One Two Three Four

Resumen del libro

WINNER OF THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE 2020

John Updike compared them to 'the sun coming out on an Easter morning'. Bob Dylan introduced them to drugs.

The Duchess of Windsor adored them. Noel Coward despised them. JRR Tolkien snubbed them.

The Rolling Stones copied them. Loenard Bernstein admired them. Muhammad Ali called them 'little sissies'.

Successive Prime Ministers sucked up to them. No one has remained unaffected by the music of The Beatles. As Queen Elizabeth II observed on her golden wedding anniversary, 'Think what we would have missed if we had never heard The Beatles.' One Two Three Four traces the chance fusion of the four key elements that made up The Beatles: fire (John), water (Paul), air (George) and earth (Ringo).

It also tells the bizarre and often unfortunate tales of the disparate and colourful people within their orbit, among them Fred Lennon, Yoko Ono, the Maharishi, Aunt Mimi, Helen Shapiro, the con artist Magic Alex, Phil Spector, their psychedelic dentist John Riley and their failed nemesis, Det Sgt Norman Pilcher. From the bestselling author of Ma'am Darling comes a kaleidoscopic mixture of history, etymology, diaries, autobiography, fan letters, essays, parallel lives, party lists, charts, interviews, announcements and stories. One Two Three Four joyfully echoes the frenetic hurly-burly of an era.

Biografía del autor

Craig Brown es un conocido escritor humorístico británico. Ha escrito para el famoso diario satírico de actualidad Private Eye durante casi tres décadas y actualmente es columnista del Daily Mail y el Mail on Sunday. Ha colaborado en infinidad de periódicos y revistas, incluidos Vanity Fair, The Sunday Times, The New Statesman, The Spectator, The Guardian y The New York Review of Books. Como autor, su obra ha sido aclamada por crítica y lectores, desde "One on One", sobre 101 encuentros fortuitos de grandes personajes de la historia de la humanidad, que fue preseleccionado para el premio Samuel Johnson, hasta "Max{0026} x02019;am Darling", la biografía en clave de humor de la princesa Margarita, la hermana de la reina Isabel, que ganó el James Tait Black Memorial Prize de biografía y el South Bank Sky Arts Award de literatura. "1, 2, 3, 4: Los Beatles marcando el tiempo" conquistó el prestigioso Baillie Gifford Prize al mejor libro de no ficción de 2020, cuyo jurado afirmó que era "una celebración alegre, irreverente y perspicaz de los Beatles, y un libro profundo sobre el éxito y el fracaso que ha reinventado el arte de la biografía".