As we reach the end of July, I wanted to write a little bit about what I’ve been reading. I’ve started quite a few books, so I haven’t actually finished anything since my last post. My main focus has been on One, Two, Three, Four: Beatles in Time

I’m very close to finishing this one. It’s the quintessential Beatles book. Chronicling with incredible detail from The Quarrymen to the height of their success and beyond. For any die-hard Beatles fan, this is essential. It’s incredibly well detailed with great research. I’m a big Beatles fan and have loved every second of this. One of the best bits about it, is that it will look at something from every possible angle. There’s entire chapters detailing one event, one moment, but with excerpts from every witness or interpretation of the events.

It goes to extreme lengths to be as revealing as possible, there’s a full chapter about the guilt of the driver who killed Julia Lennon, which isn’t something I’d ever thought about before but found it fascinating. If there is a fault with the book, it’s that it does focus on a lot of strange details. There are long passages focused on the tours you can do through Hamburg now, almost 60 years later, and how little of the old stuff remains. It’s interesting, but does go on a bit.

I’m listening to the audiobook version and it would be really nice to have some of the music of the time playing in between sections or chapters. I know there is a rights issue with this, but it was really cool when the stars was books had the music in the background of the audiobook version. Reading the actual book with The Beatles on in the background is probably the way to go.

Overall it’s a really interesting book, it gives a lot of details that I didn’t know before, lots of events, moments and stories. It does a really good job of contextualising The Beatles and where they came from, the impact they had and how people received them at the time. It also gives some what-if moments, about how so many decisions led to them meeting. It’s interesting to think what might have been.

Other Reads

I’ve been reading Dean Koontz’s Elsewhere, which is really good. I’m about 100 pages off finishing that one, so will write more about it once I’ve finished it. I’m also still re-reading Archibald Lox by Darren Shan. I’m hoping to be caught up in August in time for book 6 on September 1st. I’m really enjoying it so far.

I’ve also got Tarantino’s novel version of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which I’m looking forward to reading, just want to have enough time set aside for it. Stephen King’s new book comes out next week, which will probably take my attention once it arrives. I also have Push by Dennis Vogen on my kindle, I’m really looking forward to reading it, but want to finish some stuff up first.

Thanks for reading and until next time,

Ashley