If John Lennon were alive today he would be nearly a septuagenarian and more than half of his life would have passed since he and Yoko Ono staged their "bed-in for peace." For a week in late May and early June 1969 the couple stayed in their jammies and held court in a two-room suite at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal, Canada, where they granted hundreds of in-person and phone interviews, entertained famous guests like Tommy Smothers, Timothy Leary, DJ Murray the K, groups of Hare Krishnas and eventually ended up writing and recording the anti-war anthem that gives this book its title, "Give Peace a Chance." Ostensibly a protest of the Vietnam War, many saw the event as a publicity stunt or a slap at the U.S. government in general since the Feds had just banned Lennon from entering the States because of a pot bust. This coffee-table book, issued to commemorate the bed-in's fortieth anniversary, tells the story through the photographs of the late Gerry Deiter, the only photographer who was allowed to shoot the entire event. Many of the photos are famous and recognizable, like the ones of political cartoonist Al Capp insulting the couple and trying to provoke an unmoved Lennon to violence. Many shots though have never before been published and some, like candid shots of Lennon with his step-daughter Kyoko, neatly summarize the emotion behind the whole affair. In light of the fact that the U.S. now has a Black man as president, Lennon would probably get a chuckle out of remembering his bed-in visit from Black comedian Dick Gregory who quipped that he would one day be president and paint the White House black. Deiter, Ono and the producer of the hotel room recording session, Andre Perry, are among those adding commentary to this photographic document of a very turbulent time in modern history.

Give Peace a Chance: John & Yoko's Bed-In for Peace
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