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Imagine This: Growing Up with My Brother John Lennon
 
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Imagine This: Growing Up with My Brother John Lennon (Hardcover)

by Julia Baird (Author)
4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
RRP: £18.99
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Frequently Bought Together

Imagine This: Growing Up with My Brother John Lennon + John + Lennon: 20th Anniversary Edition: The Definitive Biography - Anniversary Edition
Price For All Three: £30.12

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Product details

  • Hardcover: 336 pages
  • Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton (8 Feb 2007)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0340839244
  • ISBN-13: 978-0340839249
  • Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 15.6 x 3.6 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 277,822 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Review

'A tragic story....also a tenderly evoked memoir of a Liverpool childhood'

(John Walsh, The Independent )

'A tragic story . . . also a tenderly evoked memoir of a Liverpool childhood'

(The Independent )

'honest and poignant, this enjoyable read offers fans a new perspective on their idol'

(The Sun )

'A moving account of the Beatle's childhood by his half-sister . . . fascinating'

(Observer Music Monthly )

‘Philip Larkin’s much-quoted lines about sex being invented in 1963 “between the end of the Chatterley ban/ And the Beatles first LP” stand corrected here. Perhaps life was dull in Hull and Coventry, but on this account there was plenty of passion in Liverpool'

(The Irish Times )

'A poignant powerful tale that throws new light on the Lennon legend'

(The Scottish Sunday Post )

'An unusual treat'

(Aberdeen Evening Express )

'His sister's important new account chronicles the pivotal childhood years that provided the source of both Lennon's rich creativity and personal vulnerability'

(Good Books Guide )

Product Description
Until now, the true story of John Lennon’s childhood has never been told. John’s sister Julia has herself been on a personal journey that has made it possible only now to reveal the full extent of the pain and difficulties – as well as the happier times – living inside John Lennon’s family brought.

Julia reveals the various strong, self-willed and selfish women who surrounded John as he grew up. John was removed from his mother at the age of 5 to live with his Aunt Mimi, and here Julia shows for the first time the cruelty of this decision – to both mother and son, she sheds a new light on his upbringing with Mimi which is often at dramatic odds with the accepted tale. John’s frequent visits to his mother and sisters gave him the liveliness, freedom and love he sought and allowed him to develop his musical talents. The tragic death of their mother, knocked down outside Aunt Mimi's house by a speeding car when John was 17, meant that life for him and his sisters would never be the same again.

Poignant, raw and beautifully written, IMAGINE THIS casts John Lennon’s life in a new light and reveals the source of his emotional fragility and musical genius. It is also one family's extraordinary story of how it dealt with fame and tragedy beyond all imagining.

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Imagine This: Growing Up with My Brother John Lennon
87% buy the item featured on this page:
Imagine This: Growing Up with My Brother John Lennon 4.7 out of 5 stars (6)
£16.14
John
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John 4.3 out of 5 stars (17)
£6.99
John Lennon: The Life
6% buy
John Lennon: The Life 4.2 out of 5 stars (11)
£14.99
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Customer Reviews

6 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.7 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Open, honest, & excellent!, 29 Mar 2007
By Ish (USA) - See all my reviews
I recently finished reading this book and found it to be (what I consider) a truthful account of what John & his sisters life was like as children and the life-long affect it has had on them. Most books written about John 'gloss' over the early years with Aunt Mimi, Uncle George, his mother Julia and his sisters. We have always read about the puritanical Mimi and the fun, beautiful,carefree Julia. Ms. Baird however, introduces us to everyone through her eyes and in doing so, offers the reader a very rare insight into their lives and the emotional rollercoster they had to ride. With great clarity we can sense the raw, heart wrenching pain they experienced in losing their mother and ultimately, their determination to survive.

As stated in the previous review, the only other account that we have of John that is written with complete honesty are those written by Cynthia Lennon; 'A Twist of Lennon' and 'Lennon'.

Thank you Julia, for this wonderful glimpse of 'Growing up with John'.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful. Worthy in its own write as an autobiography of Julia Baird., 28 Mar 2007
This is a very moving and intimate account of love and anguish, intimacy and permanent longing.

