The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 7 December 2004
by Ringo Starr
This book might be most interesting for big fans of the Beatles and those who have collected all the other books and memorabilia they can find. There is little here that would shed much light on Ringo or the others for those who don't already know a bit about them. This is a handsome volume, though, but low on content, so it might qualify as a "short" book. There are fifty-one postcards, reproduced both front and back, that were sent to Ringo Starr by George, John and Paul over the years from the mid sixties to the mid nineties. Each pair of images is accompanied by brief comments by Ringo, and each comment brings to light one or another small event in the lives of the Beatles, and mostly, Ringo himself. There are three threads that seem to run through the book. One is that Ringo has a faulty memory. Though I have not read in much detail of his life, the implication is that this is due to his hard-living lifestyle. The cards often don't remind him of much at all, which brings us to... Two is that it is often the address on the card that gives Ringo any historical fact on which to hinge his own commentary. He often recalls just where he was living and some of what happened at these locations. These are vignettes and give tantalizing suggestions of much more. Finally, three is that the other members of the Fab Four were not very loquacious in their postcards. Ringo has selected cards with few words on them, sometimes nothing more than "Wish you here" (from John and Yoko). If there was other, lengthier, correspondence (which one would suspect), Ringo doesn't say anything about it. Ringo deserves, though, privacy, when it comes to correspondence, and this book already is somewhat revealing. The suggestion is that these cards show that the four remained friends over the years. The cards are cheerful and witty, but hardly seem (to me) to indicate a real closeness. Still, the book contains some interesting curiosities.
See Also: [Lennon, by Ray Coleman]