


It is as though the world has tacitly agreed that the big biographers weren't getting us anywhere, when we know all the facts and few new ones are emerging.īrown's method is such that, amid endless research, he doesn't have to do any of his own interviews, though he did roll up for a few magical mystery Beatles heritage tours to Liverpool and Hamburg, amusingly recounted here. 150 GLIMPSES OF THE BEATLES by Craig Brown RELEASE DATE: Oct. Part anthropology and part memoir, and enriched by the recollections of everyone from Tom Hanks to Bruce Springsteen, this book is a humorous, elegiac, and at times. The short form is Brown's strong suit so these post-biographies (or postcard biographies: chapters are divided into even smaller fragments) are mosaics, like a portrait made up of many photos, similar to Rob Sheffield's valuable recent contribution, Dreaming the Beatles. 150 Glimpses of the Beatles is, above all, a distinctively kaleidoscopic examination of the Beatles’ effect on the world around them and the world they helped bring into being. The Beatles merit an extra fifty-one glimpses there are four of them after all-but the book's British title lacks mention of the snapshot technique (emphasized in America, where the book is retitled 150 Glimpses of the Beatles). Perhaps those ninety-nine glimpses added up to a hundredth that summed up Margaret perfectly.īrown-who has always enjoyed poking fun at popular culture in his Private Eye diaries-is most comfortable with the "private" writings, the journals and letters of his victims and heroes, and these have been the primary source material for his three more ambitious recent volumes, which also include One on One, an ingeniously constructed chain of celebrity meetings (some so unlikely as to seem like parody), and now One Two Three Four, which gives the Beatles the royal treatment. Winner of the 2020 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-FictionA distinctive portrait of the Fab Four by one of the. The portrait was sympathetic yet unsparing, and even as the book distanced itself from the competition with some modest existential self-analysis, it swelled the canon. Bill Maher Reviews 150 Glimpses of the Beatles Wednesday, OctoFor this reader, when Brown tells one of the Beatle stories I’ve heard many times and now adds information I didn’t know or the telling detail that was missing for 50 years the book is an utter delight. Its marriage of tired subject and novel approach-deftly juxtaposed "glimpses" made up of facts, news items, existing eyewitness accounts, pastiche and flights of fancy, all in correct chronology-caused some to wonder whether Brown had reinvented biography entirely and others to marvel that there was finally a royal biography of any description they could stomach between seasons of The Crown.

ĬRAIG BROWN'S KALEIDOSCOPIC meditation Ma'am Darling: 99 glimpses of Princess Margaret won praise and prizes. The result is a fresh and captivating pointillist portrait of the band and its indelible vibe. These well-chosen vignettes aptly illuminate the Beatles’ personalities along with the cultural chord they struck, and Brown knits them into an interpretation that’s both perceptive and hilariously pithy (“Some have related Yoko’s pursuit of John in terms of a Hammer horror, with her little black-clad figure rearing up out of the fog at any time, day or night”). If my mother answers, hang up”) the author’s reportage on guided tours of Beatles’ boyhood homes recollections of the luckless entertainers who had to follow the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show acid trips and drug busts Charles Manson’s exegesis of The White Album a recap of the “Paul Is Dead” conspiracy theory and the story of how the then-unknown Beatles left a puddle of George’s vomit to fester in their Hamburg digs. John is the loudmouth and bully, self-loathing and self-pitying. These include fan letters (“Dear Beatles, Please call me on the telephone. Paul is the sheer showman, the lover with a calculating heart.
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Download for offline reading, highlight, bookmark or take notes while you read 150 Glimpses of the Beatles. Read this book using Google Play Books app on your PC, android, iOS devices. Read honest and unbiased product reviews from our users. Satirist and critic Brown ( 1966 and All That) eschews a linear chronicle of the Beatles’ oft-told narrative in favor of loosely connected meditations, reminiscences by associates, found literature, and shaggy-dog anecdotes. Winner of the 2020 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non- Fiction A distinctive portrait of the Fab Four by one of the sharpest and wittiest writers of our time If. 150 Glimpses of the Beatles - Ebook written by Craig Brown. Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for 150 Glimpses of the Beatles at. The career of the Fab Four is seen from odd angles and reflections in others’ eyes in this off-beat, vibrant group biography.
