Stephen Thomas Erlewine at Pitchfork chooses the ten best books about the Beatles, from Philip Norman’s Shout! to Rob Sheffield’s wonderful Dreaming the Beatles.
M.I.A. (fully cognizant of the fact that there are probably 25-30 “best” books on the Beatles):
- Mark Shipper’s Paperback Writer (cf. the back and forth email chat between Richard Riegel and myself on this)
- Tim Riley’s Tell Me Why (listen to my 2008 discussion with Riley in which he counts down his favourite Beatle books)
- Devin McKinney’s masterful Magic Circles: The Beatles in Dream and History
- Richard Meltzer’s The Aesthetics of Rock (only as much of a stretch as your own imagination; in his foreword to the ’86 reprint, Greil Marcus calls it “both the best and most obsessive book about the Beatles ever written”)
cf. “Top 10 Beatles books” lists in: Rolling Stone, The Guardian, and Barnes & Noble.
On deck: Top 10 books about Sham 69.