‘Within You Without You’ Released to Rave Reviews

A behind-the-scenes look at week one of my new George Harrison book

Oct 05, 2024

Thank you for taking an interest in my new book about George Harrison, Within You Without You: Listening to George Harrison, and the occasional behind-the-scenes view I am offering in these columns. For those who could not care less, please don’t unsubscribe from Everything Is Broken. The book is the culmination of five years of work, it was just only published this past week, and for the next few weeks I may be somewhat singleminded about it in this space. In the meantime, I am amassing a backlog of other topics to write about, and before you know it the book will be old news, and I will move on to other subjects.

I TOOK a quick weeklong trip in mid-September to give myself a bit of a buffer between all the preparations for the publication of Within You Without You: Listening to George Harrison and the post-publication promotional efforts for the book, including book-signings, readings, interviews, media appearances, podcasts, and social media postings.

Things did not go exactly according to plan. Just a little over halfway through my mini-vacation, I began to feel awful. I felt run down, fatigued, and had all the symptoms of a major respiratory ailment – sore throat, congestion, cough, etc. My first thought was that I had come down with COVID, but testing said that was not the case. By the time I got home, feeling even worse than I had before, I figured maybe I had some kind of bronchitis, as I had all the symptoms. I drank a lot of hot tea, took various natural concoctions and a few over-the-counter medications to relieve the symptoms.

Nothing seemed to work, and I only grew more fatigued. So after eight days of suffering through it in the hope that my body’s natural defenses would win the battle against whatever was ailing me, I caved and went to see my doctor, although I was pretty convinced the answer would be that I had viral bronchitis, for which there is no cure, and I would just have to wait it out for several weeks. One listen to my lungs through a stethoscope, however, produced a diagnosis I had never even considered: I had pneumonia.

The good news about having pneumonia in my case was that I was immediately put on a course of antibiotics (as it was a bacterial infection and not a virus) which, while taking its sweet time, slowly began to lessen my symptoms. It took the entire eight-day course of the medication to wipe out the symptoms, and while I grew less fatigued, I still have not yet fully recovered to the point where I was before I took ill.

It was an inauspicious homecoming and a stressful re-entry into regular life, which, in addition to all the promotional work for the book included preparing for the High Holidays (I had a small but time-consuming role in my synagogue’s services, and I was determined not to bow out, as long as I was not potentially harming others – my doctor assured me I was long past being contagious), sending out my regular Rogovoy Report Substacks and recording my weekly WAMC appearances… oh, and watching the New York Mets stage their spectacular comeback victories, first against the Atlanta Braves and then against the Milwaukee Brewers. It is not too much of an exaggeration to say that one of the reasons that George Harrison is my favorite Beatle is that I garnered sympathy for the underdog as a lifelong Mets fan. Harrison, to me, was the underdog of the Beatles, which I explain more fully in Within You Without You.

LONG STORY SHORT – here I am at the end of week one, and although it was not a smooth ride getting to this point, I made it. And as it turned out, week one has been terrific – a writer’s dream.

The book was officially published this past Tuesday, October 1. The day before, the book got its first mainstream review, on Salon.com, written by the well-respected Beatles expert Kenneth Womack. This review came as an utter and total (and quite welcome) surprise. And it’s not bragging to say that the review was a rave. Here’s a taste:

“When it comes to the so-called Quiet Beatle, author Seth Rogovoy’s WITHIN YOU WITHOUT YOU accomplishes a rare feat. In a sea of ineffectual biographies devoted to the Beatles’ guitarist, Rogovoy makes a case for Harrison’s most important contribution: the music itself . . . Rogovoy’s eye towards soberly capturing the history of the Beatles with a welcome dose of critical objectivity makes WITHIN YOU WITHOUT YOU required reading when it comes to the guitarist. It’s that good.”

By midweek, a podcast I recorded while I was still under the weather went live, and it was a fun and freewheeling conversation with rock critic and historian Allison Rapp, for her Joni Mitchell-focused “Big Yellow Podcast.” Why was I a guest on a podcast about Joni Mitchell talking about George Harrison? Take a listen here and you will understand why. (We also, of course, talked plenty about Joni Mitchell, and especially about the affinities between Mitchell and Harrison.)

And then, in another utter surprise, the book was the subject of another rave review, this one in the Wall Street Journal, published online on Friday (and in the Saturday hard-copy edition). We had inklings that the Journal might be reviewing the book, but we had no idea it would be within three days of publication, which I am told very rarely happens. Here’s a snippet from the WSJ review:

“In WITHIN YOU WITHOUT YOU Seth Rogovoy guides us through [George] Harrison’s career. ... Mr. Rogovoy is a keen listener with a knack for rendering musical details in plain language. Here he sheds new light on old favorites and brings forgotten gems out of the shadows.”

So as you can see, it’s been a busy and exciting first week of publication. There will be more podcasts coming out soon, as well as live radio appearances on Radio Woodstock, WGXC in the Hudson Valley, and on WAMC Northeast Public Radio (on Wednesday, October 23, on the morning program, The Roundtable, with Joe Donahue). I’ve got a few press interviews scheduled in the next few weeks, and, starting next weekend, a series of book events – live appearances featuring readings, conversations, live music, book-signings, and even a big party at Manhattan’s City Winery. All of these events are listed on the Events page of my website here, which I try to update daily.

I’ll just note the first three events here:

Sunday, October 13, 7pm: Spotty Dog Books, Hudson, N.Y. A reading, signing, and conversation with filmmaker Stacy Cochran, who made a short film about Beatles filmmaker Richard Lester called Richard Lester! Lester directed the Beatles two great feature films, A Hard Day’s Night and Help!

Sunday, October 20, 5:30-7pm: City Winery, N.Y. A book-launch party featuring a reading, signing, music, and schmoozing, free and open to the public (that means you are invited), before my appearance in Wesley Stace’s Cabinet of Wonders variety show at City Winery, a ticketed event beginning at 7:30pm.

Sunday, October 27, 4pm-5pm: The Bookstore, Lenox, Mass. A reading and signing at Matthew Tannenbaum’s legendary bookshop in downtown Lenox

I hope to see you all at one or more of these events or the others listed on my website.

“BUT SETH, WHAT CAN I DO TO HELP?”

Thank you so much for asking. Besides the obvious – purchase the book, preferably at your local independent bookshop or at any of the online bookstores – here are a few ideas of ways you can help support this labor of love of mine for the past five years:

1. Share any news or reviews for the book or your own comments about it on your social media channels.

2. Write short reviews on any of the online book portals, including Goodreads, Amazon, Bookshop.org, etc.

3. Buy copies of the book when you are doing your holiday shopping.

4. Maybe you have a friend who owns a bookshop, has a radio program, teaches at a college or university, reviews books for a print or online publication? Please tell them about the book, share with them the website -- https://www.sethrogovoy.com – and connect them to me via this newsletter or via the contacts page on the website -- https://www.sethrogovoy.com/contact

Thanks for reading all the way through and for following me on this exciting journey into the fascinating world of George Harrison and his music, via Within You Without You, which it is said “will forever change the way readers hear the music of the Beatles.”

In solidarity,

Seth Rogovoy

“Well, I don’t want to go on the roof.” -- George Harrison

Everything Is Broken

‘Within You Without You’ Released to Rave Reviews

A behind-the-scenes look at week one of my new George Harrison book

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