"Although this biography-in-photographs appears in conjunction with the 30th anniversary of John Lennon's tragic death at 40, it concentrates on what Yoko Ono describes in her preface as her husband's 'magical' life. While Ono remembers Lennon as a 'curious and highly intelligent man,' [John] Blaney writes of Lennon's 'butterfly mind,' shorthand for his brilliance and impatience. In his extensive commentary accompanying hundreds of remarkably elegant private and public photographs, Blaney notes that while the always-photogenic Lennon appears to be 'a confident, happy, normal young boy,' everyone knew he was exceptional. Creative, charismatic, ambitious, daring, and sensitive, Lennon concealed his terrible grief over his mother's death when he was 17 behind a caustic and aggressive demeanor and struggled with his repressed feelings as the tempest of fame engulfed the Beatles. Image and narrative track the group's rapid rise and evolution and Lennon's discovery of his soul mate. Blaney writes, 'Ono transformed Lennon; she filled him with confidence, inspiration and energy.' This superior photographic record of Lennon and his and Ono's love, activism, and mutual artistry is strikingly romantic and poignant."—Booklist