John: Cynthia Lennon

When someone gave me a box of discarded books recently, I pulled out one that caught my eye and began to read. The book was Cynthia Lennon's John, her 2005 personal expose of her ten year relationship with a legend.

I knew nothing about John Lennon's first wife...only that she existed. So much has been written about the Beatles and their relationships that to write more feels like adding a droplet of water to an already overflowing glass, not to mention the parasitic element of publicly raking over people's private lives. Yet Cynthia's book is interesting for its first-hand insights into the effects of  fame, adulation, wealth and the problematic nature of creating cultural legends, alive or dead.