RaveThe Spectator... a magical mystery tour that ends where it began — with Brian Epstein making his way down the 18 steps that led into the Cavern to hear John, Paul, George and — er Pete (yet to be replaced by Ringo) for the first time ... 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, with the odd glance at what came before ... Curiously in a book so plump with quirky details, Brown doesn’t mention that the album With the Beatles was released on the very day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated ... Hunter Davies and Mark Lewisohn remain their great biographers, but if you want to know what it was like to live those extraordinary Beatles years in real time, read this book.