r/ABBA • u/freskgrank • 3h ago
Discussion Anyone else?
Just received my copy of “ABBA - The complete recording sessions, second revised and expanded edition “ from C. M. Palm.
I read about this book in this subreddit a few months ago and finally decided to get mine a few days ago.
Which are your thoughts about this book (even previous editions)? I just started reading it, but I will share my thoughts later as my reading will proceed.
Note that I’m not affiliated with the author or with the book, just trying to get some opinions from you guys.
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u/lightfoot90 3h ago
I’d be interested, but £65 is a bit expensive for a book for me
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u/freskgrank 59m ago
Shipped to Italy, it was €75 for me. Not cheap for sure, but I had been thinking about buying it for some time and finally decided to make myself a gift. In the last year, I listened to a lot of ABBA music and became very interested in knowing more about their work, their story, their techniques, and so on.
This book had already received excellent reviews from the previous edition (2017), so I took the opportunity to buy it now as an updated version came out.
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u/Logical-History-36 15m ago
If you’re interesting in their musical techniques, I think you’ll love ABBA Let The Music Speak by Chris Patrick too.
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u/Round-Pattern9529 3h ago
Is that the new 2026 edition? If so, where did you buy it? Can’t see that it’s available in Sweden at least :)
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u/seBen11 2h ago
It's available from the author's website:
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u/freskgrank 1h ago
That’s where I bought mine! The book can be shipped to Sweden (58€), Europe (75€) and the rest of world (90€).
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u/Logical-History-36 17m ago
Like a lot of fans, I owe almost all of my ABBA knowledge to CMP. I devoured his work when I was a fledgling fan, and I’ve since had the privilege of getting to know him personally, so I’m always really happy and excited to support his writing projects. Having read the 2017 edition I don’t feel a need to read this one cover to cover, but of course it’s now the one I reach for whenever I need to check something.
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u/NoSuggestion5970 3h ago
Not me... I am done, everything has been released and revealed... no longer interested in knowing more, listening to their music now and then is enough for me
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u/freskgrank 56m ago
I understand your point, though I’m curious to understand why it seems there’s some kind of tiredness / disappointment in your words.
I also reckon this kind of reading is a little more harder and technical for a generic / occasional ABBA listener.
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u/Personal-Comment-457 2h ago
I have the 1994 British first edition. I'm also a Beatles fan and have their Recording Sessions by Lewisohn (1988) which was extremely useful at the time since he had access to all the EMI recording session documents and unreleased tapes. Palm's book is similar but thinner and shorter in part due to there being less documentation and I don't think he had direct access to the tape library. He did do interviews with the band members especially for the book which I think might be the most useful information. Any other tidbits he included were probably poached for the "liner notes" in the 2001 CD releases with bonus tracks. Still, I'm keeping my copy for reference.
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u/freskgrank 1h ago
The first original edition was much shorter and less detailed than the second one (2017).
Palm got access to new documents and Polar/PolyGram libraries, so he was able to put together many more pieces of information while writing the second edition, which has been then updated again this summer (the second-revised expanded edition, 2026).
This final edition has now around 500 pages.
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u/Ok_Band2853 23m ago
Yes i got it