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One Two Three Four: The Beatles in Time
- Narrated by: Mark McGann, Kate Robbins, Craig Brown
- Length: 20 hrs and 20 mins
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One Two Three Four: The Beatles in Time
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Summary
SHORTLISTED for the Baillie Gifford Prize’s 25th Anniversary Winner of Winners award
WINNER OF THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE 2020
A Spectator Book of the Year • A Times Book of the Year • A Telegraph Book of the Year • A Sunday Times Book of the Year
From the award-winning author of Ma’am Darling: 99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret comes a fascinating, hilarious, kaleidoscopic biography of the Fab Four.
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.
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Critic reviews
‘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
What listeners say about One Two Three Four: The Beatles in Time
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- David Owens
- 05-02-22
One Two Three Four a great book about the Fab Four
This was such a joy to listen to. In fact I've listened to it three times!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Gale
- 09-05-20
Love Love Love (yeah yeah yeah)!
This book is a feast-
Getting Kate Robbins to do the female characters was a touch. I double took realising that it wasn’t actually recordings of Margaret Thatcher and Marianne Faithful. Amazing!
This book is such fun; we all know so much about the Beatles already that it didn’t revise my preconceptions of Their individual characters and contribution to music greatly; but Learning about his upbringing has given me more sympathy for John (who I always considered a bit of a pompous t**t).
I love the personal tales of fans and family- so insightful- and I learnt heaps about the history and culture of the time- but in a gossipy, fun, playful way. Like a cosy chat in the pub with your cool uncle who’s met everyone back in the day but is cool and urbane enough to tease back some of the more interesting stories and drop at the right time for maximum impact.
More please! Thanks 🙏
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6 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Mr John B Buckley
- 08-10-20
A must for fans of Beatles trivia
Amazing catalogue of Beatles facts. Not so much on George Martin but a fair bit on Brian Epstein. Well read. It was a bit of a suprise when the book ended. The narrative isn't always linear.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- David Frankel
- 09-07-20
Riveting
Absolutely Fabulous. The true story, narrated in inimitible style by Craig Bown. Much more fun than Anthology. Endearingl, committed narration. It often sounds like John, Paul, George and Ringo themselves. Didn't realise till the end, that it was Craig Brown as himself.
Ms. Robbins too, imitates female voices to a tee eg. M. Thatcher, Cilla and the very spacey Yoko Ono.{oh no!}
Thoroughly recommended, by me, who thought he already knew everything about the Beatles.
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- Grace Ryagard
- 23-04-22
interesting anecdotes
lots of good curious backstage connected stories. a note on voice impressions were so-so ok.
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- yorkieboy
- 07-03-21
Tour De Force
As a lifelong Beatles fan having grown up in the sixties I thought I knew everything about the subject.
However this book revealed much that I didn’t know and the chosen format of things happening in their ‘time’ in each chapter contextualises this ,sometimes by going backwards from late sixties to early to show developments in areas such as the relationship with Brian Epstein is interesting.
Using the ‘voices’ of fans and others closely associated with the group works well and the use of three narrators with Brown himself telling more recent developments and the other two adopting the accents and persona of a huge variety of protagonists is a novel idea.
If you thought there was nothing else to say about The Beatles this book proves you wrong.
Highly Recommended.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Stephen Deal
- 26-11-20
Fabulous
A refreshing retelling of a well known story. A series of vignettes, anecdotes and recollections charting the rise and rise and eventual disintegration of The Beatles from schoolboy wannabe rockers to cultural icons. At times funny, at times poignant, always informative.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- ThePalmYard
- 30-10-20
Beatles Magic
I absolutely loved that. I'm quite emotional having just finished it. A great telling of one of the great stories of all time. The magic Beatles world lives on.
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- Mr. Paul Byrne
- 04-03-22
John, Paul, George, Ringo & Craig!
Bliss! Have always loved Brown's humour, and The Beatles aren't half bad either. Perfect.
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- Clarev23
- 01-12-22
19 wonderful hours!
I loved this. Fantastic narration. Quirky. I was genuinely sad to finish it. High recommend!
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