The Beatles: The Biography by Bob Spitz | Fab forum

I enjoyed that book a lot, considered it practically like a tragic real-life novel. But apparently it's got a lot of inaccuracies, that you may or may not consider minor.

I started it, but Spitz isn't my type of writer. Ov Vey

You really needn't. Just my opinion of course but you seem to know more than Mr. Spitz

PennyLane said:

I haven't finished the book yet. I got as far as I think about John taking dance lessons. I haven't had time to finish it because of my classes.

But reading those mistakes on the article made me laugh. 

That's exactly the sort of silly, easily correctable error that plagues the book – I think at one point Spitz claims that Rubber Soul has 13 songs, or something equally flat-out wrong. But when I call the book a "real-life novel", I'm thinking specifically about dramatic passages like this one, depicting the recording of "Twist & Shout":

Everyone knew they’d have to get it on the first take — the band, the engineer, everybody had to do his job, without a missed note or a glitch.  There would be nothing left of John’s voice after that.

[. . .]

John tore open a wax carton and gargled noisily with milk.  He’d played most of the day in a rumpled suit, but sometime after dinner the jacket was removed and two fingers yanked down the tie.  Now, without a word, he stripped off his shirt.  He draped it over a bench, then walked over to the mike and nodded to the others: good to go.

It is obvious from the very first notes that John was straining for control.  “Shake it up bay-be-eee. . .” was more of a shriek than singing.  There was nothing left of his voice.  It was bone-dry, stripped bare, with all the resonance husked from the tone, and the sound it made was like an angry, hoarse-voiced fan screeching at a football match.  Between clamped jaws, contorting his face, he croaked, “Twist and shout.”  He had been struggling all day to reach notes, but this was different, this hurt.  And it was painful to listen to.  Still, John held nothing in reserve.  Trancelike, as the band rocked harder, buliding excitement with their impetuous energy, the struggle grew more intense.  “C’mon, and twist a litle closer” broke up into an agonizing, demonic rasp, until on the last refrain of the tortured throatiness strangled every word before Paul, in admiration, shouted, “Hey,” celebrating, as they miraculously crossed the finished line.

John was wasted, near collapse, but the others already knew what he was about to find out from a playback: that for all its hairiness, “Twist and Shout” is a masterpiece . . .

That may not be entirely appropriate reporting – it's not as though Spitz was actually there, obviously – but it's good stuff. I'm not necessarily recommending Spitz's book (presumably everyone is going to wait for the Lewisohn's definitive works), just explaining what I liked about it.

I read this book a few years ago and thought it was okay, but I'm leafing through it again at work and it appears as though Spitz let his imagination get the best of him at certain points. That's not necessarily a bad thing because it makes the book more interesting and readable, but I don't know how factual the book is, especially the White Album and Apple stuff where he really goes off the deep end. He seems to get most of his information from Anthology and various other places, but I get the feeling that he filled in a few areas with his own interpretations. He spends a lot of time talking about Brian's and John's personalities and how self destructive they both were.
It's tough to say about this one, it's a good book but it seems more like fiction in certain places.