In his commanding new book, the eminent NPR critic Tim Riley takes us on the remarkable journey that brought a Liverpool art student from a disastrous childhood to the highest realms of fame.Riley portrays Lennon's rise from Hamburg's red light district to Britain's Royal Variety Show; from the charmed naivetéf "Love Me Do" to the soaring ambivalence of "Don't Let Me Down"; from his shotgun marriage to Cynthia Powell in 1962 to his epic media romance with Yoko Ono...

Successful software depends as much on scrupulous testing as it does on solid architecture or elegant code. But testing is not a routine process, it's a constant exploration of methods and an evolution of good ideas.Beautiful Testing offers 23 essays from 27 leading testers and developers that illustrate the qualities and techniques that make testing an art. Through personal anecdotes, you'll learn how each of these professionals developed beautiful ways of testing a wide ...

In a stretch of just seven years, the Beatles recorded hundreds of songs which tower above those of their worthy peers as both the product of cultural leadership and an artistic reflection of their turbulent age, the1960s. Walter Everett and Tim Riley's What Goes On: The Beatles, Their Music, and Their Time blends historical narrative, musicology, and music analysis to tell the full story of the Beatles and how they redefined pop music. The book traces the Beatles' development chr...

Music historian and journalist Tim Riley's biography challenges many popular assumptions about Lennon's life, from his widely misunderstood 'Working Class Hero' origins to his epic romance with Yoko Ono. Riley also explores Lennon in all his contradictions: the misogynist turned peace activist, the moralist who loved to outrage and the 'bigger than Christ' LSD enthusiast who settled down to become a house-husband.A pre-eminent scholar of Beatles music, Riley has consulted some of th...

A unique combination of musical analysis and cultural history, Tell Me Why stands alone among Beatles books with its single-minded focus on the most important aspect of the band: its music.Riley offers a new, deeper understanding of the Beatles by closely considering each song and album they recorded in an exploration as rigorous as it is soulful. He tirelessly explores the Beatles catalog, making clear that the legendar...

In Fever, music critic Tim Riley argues that while political and athletic role models have let us down, rock and roll has provided enduring role models for men and women. From Elvis Presley to Tina Turner to Bruce Springsteen to Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love, Riley makes a persuasive case that rock and roll, far from the corrosive force that conservative critics make it out to be, has instead been a positive influence in people's lives, laying out gender-defying role models far mo...

Ranging over 30 years of Bob Dylan recordings, films, and concerts, this updated edition includes a new epilogue that examines his 30th anniversary celebration and his 1998 Grammy Award comeback.

Raise your young children to always do the right thing and leave a legacy for generations.It’s up to you as the parent to try and prevent life, people, and circumstance from transforming your kids into lesser individuals.And this mission is both simple and tricky.Simple because all you need to do to ensure your kid grows up a good, kind, helpful person is to nurture their instinctive desire to be good.The tricky part is kn...

"Fun facts about every one of the Fab Four's creations, with photos. Yeah yeah yeah." — PeopleAll the Songs delves deep into the history and origins of the Beatles and their music. This first-of-its-kind book draws upon decades of research, as music historians Margotin and Guesdon recount the circumstances that led to the composition of every song, the recording process, and the instruments used.Here, we learn that one of John Lennon's favor...

Which Song is the Best and Why? Read it and see!Organized by rank, from 1 to 100, this illustrated celebration of the best songs by the boys who revolutionized rock-and-roll includes expert commentary, historical context, interview material, and lots of great sidebars (including "best" lists from some of today's pop music powerhouses.) Like all "best of" lists, the book's opinionated stance generates animated discussion.Here, There, and Everywhere is profusely illustrated wit...

In 1960, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Stu Sutcliffe and Pete Best first played together as The Beatles. On 5 October 1962, The Beatles with Sutcliffe and Best out and Ringo Starr in released their debut single, Love Me Do. The subsequent seven years saw them revolutionise Sixties music and leave their mark indelibly stamped right through pop culture.The Beatles: A Band Reviewed tells the story of The Beatles through the news items, reviews and interviews that appeared in tw...

“The days of poets moping around castle steps wearing black capes is over. The poets of today are amplified.”— LEONARD COHENPicking up where Samuel Johnson left off more than two centuries ago, Ray Robertson’s Lives of the Poets (with Guitars) offers up an amplified gathering of thirteen portraits of rock & roll, blues, folk, and alt-country’s most inimitable artists. Irreverent and riotous, Robertson explores the “greater or lesser heat” with which...