Dr. John F. Crosby's "The Mystery of 'Fair Love,'" contained in this collection of essays, is one of the best introductions to Pope John Paul II's theological anthropology, "theology of the body," and thought on human sexuality available. Rarely does one find such insight and concise clarity in one place. Follow up this essay with the Pope's works collected in Pope John Paul II on the Genius of Women and/or Theology of the Body, both available through Amazon.

So much coverage of John Paul II presents him as a politician or a superstar. This book explains his role as a thinker. And it does a good job showing the theory behind the battles at the UN and the battle to restore orthodoxy---or just a little sanity---within the Catholic church.

John Paul II, the philosopher pope, is the most intriguing thinker of our time. But it's not easy to plow through the mass of encyclicals, adresseses, and books. This work provides an excellent study of the Pope's thought. Special kudos to John Crosby for showing the phenomenological side of the pope and to Joseph Koterski for unraveling the Thomist side.

This is certainly the best book that writer Guiliano has ever been involved in. It is interesting to hear about this untold side of John Lennon's family life, straight from a real member of that family. Nice.

This is a very interesting book about the family man John Lennon. His sister Julia tells all the true about the relationships between John and his mother, his stepfather, his little sisters, the tragedy when their mother was killed by a drunk policeman, and the beginnings of the group that four years later became the greatest phenomenon of the popular music, The Beatles. Also, Julia remembers for us, the phone conversations with John in the late 70's, near to John's death, and the feelings of all family when John was tragicly death by the gun of an out of mind man. Great book.

As if we need any more evidence that Geoffrey Giuliano is a opportunist hanger-on disguised as a "expert" - this book is strictly the work of a clerk, not an author. Collate a bunch of old, dubious interviews, insert one's own impressions, call it a book. That great effort of journalism must have taken, what, a weekend to toss together?

And isn't it nice Geoffrey Giuliano can take credit for this "monumental" work and collect royalties off it.

Some expert.

I sure did. So should any serious beatles fan. Great shots too. I keep it a reference book and go through it often.

I have been a Beatle fan for thirty years, and it is great to finally hear the Beatles own story as told in their own words. Not only are the Beatles featured, but so are their closest family and friends. It was a great read, as are all Beatle author Giuliano's works.

I like the idea behind this book - the working relationship of McCartney and Lennon would be interesting if it was done well. The many errors in the book and the author's very obvious hatred of McCartney and adoration of Lennon tend to destroy any attempt at objectivity. An example - page 115 - John & Yoko "made love"; page 126 - Paul & Linda "shack up". Things John said are the truth - thing Paul said are lies or attempts to make himself look good. I also find the author's put-downs of Beatles merchandising pretty funny - he seems to have quite a bit of Beatles merchandise (books) himself. It's a shame. This could have been a good book.

So far I had only read Lennon In America by Geoffrey Giuliano - a book that I absolutely hated. It was therefore that I wasn't expecting a lot from this book, but I must say that at least this one is better in style. An entertaining read.
The focus of the book is the relationship between Lennon & McCartney and how they collaborated on songs in (mainly) the early stages. Later on they didn't write together anymore (well hardly), but because of the rivalry that existed between them, each motivated the other to come up with some of the best songs ever written in this world.
George and Ringo hardly feature in the book, which seems a bit strange as the book deals with the career of Lennon / McCartney and The Beatles in a strictly chronological order and of course George and Ringo played a major role in that. To be fair though, in the author's notes Giuliano already announces that the book mentions the works of George and Ringo only in passing, without the amount of detail that is given to Lennon & McCartney.
The book describes how John and Paul met, started playing music in Julia's bathroom, wrote their first songs together, became The Beatles, how they worked in the studio, how their relationship grew from bad to worse and briefly describes their song writing after the Beatles broke up. All of this interspersed with quotes and bits of (mostly well known) interviews.
Right from the start, it is very clear that the author likes Lennon a lot better than McCartney. Lennon is always the genius, McCartney always has other motives in anything he does and is just waiting for a chance to take control of The Beatles.
Lennon's music is innovative and (often) provocative, while McCartney writes songs that are sugar coated and suitable for old age pensioners....
In summary, an entertainingly written book, but not a must have.

Regarding: "Read, Many Years From Now (Barry Miles), at least his book is intelligently researched and uses Paul McCartney as his main source of information." For ought I know "Many Years From Now" may be a perfectly fine book in its way, but anyone of discernment who's read a McCartney interview (or, say, the "McCartney" album press release, in which McCartney explains that he, McCartney, has quit the Beatles) knows that a book that "uses Paul McCartney as [its] main source of information" will be of doubtful veracity. In any case, "The Two of Us" is engagingly written, intelligent, and reasonably fair, I think, to all parties--probably the most readable Beatles book I've yet encountered. It doesn't contain much new information, but let's face it, how much new information is there possibly to be had? (I also like George Martin's "All You Need Is [?] Ears".)