Yoko Ono is the subject of an “intimate and revelatory” biography in 2025. Yoko: The Biography, from author David Sheff, arrived March 25 via Simon and Schuster. It’s available in the U.S. here and in the U.K. here. Ono turned 92 on February 18.
From the publisher’s announcement: John Lennon once described Yoko Ono as the world’s most famous unknown artist. “Everybody knows her name, but no one knows what she does.” She has only been important to history insofar as she impacted Lennon. Throughout her life, Yoko has been a caricature, curiosity, and, often, a villain—an inscrutable seductress, manipulating con artist, and caterwauling fraud. The Lennon/Beatles saga is one of the greatest stories ever told, but Yoko’s part has been missing—hidden in the Beatles’ formidable shadow, further obscured by flagrant misogyny and racism. This definitive biography of Yoko Ono’s life will change that. In this book, Yoko Ono takes centerstage.
“As a woman she wasn’t just dismissed,” one observer said to the author. “She was demonized.”
Yoko’s life, independent of Lennon, was an amazing journey. Yoko spans from her birth on Feb. 18, 1933, to wealthy parents in pre-war Tokyo, her harrowing experience as a child during the war, her arrival in avant-garde art scene in London, Tokyo, and New York City. It delves into her groundbreaking art, music, feminism, and activism. We see how she coped under the most intense, relentless, and cynical microscope as she was falsely vilified for the most heinous cultural crime imaginable: breaking up the greatest rock-and-roll band in history.
This book was nearly a half century in the making. In 1980, David Sheff met Yoko and John when Sheff conducted an in-depth interview with them just months before John’s murder. In the aftermath of the killing, he and Yoko became close as she rebuilt her life, survived threats and betrayals, and went on to create groundbreaking art and music while campaigning for peace and other causes. Drawing from his experiences and interviews with her, her family, closest friends, collaborators, and many others, Sheff shows us Yoko’s nine decades—one of the most unlikely and remarkable lives ever lived.
Yoko is a harrowing, moving, propulsive, and vastly entertaining biography of a woman whose story has never been accurately told. The book not only rehabilitates Yoko Ono’s reputation but elevates it to iconic status.
Related: Daytime Revolution—When John and Yoko changed American TV
Sheff’s books include Game Over, China Dawn, and All We Are Saying. His many articles and interviews have appeared in the New York Times, Rolling Stone, and elsewhere. His piece for the New York Times Magazine, “My Addicted Son,” won an award from the American Psychological Association for Outstanding Contribution to Advancing the Understanding of Addiction. It led to his #1 New York Times Best Seller, Beautiful Boy, which was named the best nonfiction book of 2008 by Entertainment Weekly.
Related: Best Classic Bands’ editor’s interview with Yoko
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1 Comment so far
Jump into a conversationLooking forward to it. Another great book that dives head first into her role and others in the Beatles universe is ” The Beatles Wives” by Marc Shapiro. It provides great backstories on each Beatle and the roles/support/problems with each partner.