The Mammoth Book of the Beatles

by Sean Egan

Over 30 landmark interviews, accounts, and memoirs of The Beatles and their entourage, recording how they inadvertently became counter-culture’s figureheads and changed society. The pieces include Paul Johnson’s ‘The Menace of Beatlism’, Maureen Cleave’s ‘Beatles Bigger than Christ’ feature, the News of the World feature suggesting The Beatles were spent forces – just before they unleashed Sergeant Pepper on the world – interviews with their entourage and main loves; plus latter-day contributions from the likes of Paul Gambacinni, Dave Marsh, Greil Marcus. Also included is a chronological tracing of each Beatles album and single, and analysis of all Beatles movie releases and television appearances.

Genres: Music, Biography, Nonfiction, Anthologies

608 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

A freelance journalist, author and editor who writes about arts and entertainment (music, film, TV, comics and literature), social history (20th and 21st centuries) and sport (soccer and tennis history).

Reviews

[Δx Δp ≥ ½ ħ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bought at The Beatles Story museum in Liverpool (Part 1) (Part 2)

[ade_reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dear The Fab Four, Thank you for always clearing my heads, healing my heart & lifting my spirit!
______________________________________________
The Mammoth Book of The Beatles. It's consist of six parts across its 608 pages with heap of decent reading material & solid information

1. 🎸 Part One: Life and Art - chronicles the band’s complete recordings with razor sharp analysis of each & every album

2. 🎸 Part Two: Dissenters - or something made up of articles by people who don't really care for The Beatles. It's contains five essays with semi provocative titles such as ‘Penny Lame’ by Dave Simpson & ‘Living Life Without Loving The Beatles’ by Gary Hall. That's why I like this book. Not standard issue. Please, read this part with care 😁

3. 🎸 Part Three: Film & TV - looks at The Beatles Film & TV output, which includes a more than alluring piece by Mitchell Axelrod entitled ‘The Beatles TV Cartoon Series: Beatletoons

4. 🎸 Part Four: Beatle Women - contains a number of candid interviews with Cynthia Lennon, Pattie Boyd, Yoko Ono, Linda McCartney & rather surprisingly, Astrid Kirchherr, a German photographer, artist & is well known for her association with the Beatles & her photographs of the band's original members during their early days in Hamburg

5. 🎸 Part Five: Interviews - the penultimate section of this book, includes assorted interviews with Pete Best, George Martin, Paul McCartney & Bill Harry

6. 🎸 Part Six: And In The End... - concludes with a colourful overview of the band by Paul Gambaccini, an American-British radio & television presenter & author in U.K

I really enjoyed this book ❤️, despite the fact that I disagreed with quite a lot of Egan's opinions on the songs, he seemed to dismiss quite a high number of renowned classics as not great ✌🏻

[Elliot McRae · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Adina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although I enjoyed many parts of it (probably because I'm a big Beatles fan), I was expecting to find more articles from other writers, articles published many years ago. Instead, about 3/4 of the book is the editor analyzing the albums, singles and lists with release dates etc. So it felt more like written by Sean Egan, not edited by.

[Michael Sterckx · Rating 4 out of 5]

One place to store the pieces written about them that then became part of the Beatles myth. The music reviews written for the book by the author are in depth and not all the articles he's compiled are complimentary.

[Frode Skjold · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why do i get the feeling that the author doesn't like The Beatles very much?