Alan Clayson (author of many music related books - including biographies on John, Paul, George and Ringo) and Spencer Leigh (also an established author, e.g. "Drummed Out - The Sacking Of Pete Best") have gotten together to once and for always put paid to the many, many misconceptions that exist around The Beatles.
Misconceptions which seem to crop up in almost any new tome about the Fab Four, as there would seem to be very much copying and very little proper research going on.
As the title indicates, there are 101 topics in this book, each in a separate chapter for easy reference. A lot of the topics described here are of course already known to avid Beatle collectors, but there might well be a few things in this book that might surprise you. For instance, I didn't know that "Love Me Do" was not the first Beatle lyric ever to appear on an official record. It turns out that Johnny Gentle recorded a song called "I've Just Fallen For Someone" under the name of Darren Young. This song features a middle eight by John Lennon and was recorded and released (July 1962) prior to "Love Me Do" which was released a few weeks later!
And for any would be author of a new book on John or indeed all four: This book once again proves that John was NOT born during a luftwaffe bombing raid! Many, many books claim that he was (some even claiming that the raid was particularly fierce on Wednesday morning 06:30 on October 6, 1940) but the Liverpool Echo for that week confirms that there wasn't a single German aeroplane over the city for that night or even the following night!. Let's hope we won't encounter that mistake again in any new books about The Beatles.
So, all in all a very pleasant book to pick up every now and again to check on certain topics and certainly a must buy for anyone planning to write anything at all on the Fab Four!