John Penny

You know when you've bought album after album of your favourite artist and then you find yourself saying 'Yeah well it's not as good as their earlier stuff'. Well with the Beatles the reverse is true - they get BETTER and this one, of course, was the last one where they all worked on an album together. As someone who bought them in order as they were released and listened to them intently I can assure anyone that, even fifty years on, if you haven't listened to a Beatles album before, you should buy the lot and listen to them in order. If you don't want to do that, buy 'Abbey Road' and play it all the way through - non-stop. It's the only way... Who knows? You may then want to go out and buy the rest - on vinyl, obviously...!

As a life-long enthusiast of railways (I prefer 'life-long student of railways and their operation, history and engineering') I found the book fascinating. From the reasoning behind the use of electricity to the day-to-day running and eventual demise, this book covers what is a unique line as Bill Hatcher has gone to a lot of trouble to compile a decent quantity of photographs as well as getting into the minutae. It is one of my most read (or just browsed, even) books in my extensive collection. I would not hesitate in giving it 10/10.

All LRB stuff still floats my boat. It would be daft to put one album ahead of others IMHO. Reason for 4/5? One always has to have something in reserve...