An NPR Best Book of the Year • Winner of the Virgil Thomson Award for Outstanding Music Criticism “This is the best book about the Beatles ever written” —Mashable Rob Sheffield, the Rolling Stone columnist and bestselling author of Love Is a Mix Tape offers an entertaining, unconventional look at the most popular band in history, the Beatles, exploring what they mean today and why they still matter so intensely to a generation that has never known a world without them. Dreaming the Beatles is not another biography of the Beatles, or a song-by-song analysis of the best of John and Paul. It isn’t another exposé about how they broke up. It isn’t a history of their gigs or their gear. It is a collection of essays telling the story of what this ubiquitous band means to a generation who grew up with the Beatles music on their parents’ stereos and their faces on T-shirts. What do the Beatles mean today? Why are they more famous and beloved now than ever? And why do they still matter so much to us, nearly fifty years after they broke up? As he did in his previous books, Love is a Mix Tape, Talking to Girls About Duran Duran, and Turn Around Bright Eyes, Sheffield focuses on the emotional connections we make to music. This time, he focuses on the biggest pop culture phenomenon of all time—The Beatles. In his singular voice, he explores what the Beatles mean today, to fans who have learned to love them on their own terms and not just for the sake of nostalgia. Dreaming the Beatles tells the story of how four lads from Liverpool became the world’s biggest pop group, then broke up—but then somehow just kept getting bigger. At this point, their music doesn’t belong to the past—it belongs to right now. This book is a celebration of that music, showing why the Beatles remain the world’s favorite thing—and how they invented the future we’re all living in today.

No one expressed the heart and soul of the Sixties as powerfully as the Beatles did through the words, images, and rhythms of their music. In Magic Circles Devin McKinney uncovers the secret history of a generation and a pivotal moment in twentieth-century culture. He reveals how the Beatles enacted the dream life of their time and shows how they embodied a kaleidoscope of desire and anguish for all who listened--hippies or reactionaries, teenage fans or harried parents, Bob Dylan or Charles Manson. The reader who dares to re-enter the vortex that was the Sixties will appreciate, perhaps for the first time, much of what lay beneath the social trauma of the day. Delving into concerts and interviews, films and music, outtakes and bootlegs, Devin McKinney brings to bear the insights of history, aesthetics, sociology, psychology, and mythology to account for the depth and resonance of the Beatles' impact. His book is also a uniquely multifaceted appreciation of the group's artistic achievement, exploring their music as both timeless expression and visceral response to their historical moment. Starting in the cellars of Liverpool and Hamburg, and continuing through the triumph of Beatlemania, the groundbreaking studio albums, and the last brutal, sorrowful thrust of the White Album, Magic Circles captures both the dream and the reality of four extraordinary musicians and their substance as artists. At once an entrancing narrative and an analytical montage, the book follows the drama, comedy, mystery, irony, and curious off-ramps of investigation and inquiry that contributed to one of the most amazing odysseys in pop culture.

"Adelaide, the capital of South Australia, made history as the place that gave the Beatles their biggest ever reception."--Book cover.

*** This is the story of the great lost Beatles album. The end of the Beatles wasn't inevitable. It came through miscommunication, misunderstandings and missed opportunities to reconcile. But what if it didn't end? What if just one of those chances was taken, and the Beatles carried on? What if they made one last, great album? In Like Some Forgotten Dream, Daniel Rachel - winner of the prestigious Penderyn Music Book Prize - looks at what could have been. Drawing on impeccable research, Rachel examines the the Fab Four's untimely demise - and from the ashes compiles a track list for an imagined final album, pulling together unfinished demos, forgotten B-sides, hit solo songs, and arguing that together they form the basis of a lost Beatles masterpiece. Compelling and convincing, Like Some Forgotten Dream is a daring re-write of Beatles history, and a tantalising glimpse of what might have been. Praise for Daniel Rachel: Walls Come Tumbling Down: 'Superlative...brilliant' - Q Magazine 'Triumphant' - The Guardian 'Brilliant' - Mojo Isle of Noises: 'In depth, scholarly' - Q Magazine 'Fascinating' - The Guardian / NME 'Fantastic, insightful interviews' - Noel Gallagher Don't Look Back in Anger: 'A-grade, A-list' - The Sunday Times 'A rollicking read' - Mail on Sunday 'Remarkable' - Art Review 'Book of the Week' - The Guardian

"Ken McNab's in-depth look at The Beatles' acrimonious final year is a detailed account of the breakup featuring the perspectives of all four band members and their roles. A must to add to the collection of Beatles fans, And In the End is full of fascinating information available for the first time. McNab reconstructs for the first time the seismic events of 1969, when The Beatles reached new highs of creativity and new lows of the internal strife that would destroy them. Between the pressure of being filmed during rehearsals and writing sessions for the documentary Get Back, their company Apple Corps facing bankruptcy, Lennon's heroin use, and musical disagreements, the group was arguing more than ever before and their formerly close friendship began to disintegrate. In the midst of this rancour, however, emerged the disharmony of Let It Be and the ragged genius of Abbey Road, their incredible farewell love letter to the world"--

Presenting an account of the partnership between The Beatles and the BBC, this book covers the pop group's radio career between 1962 and 1970, and includes BBC audition reports and letters. It draws on the reminiscences of producers and presenters who worked with The Beatles, and contains extracts from interviews, as well as memorabilia such as record labels, magazine covers, and listings, including a complete 1962-70 discography.