John Lennon 1980 The Last Days In The Life

★★★★ Kenneth Womack OMNIBUS. £14.99 Beatle scholar’s insightful study of that final year. First, this isn’t a book about John Lennon’s murder. His killer isn’t mentioned, and the death is given a couple of paragraphs before writer Kenneth Womack dives into the aftermath. Its absence is no great loss. This is a book about the months leading up to December 8, 1980. Womack details the domestic minutiae of John and Yoko’s life, but also how the lesser-spotted Beatle’s absence had made him “a figure of legend”. One day a fan blags his way into the couple’s New York apartment, desperate to glimpse the legend. Lennon thinks he’s a VCR repairman, but goodnaturedly signs an autograph even after realising he’s been duped. The making of his swansong, Double Fantasy, brings Lennon’s story up to its fateful, final minutes. At the end, he’s a musician awed by his back catalogue and unprecedented celebrity, but finally rediscovering his muse. Sadly, too little, too late. Mark Blake