A day-by-day chronicle of John Lennon and Yoko Ono 1968-1980 (Volume One)

An intimate journey through John Lennon's final years. Including photos of Lennon and family.

Forty years after John Lennon's untimely death, his former gardener and assistant Michael Medeiros celebrates the Beatles legend with this honest and insightful recollection of the time he shared with John during his final, reclusive years and days at the Dakota. Nearly a half-century after his sudden, untimely death, John Lennon's gentle spirit and otherworldly talent live on in the hearts and minds of countless fans across the globe. The Beatles, which he cofounded with Paul McCartney in 1960, is the bestselling band in history, with more than 600 million records sold worldwide to date. And the witty, mercurial John--frequently cited among the best songwriters in history--was credited with writing many of the band's most beloved hits. From his ingenious musical compositions, to his political activism, to his quirky relationship with Yoko Ono, the indefinable cultural icon that is John Lennon never ceases to amaze and confound, and his influence has reached across generations. Now, four decades after his murder shocked the world, yet another side of John is revealed: one witnessed by Michael Medeiros, a gardener he and Yoko hired in 1977 to tend to their indoor garden. It was Michael who observed John's parenting skills first-hand, who sailed with John in Bermuda, and who, on December 8, 1980, exchanged kind words with John before unwittingly shaking hands with his killer. A heartfelt tribute to Lennon, this book also ponders the artist's evolution and insecurities, while uncovering new details of his unusual partnership with the ever-ambitious Yoko. Candidly recounting intimate conversations and encounters with Lennon in the last four years of his life, Michael's story is a fresh, stirring perspective on a complex and brilliant man.

Winner of the 2022 Open Publication Prize by the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM-ANZ) A Women's History of the Beatles is the first book to offer a detailed presentation of the band's social and cultural impact as understood through the experiences and lives of women. Drawing on a mix of interviews, archival research, textual analysis, and autoethnography, this scholarly work depicts how the Beatles have profoundly shaped and enriched the lives of women, while also reexamining key, influential female figures within the group's history. Organized topically based on key themes important to the Beatles story, each chapter uncovers the varied and multifaceted relationships women have had with the band, whether face-to-face and intimately or parasocially through mediated, popular culture. Set within a socio-historical context that charts changing gender norms since the early 1960s, these narratives consider how the Beatles have affected women's lives across three generations. Providing a fresh perspective of a well-known tale, this is a cultural history that moves far beyond the screams of Beatlemania to offer a more comprehensive understanding of what the now iconic band has meant to women over the course of six decades.

Hundreds of books have been written about The Beatles. Over the last half century, their story has been mythologized and de-mythologized and presented by biographers and journalists as history. Yet many of these works do not strictly qualify as history and the story of how the Beatles' mythology continues to be told has been largely ignored. This book examines the band's historiography, exploring the four major narratives that have developed over time: The semi-whitewashed "Fab Four" account, the acrimonious breakup-era Lennon Remembers version, the biased "Shout!" narrative in the wake of John Lennon's murder, and the current Mark Lewisohn orthodoxy. Drawing on the most influential primary and secondary sources, Beatles history is analyzed using historical methods.

The acclaimed director of such films as Brideshead Revisited shares the story of his youth and career, providing coverage of such topics as his childhood as the son of star Geraldine Fitzgerald, his relationships with Hollywood elite and the allegations that Orson Welles was his real father.