lead to their demise, particularly after Yoko Ono entered the scene, helping further alienate John from the others. We read accounts of the final recording sessions and the release of “Abbey Road” and their last live concert on a London rooftop, where amid all the tensions, they momentarily recaptured the joy of making music together.

Then there is the seamier side. The drug use beginning with amphetamines, marijuana, and eventually LSD, and in John’s case heroin, from which he was often strung out and increasingly erratic. The women. So many “birds” to have sex with, as was the case with many rockers. At one point, all were being treated for gonorrhea. There is the brilliant and sad Brian Epstein and his closeted gay life, including rough sex leaving him beaten and robbed, and his growing despair as he felt he was losing control of the Beatles, leading to his death, whether accidental or suicide, from an overdose of drugs. While they were rich, through Epstein’s mistakes and their own debacle with Apple, they foolishly lost millions.

There is the tragic. Going back to Hamburg days, the death of onetime bandmate Stu Sutcliffe, the firing of Pete Best and the way it was done. The betrayal of Lennon’s wife, Cynthia, and Paul’s girlfriend, Jane Asher. The end of the band itself, chronicled in agonizing detail. And later deaths: John, George, Linda Eastman McCartney.

This is a huge biography, coming in at 983 pages, including photos and notes. Yet it is a fascinating read that gives one a sense of the hard work it took to become “The Beatles” the genius of Lennon and McCartney, the trauma of Beatlemania, the behind-the-scenes accounts of the making of each album and so much more. At the same time, we see them as all-too-human, flawed and forming young men thrust into the fame and fortune they’d dreamed of but were not prepared to handle. What is astounding is to consider that most of the output of The Beatles took place over just seven fraught years, from 1963 to 1969. Yet they changed rock ‘n roll forever. Spitz gives us the “crowded hours” of that epic journey.