Freddie Mercury: A Life In His Own Words
by Greg Brooks & Simon Lupton

Wisdom from Queen’s most quotable member

Omnibus have published many in-their-own-words books in past years. The series has now ended, but this one, sanctioned by the Mercury estate, has persuaded them back into the market. It was privately published a couple of years ago, and what held true then still holds true now.

Clearly, there’s no “new” material. Yet, while the introduction teases us by claiming there are quotes from unpublished interviews in the pages, it then neglects to tell us where. Similarly, the intro justifies contradictory statements by Fred as being explained by the passage of time, but few quotes have a date attached (past books in the series made a point of dating each quote). Furthermore, they’re run together under chapter headings in a format which makes it unclear where one interview/ quote block ends and the next one begins. Clearly that’s not a problem when addressing, say, different albums, but it can be hard to work out if what you’ve just read relates to what you’re now reading.

A total of 14 books crop up in the bibliography as source material, so it’s hard to evaluate how much of His Life In His Own Words will actually be new to Queen fans. Four colour photo inserts add value, but try before you buy is the recommendation.

2 stars 2 stars

ISBN 19781847726506, 176 pages

Reviewed by Michael Heatley
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