One Two Three Four: The Beatles in Time

Craig Brown's last book, Ma'am Darling: 99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret won both the James Tait Black Prize for Biography and the South Bank Sky Arts Award for Literature. His previous book, One on One, was long-listed for the Samuel Johnson prize for Non-Fiction. He has been writing the parodic celebrity diary for Private Eye magazine for over thirty years, and is currently a columnist for the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday. Over the years, he has written for a wide range of newspapers and magazines, including Vanity Fair, the Sunday Times, the New Statesman, the Spectator, the Guardian and the New York Review of Books. He lives in Aldeburgh, Suffolk with his wife Frances Welch; they have two children.

‘A ridiculously enjoyable treat . . . Brown is such an infectiously jolly writer that you don’t even need to like the Beatles to enjoy his book . . . brilliant . . . hilarious . . . And at a time when, like everybody else, I was feeling not entirely thrilled about the news, I loved every word of it.’ Sunday Times‘A celestial combination of writer and subject . . . One Two Three Four is a critical appreciation, a personal history, a miscellany, a work of scholarship and speculation, and a tribute as passionate and worshipful as any fan letter.’ Esquire‘The perfect antidote to these times.’ Julian Barnes, Guardian‘Kaleidoscopic … It’s like a compilation of mobile phone footage in a modern editing style as you piece together this extraordinary journey. I think it’s the most exhilarating way of reading a biography; a masterpiece’ Alexander Armstrong‘It’s ingenious, wholly original (not a given, what with the subject matter), absolutely gripping, funny, sad and moving. A complete treat.’ India Knight'I have never been very interested in the Beatles. In fact I wouldn’t cross the road to see them . . . even Abbey Road. Yet I can’t put this wonderful book down.' Barry Humphries, Telegraph‘A brilliantly executed study of cultural time, social space and the madness of fame . . . One Two Three Four, by putting The Beatles in their place as well as their time, is by far the best book anyone has written about them and the closest we can get to the truth.’ Literary Review‘Brown seems to have invented a wholly new biographical form. In a polychromatic cavalcade of chapters of varying length, the man with kaleidoscope eyes conveys what it was like to live through those extraordinary Beatles years . . . If you want to know what it was like to live those extraordinary Beatles years in real time, read this book.’ Alan Johnson, Spectator