The Beach Boys: A Biography in Words & Pictures (Ken Barnes)

Publishing Year: 1976

Published by: Sire Books-Chappell Music Company

Pages: 56

The Beach Boys: Southern California Pastoral (Bruce Golden)

Publishing Year: 1976

Published by: The Borgo Press

Pages: 59



The Beach Boys (John Tobler)

Publishing Year: 1978

Published by: Phoebus Publishing Company

Pages: 96

The Beach Boys and the California Myth (David Leaf)

Publishing Year: 1978 Revised: 1985

Published by: Courage Books

Pages: 208

The Beach Boys: The Authorized Biography of America's Greatest Rock and Roll Band (Byron Preiss)

Publishing Year: 1979

Published by: St. Martin's Press

Pages: 96

Surf's Up! The Beach Boys On Record 1961-1981 (Brad Elliott)

Publishing Year: 1984

Revised: 1991

Published by: Popular Culture, Inc.

Pages: 495



The Beach Boys Silver Anniversary (John Milward)

Publishing Year: 1985

Published by: Dolphin/Doubleday

Pages: 240

The Beach Boys (Dean Anthony)

Publishing Year: 1985

Published by: Crescent Books

Pages: 64



Heroes & Villains: The True Story of the Beach Boys (Steven Gaines)

Publishing Year: 1986

Published by: Dutton/Signet

Publishing Year: 1995

Published by: Da Capo Press

Pages: 374

Look! Listen! Vibrate! SMILE! (Domenic Priore)

Publishing Year: 1988

Revised: 1995

Published by: Small Press Distribution

Pages: 264



Wouldn't It Be Nice: My Own Story (Brian Wilson with Todd Gold)

Publishing Year: 1991

Published by: Harper Collins

Pages: 398

Denny Remembered: Dennis Wilson in Words and Pictures (Edward Wincentsen)

Publishing Year: 1991

Published by: Vergin Press

Pages: 197



The Wilson Project (Stephen J. McParland)

Publishing Year: 1991

Published by: PTB Productions

Pages: 142

The Nearest Faraway Place: Brian Wilson, The Beach Boys and the Southern California Experience (Timothy White)

Publishing Year: 1994

Published by: Henry Holt and Company

Pages: 416



The Beach Boys: In Their Own Words (Nick Wise)

Publishing Year: 1994

Published by: Omnibus Press

Pages: 112



How Deep Is The Ocean? (Paul Williams)

Publishing Year: 1997

Published by: Omnibus Press

Pages: 240



Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys: The Complete Guide to their Music (Doe & John Tobler)

Publishing Year: 1997

Revised: 2004

Published by: Omnibus Press

Pages: 160 (Rev.: 96)



Back To The Beach: a Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys Reader (Kingsley Abbott)

Publishing Year: 1998

Published by: Helter Skelter Publishing

Pages: 254



Add Some Music To Your Day: Analyzing and Enjoying the Music of The Beach Boys (Don Cunningham and Jeff Bleiel)

Publishing Year: 1999

Published by: Tiny Ripple Publishing

Pages: 200



Smile, Sun, Sand & Pet Sounds (Stephen J. McParland)

Publishing Year: 1999

Published by: California Music

Pages: 108

Books, Part 2



Wouldn't It Be Nice: My Own Story (Brian Wilson with Todd Gold)



It's hard to know where Brian Wilson ends and Eugene Landy begins in this book. An express train to hell and back with the leader of the Beach Boys. Wilson begins with his darkest days, in November 1982. Then, weighing over 340 pounds, smoking six packs of cigarettes and snorting five grams of coke a day, failing to bathe for weeks at a time, ``I stank. I was dirty...I was insane.'' How did the founder of ``America's band'' reach this bottom? According to the equally frank life-review that follows, father Murry Wilson, a would-be but talentless composer, had a lot to do with it, taking out his frustrations on his sensitive son (born in 1942) through mind- twisting beatings and ridicule. And then there were the drugs and the relentless pressure to produce hit tunes; by the late 60's, Wilson, wealthy and renowned for such songs as ``Good Vibrations'' and ``I Get Around,'' was drifting into a paranoid schizophrenia that would envelop him for 15 years. Salvation finally came in the person of Eugene Landy, an unorthodox psychologist who took Wilson by the hand in 1983 and turned his life around through a rigorous program of diet, exercise, and therapy. Wilson devotes nearly half of his text to his resurrection, and it's an inspiring story (although recent moves by the other Beach Boys to sever him from Landy--for reasons Wilson ascribes to greed and jealousy--find the self-admittedly ``brain-damaged'' author unsure about his mental future). Most readers, though, will find of even greater interest Wilson's detailing of his early encounters with the Beatles, Elvis, and other rock luminaries; of his stormy relationship with the other Beach Boys; of his now-dead brother Dennis's ties to Charlie Manson; and, in a recurrent motif that illuminates his troubled tale, of how he goes about composing his exquisite music. A bold and genuinely affecting account by a founding father of rock 'n' roll: a must for popular-music fans.