Queen: A Kind of Magic: An Illustrated History

by Michael A. O'Neill

Queen are one of the biggest stadium rock bands in the world. “Another One Bites the Dust” (1980) became their best-selling single, while their 1981 compilation album Greatest Hits is the best-selling album in the UK and is certified eight times platinum in the US. Their record sales range from 150 million to 300 million records, making them one of the world’s best-selling music artists. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001. In 2018 they were presented the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Genres: Nonfiction, Music

103 pages, Hardcover

Published November 6, 2018

Reviews

[Abril Camino]

Preciosa edición de una biografía de Queen muy bien documentada y detallada.

[Jessie]

Overall, the book is great for Queen fans who love to collect and reread the history of this great band. However, I found some mistakes in the book that sort of irked me that new fans of Queen might not know about. A few examples:

• Page 88 refers to the album 'A Kind of Magic' as 'A Touch of Magic.'
• Page 94 has a photo of the band from 1979 (I believe) but it is listed as from 1989, which is false.
• Page 95 days Jim Hutton had also been diagnosed with AIDS. This isn't true. Jim was diagnosed with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, but never developed AIDS itself and lived with the virus until he died of lung cancer in 2010.
• Page 97 says that a version of 'Somebody To Love' that Freddie made with George Michael was released in 1995 and became a hit. This is false. George Michael covered the song at The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert in 1992 with Queen but never recorded a version with Freddie.

These are the errors I noticed in the book along with some minor spelling mistakes. While this might not bother a lot of fans, it might lead newer Queen fans to think that the things said above are fact. If it doesn't bother you, then this book is a treat and ignore what I said. Either way, beautiful photos plus the history of Queen is always a huge plus to me.

[Julie]

Some reviews aren’t so positive about this book; however, there are numerous scattered tidbits. It’s a fast read. There are no tedious bits...but how could there be in a Queen bio!

Beware of the typos!

[Erin ♡]

I loved learning new things about one of the greatest bands- Queen. Truly great.

[Veronica]

Ok, but kind of generic. Just a basic telling of the Queen story but with grammatical errors and some wrong names lol.

[Orlando Varela]

Un libro hermosamente escrito, que más que una biografía es un viaje a través del mundo de este súper grupo. No se si es porque es uno de mis grupos favoritos o por la eficiencia del autor, pero fue una lectura que me emocionó, y eso es extraño en una biografía.
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Con una lectura ligera y bien informada y abundantes y hermosas ilustraciones es un libro que recomiendo a los amantes del grupo o de la música en general, pero también para quien esté interesado en la vida y obra de este grupo y de sus integrantes.
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[Mollie Bruce]

I love queen but I would have loved more from this book than pictures and text. The writing contained a lot of grammatical errors and was so full of names and dates that it was hard to remember. I would have liked to see more interviews and pictures of old letters/contracts etc.

[Carter .W.]

I liked finding out how the band formed and finding out more about Freddie Mercury's life