I really enjoyed reading the recent biography of John Lennon by Cynthia. It opened up a substantive and new angle from which "Lennonologists" could view the object of their interest. In particular, there were shadings of Aunt Mimi in a slightly less than a "couldn't put a foot wrong" light. Having read Julia Baird's earlier book on John I was anxious to read this one, especially as there were initial reviews saying there would be much more information on the early years of John's life.

From the outset I wish to stress that this book is not really one for Beatles / Lennon fans who do not want to scratch beneath the surface. Much of the already overly published accounts of the Beatles and their rise to fame are thankfully mentioned in passing. This book has the resounding theme of the woefully premature loss of a beautiful (inside and out) mother and "wife" by her children and her "husband". (The quotation marks are not meant to convey disrespect; only legal accuracy.)

It explores the pain and betrayal of those affected by the stigma of not having had a stable family, and the loss of identity that ensues. I wish to stress once more: it is worth reading this book for the author's own life story; the John Lennon theme is almost an additional merit of its content.

The portrayals of the usually encountered personae from the Lennon history in this book are eye-opening, or even revolutionary. The inclusion of those not normally mentioned helps to build up a clearer picture. I don't want to spoil any of the surprises. Let's just say that anyone wishing to know more about the reasons why John Lennon was the way that he was should not hesitate - buy it. If you've ever wanted to know more about John's family... Julia (snr), the Stanley sisters, Albert Dykins, his sisters and cousins, this is the only book to my knowledge that contains the necessary information.

As with the other, aforementioned Lennon biography, this one has a tone of intimacy and open honesty. There is almost a potted history of how a severely wronged person goes through the various stages of denial, anger and evolving into forgiveness or at least acceptance.

I don't think there will be another Lennon book written which will be worth reading after the two mentioned in this review. I'd like to be proven wrong, but I don't think there is anyone else who knew him as well as these two authors and who would be able to write such human and intimate recollections.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars The sad childhood of John's little sister, 5 Jan 2008
By Bob Sherunkle (London, UK) - See all my reviews
The flood of biographies of the Beatles and their friends and families shows no sign of abating. Most of them repeat much of what we already know, with the occasional new insight or anecdote. This book stands out from the rest. As another reviewer puts it, this is "worthy in its own write [nice allusion!] as an autobiography of Julia Baird". Her story of her childhood would hit home even in an alternate universe where the Beatles had never happened.

We have long known that John was brought up by his Aunt Mimi, and that his mother's death in a road accident cruelly ended his chance to form an independent relationship with her. This book portrays as never before the stern matriarchy of the Stanley family, in which "keeping up appearances" was paramount. Although John's mother (Julia senior) was adored by her sisters, they came to see her as the black sheep of the family, and this contributed to the fractured, unhappy life of her and her children.

Julia Baird tells us about the sunshine as well as the shadows, and her love and admiration for her charismatic mother and brother are very evident. However, without stating the obvious she leaves us in little doubt why John, once plunged into the goldfish bowl of Beatlemania, had his own share of relationship problems.

Much of the book hinges around Mimi's alleged moral hypocrisy. According to Julia Baird, Mimi on her deathbed said she was frightened of dying because she had been so wicked. In her own biography of John, Cynthia Lennon (who is just as well-qualified to judge Mimi) quotes Julia's allegation, so it rings true.

Hopefully it is some small consolation to Julia Baird that her mother's name lives on in John's touching ballad "Julia" and in Julian's name too.

As in many accounts of John, Yoko is depicted in less than flattering terms.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Giving a Voice to the Poor Relations
Julia Baird always speaks with humility and dignity about her brother, even when talking about the rifts, the years of lost contact. Read more
Published 11 months ago by Gary

5.0 out of 5 stars Skeletons out of the cupboard
After this book there would be little point in another by an outside writer.
No one could even have guessed what went on here
Published 14 months ago by Richard

3.0 out of 5 stars A melee of houses and bitterness.......
Lets get one thing straight about this book. Much of it is sad, touching and extremely open and honest, almost Julia's version of John's Primal Scream album from 1970. Read more
Published 21 months ago by L. Curtis

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