A serviceable biography - Rated 
I'm not working just now and like one of the other reviewers I read it in three days. I really enjoyed it. I was 12 when Love Me Do came out and my sister and I bought all their albums on the day of release for several years.
I was also around in London in the late sixties so enjoyed reading the detail about that period.
There are several things about this book which really impressed me however. One is the carefully built up and three dimensional portrait of Lennon's childhood, particularly the portraits of his parents and aunt Mimi. They really come alive for me. So does the picture of Lennon as a 'Just William' character. Clearly for almost his whole life he was a relentless rebel, a continual thorn in the flesh to anyone in authority. I found the stuff about his interest in art and writing really interesting too, going back to his art school days and earlier.
The stuff on Hamburg is great too - that was a hard school, and made them as a band. There is of course a lot of detail on all the Beatles and the changing personnel and friendships. Many readers may be more familiar with this than I as I had never read a book about the Beatles before, but it is really good to get the lowdown on Stu Sutcliffe for example.
The nature of the Lennon McCartney relationship, the friendship with Jagger all add to the mix.
I was less interested in the Yoko Ono years as her work doesn't interest me but the book does bring out how Lennon's personality found his life in New York a new vehicle to express himself in a more explicitly radical way.
The section on the breakup with the Beatles seems to have as much to do with Paul's relationship with Linda as with John's with Yoko but armed with this support they both adopted different financial gurus and that was what really did it.
The is a comprehensive and disciplined book. It doesn't answer every question but for me really brought those years back.
So moving - Rated
As an admirer of Philip Norman's brilliant Beatles' book, Shout, I couldn't wait to get my hands on this and I have not been disappointed. This portrait of John moved me to tears. It made me see in a way no book has ever done before just how much the tragedies of his childhood affected his later life. I can't believe Yoko thinks this book has been "mean" to John. He emerges from it not just as a genius but a great - and real - human being.
Brilliant! - Rated
This has to be the best book about John Lennon ever written. I got hold of it late last week, and even though it's 800+ pages long I finished it in three days. Couldn't put it down.
Some of the best parts are about John's early childhood, his mother, Julia, and his famous Aunt Mimi, who brought him up. No wonder he was such a complicated human being when he had such a difficult childhood, and suffered so many losses early in life.
Philip Norman also reveals John's jealousy of Paul McCartney, and has someohow managed to get Yoko Ono to talk to him about their life together - quite a feat in itself.
Altogether, a great read, and a must-have for any self-respecting Beatles fan.
Very disappointing - Rated 
I have been looking forward to the release of this book for several months and after spending all day reading it I am incredibly disappointed. There is very little, if any, information that will be new to anyone unless this is their very first Beatles/Lennon book. It's as if Norman simply bought all the currently available books (Goldman, Davies, Coleman) and wrote his own version using them as a reference. You would think at 850 pages there would be something new but there isn't. Perhaps this is why the typeset is so large and the margins on each page are so big.
Probably the biggest disappointment is the cursory treatment given to Lennons last 5 years, we learn absolutely nothing that isn't in other books.
Perhaps the most amusing line in this sorry peice of hack journalism is when Norman calls Albert Goldman "risibly ignorant" when a good 50 percent of the information in his book was in Goldmans book 20 years ago.
I would advise skimming through this book in the bookshop before you contemplate shelling out.
Fingers crossed for Mark Lewisohns forthcoming three volume biography of the Beatles.
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