Fab: The Intimate Life of Paul McCartney

De: Howard Sounes

Narrado por: David Thorpe

He is the proud torchbearer of the Beatles, the greatest band in the history of popular music, and one of the most closely-studied artists in show business, yet secrets and surprises remain in the life of Sir Paul McCartney. The full story is told in Fab.

Howard Sounes, author of the acclaimed Down the Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan, spent more than two years investigating every aspect of Sir Paul’s life and work, including interviewing over 200 people. The result is the richest, most detailed, and most comprehensive biography of McCartney yet written.

Unlike previous biographers, the author pays equal attention to the story of McCartney in the Beatles and the ongoing story of his post-Beatles career, creating an engrossing history that spans the long arc of this great artist’s life and work. Fab also includes the full, fascinating story of Sir Paul’s calamitous second marriage to Heather Mills. Sounes proves a judicious critic of the music, while also delivering a superb psychological portrait of the man behind some of the world’s most beloved songs.

Howard Sounes is known for writing detailed and revelatory biographies of a wide range of extraordinary personalities, including the murderers Fred and Rosemary West (Fred & Rose), the writer Charles Bukowski (Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life), and the musicians Bob Dylan (Down the Highway) and Lou Reed (Notes from the Velvet Underground). Each book is based on extensive original research. For more information, visit www.howardsounes.com

©2010 Howard Sounes (P)2014 Audible Studios

Reseñas de la Crítica

"For fans willing to ponder their hero’s flaws, Fab delivers all you need to know." ( Rolling Stone)
"A McCartney biography that intrigues all the way through." ( The (London) Times)

fascinating biography

As a follower of the Beatles since the 1960s I really enjoyed this biography of Paul. Howard Sounes' detailed research is impressive, and I learned a lot about Paul the man, his relationships with the other Beatles, with family and friends and with other musos. The early days centred on sex drugs and rock'n'roll which became a little tedious, but once Linda arrived on the scene the focus changed and a mature and more interesting Paul emerged. Naturally the length of the book means a lot of characters and a lot of detail, but it held my interest from start to finish. I ended up seeing Paul as a decent and caring man and liking him for the person he is rather than liking his music and admiring him as a star. At the end I had just one question - why didn't Paul learn to write music? With so much musical apptitude and talent, his life might have been easier if he'd been able to jot down music as it came to him instead of waiting for a professional to do it for him. The book is well written, and David Thorpe does a great job of narration - right voice for the job and good with accents.

gripping! intriguing start to finish.

loved it start to finish
narrators voice very easy to listen to.
highly recommend it

Good balance of facts

Like most Beatles fans, there's a fine line about knowing too much and not enough. I think this book strikes a nice balance.

New Bits Aren't Good and Good Bits Aren't New

Well-written and well-researched, but there is little that won't be familiar to most fans of McCartney and that band he played bass for. There was greater detail of Linda's death, which was heartbreaking, and way too much detail about Paul's second marriage, but I guess both are part of McCartney's story. It's worth listening to, despite the author being an obvious devotee of John Lennon, like so many who have fallen for the Martin Luther Lennon image Yoko has created in place of what John Lennon was actually like.

Nothing new here

Any additional comments?

If you're new to Paul McCartney, don't know much about him, this will be a very informative book. But if you've been following him for years, it's pretty much a rehash of everything else you've ever read. I didn't appreciate the author's critiques of McCartney's music. That's so subjective, and if he thought it made him seem unbiased, it didn't. I would rather have read an analysis of other professional criticism.