A version of this went out to paid subscribers yesterday but now I’m telling all the world…
I’m delighted to tell you that my new book, John & Paul: A Love Story In Songs will be published in Spring 2025, in Britain and America. Rather excitingly, I can now show you what it looks like and invite you to pre-order. I can also tell you about subscriber privileges…
John & Paul: A Love Story In Songs tells the story of the tempestuous, tender, intimate, phenomenally creative relationship between John Lennon and Paul McCartney. It’s about how two damaged young men merged their souls and multiplied their talents to create one of the greatest bodies of music in history.
It starts in 1957, when the two of them meet, before taking us through their rise to fame, stupendous success, acrimonious split and aftermath. I tell the story through songs, since it’s my belief that it’s impossible to understand the music of the Beatles except through the alchemy between John and Paul - and you can’t understand that alchemy except through the songs. John & Paul offers a whole new narrative of the Beatles; one which scrapes away the clichés in order to reveal the group and its two principals afresh. It’s a story full of joy, love, pain and pathos. But don’t take my word for it…
The first new Beatles story in decades - and the one that will make your heart burst.
Caitlin Moran
No writer has ever gotten to the heart of the John/Paul saga as brilliantly as Ian Leslie. This extraordinary book sheds light on a cultural mystery: how two nowhere boys from Liverpool formed a teenage bond that transformed the future, and in so many ways, invented it. John and Paul is a bold, original, empathetic revelation of why our world is still fascinated by this friendship-and still trying to live up to it.
Rob Sheffield
I’ve been working on this book for the last three years and it’s now pretty much done - we’re in the very last round of copy edits. It’s the best thing I’ve ever written and I can’t wait to share the whole thing with you. The notes section has been completed (I am so glad to say). The pages have been typeset. Most excitingly: we have a jacket design. Actually two, because John & Paul has two terrific publishers, one in the UK (Faber), one in the US (Celadon).
Here is the UK cover:
Isn’t it splendid? The picture was taken by Val Wilmer at the Finsbury Park Astoria, at the end of 1963, the year the Beatles conquered Britain (America was next). Find someone in your life looks at you the way John looks at Paul...
And here is the equally fabulous American cover, which uses David Bailey’s stunning picture of the pair from 1965:
The Ruffian is deeply intertwined with John & Paul: A Love Story In Songs. The book sprang from a long piece that I wrote about McCartney on here back in 2020. It went so unexpectedly viral that I started to think, huh, what if…? I’d already been thinking, vaguely, of a book about the two of them, but now it seemed viable. I got a similar response to my piece on Peter Jackson’s Get Back, also published on The Ruffian. Those two pieces became my kind of standard for the book - I wanted the whole thing to elicit as powerful a response as they did.
It’s been a massive undertaking and without income from The Ruffian I simply wouldn’t have had time to do this story justice. Over the months to come, especially as we get nearer to publication, I’ll be sending J&P-related posts exclusively to paid subscribers. These will include pieces on the writing of the book, extra material I had to leave out, and perhaps some extracts. There will be other goodies too; my publishers have some exciting plans.
YOU CAN NOW PRE-ORDER ‘JOHN & PAUL’
Yes, it’s out there on the virtual shelves, waiting for you. And I would absolutely love you to pre-order (to those of you annoyed by this arguably redundant term, I apologise but it’s handy).
Every sale of this book counts but some sales count more than others. Pre-orders are simply more valuable to authors. Why? Because they move the algorithmic needles. The more orders a book receives before its publication date, the more prominence the retailers give it when it arrives, and so the better it does on release It’s all about the big mo. The prize is a spot on the bestseller lists in that first week. So let’s give it a go…
If you can afford it, please smash your preferred link and get your order in now (UK and US retailers below):
UK
U.S.
Audible
THANK YOU
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OMG I LOVE THIS idea. I've thought a lot about this for a long time. I will eagerly await your book. ;) (And yes, probably pre-order.) Awesome!!
Ordered!! Mr. Leslie, please consider turning your attention to Yoko. To my mind, she is the single most misunderstood woman on the planet, even now.