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WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM THEIR FRIENDS
- Author
- Stuart Maconie
- Narrator
- Stuart Maconie
- Publisher
- HarperCollins Publishers
- Publish Date
- 12 June 2025
- Run Time
- 10 hours 3 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
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What to expect
A fun, fascinating and surprising guide to the history and music of the Beatles: the world’s biggest band.
Everyone knows a Beatles tune. But their story goes beyond the omnipresent songs and iconic albums. Theirs is a tale that has become one of the core stories we tell about ourselves as a nation. The Beatles narrative has both shaped and reflected the country we live in today. Four lads from Liverpool have taken a seat alongside Shakespeare as one of our key cultural exports to the world, a world they changed and re-made in their own image in a blaze of creativity. But these four distinct personalities changed the world not in isolation but with more than a little help from their friends.
Like all the best stories there’s an incredible supporting cast, and all the most compelling elements of the great dramas: ambition, power, triumph, disaster, heartbreak, tragedy, drama, intrigue, lust…and of course, love.
Split into 3 sections, Before The Beatles, With the Beatles and Beyond the Beatles, bestselling writer and broadcaster Stuart Maconie tells the epic tale of the people who made the band who made Britain, and along the way adds his own experiences, encounters and conversations that show the Beatles like you’ve never seen them before.
Critics Review
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'Exceptionally good' Mark Ellen
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‘It’s a fast-paced, funny read and rather than feeling like another book on the quartet, it feels like it offers some genuinely fresh insight’ Clash magazine
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***
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PRAISE FOR STUART’S WRITING
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'Maconie is a funny, astute writer, alert to the absurd’ Sunday Times Book of the Week
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‘Observant and witty’ The Times
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‘As funny as Bryson and as wise as Orwell’ Observer
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‘The best thing to come out of Wigan since the A58 to Bolton’ Peter Kay
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‘A fine writer: sharp, funny, tender and thoughtful’ Spectator
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‘Maconie’s engaging, conversational prose is full of telling detail, jokes and deft quotation’ Telegraph
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Details
- Author
- Stuart Maconie
- Narrator
- Stuart Maconie
- Duration
- 10 hours 3 minutes
- Release Date
- 12 June 2025
- ISBN
- 9780008705886
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- HarperCollins Publishers
- Genre
- Biography: arts and entertainment, Social and cultural history
Synopsis
A fun, fascinating and surprising guide to the history and music of the Beatles: the world’s biggest band. Everyone knows a Beatles tune. But their story goes beyond the omnipresent songs and iconic albums. Theirs is a tale that has become one of the core stories we tell about ourselves as a nation. The Beatles narrative has both shaped and reflected the country we live in today. Four lads from Liverpool have taken a seat alongside Shakespeare as one of our key cultural exports to the world, a world they changed and re-made in their own image in a blaze of creativity. But these four distinct personalities changed the world not in isolation but with more than a little help from their friends. Like all the best stories there’s an incredible supporting cast, and all the most compelling elements of the great dramas: ambition, power, triumph, disaster, heartbreak, tragedy, drama, intrigue, lust…and of course, love. Split into 3 sections, Before The Beatles, With the Beatles and Beyond the Beatles, bestselling writer and broadcaster Stuart Maconie tells the epic tale of the people who made the band who made Britain, and along the way adds his own experiences, encounters and conversations that show the Beatles like you’ve never seen them before.
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