My all-time favorite Beatles Book!

An internet friend asked me for some music-related book recommendations and I started with books about U2 and the Beatles because, well, because that’s what I read. As I was sitting at lunch today I realized that I missed one of the absolute best Beatle books of them all, The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions: The Official Story of the Abbey Road Years 1962-1970 by Mark Lewisohn.

The reason that I almost missed it is that I’ve had it for so long. This book (at least, the first edition, which I own) came out in 1988 and I got it soon after that. I think I perhaps got it for Christmas 1989 because I seem to remember living in Michigan when I got the book and we moved here in the summer of ’89. This book chronicles every Beatles recording session from the beginning in 1962 to the end in 1970, lists when they happened, what happened there and other interesting facts and tidbits. Since it first came out , things like the Anthology recordings have made them even more valuable.

This is, simply, a must-own book for serious Beatles fans. It accomplishes everything it set out to do. Since then a few new things have come to light thanks to McCartney’s authorized Biography and other recent excellent Beatles books which I have noted here before but the sheer amount of data in this book makes it well worth the effort. You’ll want to read it with your CD collection close at hand!