Winnerofthe2020 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-FictionA distinctive p ortrait of the Fab Four by one of the sharpest and wittiest writers of our time ""If you want to know what it was like to live those extraordinary Beatles yea rs in real time, read this book."" ?Alan Johnson,The SpectatorThough fifty years have passed since the breakup of the Beatles, the fab four continue to occ upy an utterly unique place in popular culture. Their influence extends far beyo nd music and into realms as diverse as fashion and fine art, sexual politics and religion. When they appeared onThe Ed Sullivan Showin 1964, fresh off the p lane from England, they provoked an epidemic of hoarse-throated fandom that cont inues to this day.Who better, then, to capture the Beatles phenomenon than Cra ig Brown?the inimitable author ofNinety-Nine Glimpses of Princess Margaretan d master chronicler of the foibles and foppishness of British high society? This wide-ranging portrait of the four lads from Liverpool rivals the unique spectac le of the band itself by delving into a vast catalog of heretofore unexamined lo re.When actress Eleanor Bron touched down at Heathrow with the Beatles, she th ought that a flock of starlings had alighted on the roof of the terminal?only to discover that the birds were in fact young women screaming at the top of their lungs. One journalist, mistaken for Paul McCartney as he trailed the band in his car, found himself nearly crushed to death as fans climbed atop the vehicle and pressed their bodies against the windshield. Or what about the Baptist preacher who claimed that the Beatles synchronized their songs with the rhythm of an inf ant?s heartbeat so as to induce a hypnotic state in listeners? And just how many people have employed the services of a Canadian dentist who bought John Lennon? s tooth at auction, extracted its DNA, and now offers paternity tests to those h oping to sue his estate?150 Glimpses of the Beatlesis, above all, a distin ctively kaleidoscopic examination of the Beatles? effect on the world around the m and the world they helped bring into being. Part anthropology and part memoir, and enriched by the recollections of everyone from Tom Hanks to Bruce Springste en, this book is a humorous, elegiac, and at times madcap take on the Beatles? r ole in the making of the sixties and of music as we know it.