Freddie Books

Queen. As It Began by Jacky Gunn & Jim Jenkins. (1992) ISBN 0 330 33259 7	The book is written in co-operation with Queen. Brian May wrote the introduction himself. It's the Queen history year by year, from pre-Queen bands until Freddie's death. I consider this book as a Queen encyclopaedia, and I think every Queen fan should read it. Try to get it here:
Queen. The Early Years by Mark Hodkinson. (1995) ISBN 0 711960127	The history of Queen concentrated on their first formative years, including pre-Queen period, till the end of 1975, when Bohemian Rhapsody climbed to the top of the British charts.
Queen. The New Visual Documentary by Ken Dean. (1991) ISBN 0711 928282	Photo book & Queen concertography.
Queen Live: A Concert Documentary by Greg Brooks. (1995) ISBN 0711 948143	Queen concertography with setlists and author's comments. A lot of wonderful pictures.
The Complete Guide To The Music Of Queen by Peter K. Hogan. (1994) ISBN 0711 935262	The guide to the Queen discography. I can't agree with the author's statement: "great singles, duff albums".
The Ultimate Queen by Peter Lewry & Nigel Goodall. (1998) ISBN 0684 821494	Queen manual: discography, videography, concertography, TV and radio appearances - including solo. Unfortunately, there are too many mistakes. I hope the second edition will be more correct.
Queen In Their Own Words by Mick St. Michael. (1992) ISBN 0711 930147	Quotes of the Queen members.
Queen: The Definitive Biography By Laura Jackson. (October 1999) ISBN 0749920297	This is a new book, I've not read it yet.

Mister Mercury by Peter Freestone with David Evans ISBN 0 9533341 0 4 Freddie Mercury by Peter Freestone with David Evans ISBN 0 7119 7801 8	In my opinion it's the best book about Freddie. It has been written by his true friend. Peter Freestone was Freddie's PA for 12 years. In contrast to Jim Hutton's book written in the main about the author himself, this one is about Freddie - about his habits, tastes, and, of course, about his work - touring, composing songs, making of videos, creating of album covers. I was glad to know that both 'Rain Must Fall' and 'Bijou' were written by Freddie. Thank you very much for the book, Mr Freestone! Introduction Review by Mark Birnage
The Freddie Mercury Story. Living On The Edge by David Bret ISBN 1 86105 054 2	David Bret is known as the author of biographies of Edith Piaf, Tallulah Bankhead and Morrissey. "The Freddie Mercury Story" contains a lot of useful information, for example, about Freddie's favourite singers and actors. An introduction is written by Montserrat Caballe.
Freddie Mercury. This Is The Real Life... by David Evans and David Minns ISBN 0-95 19937-3-9	Memories of Freddie's close friends and other people who were happy to meet him. Many interesting things about Freddie.
Freddie Mercury. The Real Life. The Truth Behind The Legend by David Evans and David Minns ISBN 1-9019-5300-9	The updated version of the previous book. Memories of some new persons added along with private photographs and lovely pictures of Freddie's cats drawn by Ann Ortman.
Freddie Mercury. A Kind Of Magic by Ross Clarke ISBN 1-874130-01-9	It's my favourite book. There is no new information, but there are many rare and interesting photos in it.
Freddie Mercury. The Definitive Biography by Lesley-Ann Jones ISBN 0 340 67208 0	Freddie's biography from his childhood till the death. The author spoke to very many people who had known Freddie. The book is very interesting, but some facts are doubtful and somewhere definitely false.
They died too young. Freddie Mercury by Simon Boyce ISBN 0-75251-105-X	A lovely small book; information is mainly taken from As It Began by J.Gunn and J.Jenkins. Nevertheless there are some rare pictures in it.
Freddie Mercury. The Show Must Go On by Rick Sky ISBN 0-00638-435-8 in English ISBN 5-85029-013-3 in Russian	The first ever published book about Freddie. They say that Rick Sky had written it some months before Freddie's death. Many stories from this book were then re-telled and re-published by other authors, so now it's hard to distinguish the truth from the the fiction. You could buy this book in English:
Mercury And Me by Jim Hutton with Tim Wapshott ISBN 0-7475-1922-6	Jim Hutton was Freddie's long-time companion. It seemed to be interesting to receive information directly from one of the closest Freddie's friends, but actually the book was written by a journalist Tim Wapshott who somewhere had coloured the truth. I also can't forgive him many details concerning Freddie's illness. Freddie definitely wouldn't be happy to read such a book. The book is out of print, but you could try to find it here
Queen: The Secret Revealed. A Kind Of Magic by Melina Richmond ISBN 0 9531225 0 6	"...is this the real life, is this just fantasy?" In this case it's just a fantasy. A think the author doesn't know that the poem at the beginning of the book ("Wait for me, and I'll return") has a Russian origin - it was written by Konstantin Simonov in 1940s, not in 1921.