John Lennon was one of history's most influential musicians. This title highlights Lennon's background and his role in the formation of the groundbreaking band The Beatles. Also covered in detail are Lennon's famous war protests and his 1980 assassination. Recently released Beatles CDs, and the Cirque de Soleil masterpiece Love appealed to many young people. With Beatles songs for the Rock Band™ video game coming this fall, as well as remastered Beatles recordings, this title is a timely addition to any collection for middle and high schools and YA programs. Lives Cut Short is a series in Essential Library, an imprint of ABDO Publishing Company.

"With a new introduction by the author"--Jkt.

John Lennon was one of history's most influential musicians. This title highlights Lennon's background and his role in the formation of the groundbreaking band The Beatles. Also covered in detail are Lennon's famous war protests and his 1980 assassination. Recently released Beatles CDs, and the Cirque de Soleil masterpiece Love appealed to many young people. With Beatles songs for the Rock Band™ video game coming this fall, as well as remastered Beatles recordings, this title is a timely addition to any collection for middle and high schools and YA programs. Lives Cut Short is a series in Essential Library, an imprint of ABDO Publishing Company.

John Lennon was a legend in his own time. Deprived of life at a young age, Lennon has become a symbol of the sixties and seventies peace movement. But what do we really know about him as a person?

A lifetime of letters, collected for the first time, from the legendary musician and songwriter. John Lennon was one of the greatest songwriters the world has ever known, creator of "Help!", "Come Together", "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", "Strawberry Fields Forever", "Imagine", and dozens more. But it was in his correspondences that he let his personality and poetry flow unguarded. Now, gathered for the first time in book form, are his letters to family, friends, strangers, and lovers from every point in his life. Funny, informative, wise, poetic, and sometimes heartbreaking, his letters illuminate a never-before-seen intimate side of the private genius. This groundbreaking collection of almost 300 letters and postcards has been edited and annotated by Hunter Davies, whose authorized biography The Beatles (1968) was published to great acclaim. With unparalleled knowledge of Lennon and his contemporaries, Davies reads between the lines of the artist's words, contextualizing them in Lennon's life and using them to reveal the man himself.

New York, December 8, 1980: The announcement shocked the world. Beatles founder and legendary musician John Lennon had been murdered in front of his New York home. With no warning, a lone gunman opened fire, shooting Lennon in the back just as Lennon returned from a recording session with his wife, Yoko Ono. Husband, father of two, cultural icon, and hero to millions, Lennon was dead. Around the globe, people mourned the loss of a man who had stood for peace, a man who had given so much joy to the world through his gift of music. No one had seen it coming...except one man—Mark David Chapman, Lennon's assassin. What drove this former Beatles fan to commit such a terrible act? Follow the lives of both Lennon and Chapman, learn about the political and cultural settings in which both grew up, and trace—step by excruciating step—the final moments of John Lennon's life.

Presented in a handsome slipcase, Lennon Legend is both an illustrated and an interactive biography of the creative genius - songwriter, artist, social activist - who changed his times. Created with the cooperation of Yoko Ono Lennon, who has opened her archives for this project, the book offers insightful details about every era of John's life, from his early days at art school to the height of Beatlemania to "Imagine." A live recording of that song is included, along with several interviews of John talking about his life and art, on the audio CD contained in this package. Throughout, the book features archival photographs and reproductions of John's handwritten song lyrics, drawings, memorabilia, and personal papers. In all, 40 removable facsimiles can be enjoyed by the reader, several previously unpublished, including an intimate self-portrait in pen and ink and a plea for world peace. It's been said that John Lennon's was the voice of a generation. Lennon Legend celebrates that voice's power to resonate across the generations.