About The Beatles Anthology  By  The Beatles

Each page is brimming with personal stories and rare vintage images. Snapshots from their family collections take us back to the days when John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Richard Starkey were just boys growing up in Liverpool. They talk in turn about those early years and how they came to join the band that would make them known around the world as John, Paul, George, and Ringo. Then, weaving back and forth, they tell the astonishing story of life as The Beatles: the first rough gigs, the phenomenon of their rise to fame, the musical and social change of their heyday, all the way through to their breakup. From the time Ringo tried to take this drum kit home on the bus to their much-anticipated audience with Elvis, from the making of the Sgt. Pepper album to their last photo session together at John's house, The Beatles Anthology is a once-in-a-lifetime collection of The Beatles' own memories.

"'Who knows why the Beatles happened?'John Lennon asked in 1980: if anyone did, it would be the Fab Four themselves, who tell their own story—with plenty of visual aids—in this giant compendium. The book opens with the band members' separate accounts of their childhoods, then moves into a year-by-year organization that allows for great detail and many digressions. Most of the text appears oral-history style, in short paragraphs with rapid switches between one Beatle and another: the format makes it sound as if all the Beatles (including John) were being interviewed simultaneously. The visuals bring in cartoons, signed letters, scrawled drawings, and photos. As a whole, the volume is beautiful, big, and a bit intimidating, somewhere between the Yellow Submarine and the Death Star."—Publishers Weekly

“What should be the final word on the Beatles has arrived. Big as it is, the volume virtually overflows with fascinating tidbits about growing up in Liverpool, early gigs, the rise to unprecedented fame and acclaim, and the Beatles' pervasive social influence. Even familiar bits of Beatle lore seem fresh when told in the band's own words.”—Booklist

This book is perfect for Beatles fans of every generation.