A Hard Day's Write

A Hard Day's Write: The Stories Behind Every Beatles Song: New and Updated Edition
by Steve Turner [YA PB]

While I consider myself a lifelong Beatles fan, I won't try to lay claim to being a Beatles expert, and I certainly haven't tried to read each and every book about the Beatles that has ever been published. So, when I say I enjoyed this behind-the-scenes exploration of the history behind the writing of every Beatles song, you've got to take that with a few grains of salt -- there may have been other books, perhaps many others, which covered this ground before. In fact, the version of this book by Steve Turner reviewed here is, itself, an update of an earlier edition. But, speaking as a casual reader of Beatles-related books, I do recommend this particular book. For each song included, the author explains what the inspiration for the song was, where the songwriter(s) were at the time of the writing, and other little historical tidbits. Where there are discrepancies about the origin of a song, Turner includes all the variant tales, rather than trying to narrow it down to the correct one. The amount of background provided for each song various considerably -- from one or two paragraphes of text, to several pages, about the most well-known of the Beatles hits. The text is accompanied by a plethora of rare and obscure photographs, making this a pleasurable read for Beatles fans, even if all you're doing is browsing. Maybe there are better, more in-depth historical volumes about the Beatles' song out there, but I found this one to be a fun and informative read! -- recommended by Scott C. - Bennett Martin Public Library

[ official The Beatles web site ] | [ Wikipedia page for Steve Turner ]

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