Tim RileyTHE DEFINITIVE LIFE

The Man The Myth The Music

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£25.00

Forty years after the release of Imagine, Tim Riley presents the most compelling

portrait yet of John Lennon. Riley draws on his mastery of Lennon’s music and on extensive research from a wide array of contacts within his inner circle, including friends, schoolmates, celebrity associates, press agents and business contacts.

Lennon’s childhood emerges as if for the first time, detailing his mother’s eccentricities, his jarring separations from both parents, his fraught relationship with Aunt Mimi who raised him and the avalanche of deaths that crowded his adolescence. No other narrative has put the reader inside Lennon’s heart and head the way Riley does here.

As the Beatles developed into the most revolutionary group in rock history, Lennon’s musical intimacy with Paul McCartney was central, but also complicated and fraught at times, characterised by rivalry, competitiveness and political power plays for control of the band.

Riley also reveals how Lennon’s marriage to Yoko Ono bound together both his childhood trauma with a life-long interest in pop art; how he often did his best work during emotional collapses; how his perilous descent into heroin and acid abuse was counterbalanced by his commitment to the Beatles’ productivity; along with many more startling revelations and insights.

After reading Riley’s soaring and detailed account, Lennon’s music will never sound the same again.

Tim

Riley

I SBN 978-0-7535-4019-0

9 7 8 0 7 5 3 5 4 0 1 9 0

Tim Riley’s career as a media and music critic spans nearly 30 years. While

reviewing pop culture for National Public Radio in the US, Tim authored four books: Tell Me Why: A Beatles Commentary; Hard Rain: A Dylan Commentary; Madonna: Illustrated; and Fever: How Rock’n’Roll Transformed Gender In America. He has been a columnist for the Boston Phoenix, a book reviewer for the Washington Post, and an independent blogger at the prestigious ArtJournal.com. Tim currently serves as a Journalist-in-Residence at Emerson College, Boston.

www.randomhouse.co.uk

MUSIC / BIOGRAPHY

Front Cover photo: On the set of ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ at the Scala Theatre (Photo by K & K Ulf Kruger. © Redferns).

Rear Cover photo: July 22nd, 1971 London. John Lennon at London Airport (© Bettmann/Corbis)

Jacket Design by Toby J. Clarke

‘A spellbinding narrative’

PETER CARLIN, author of

Paul McCartney: A Life

John Lennon.indd 1 03/06/2011 15:40