is Jonathan Gould's
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cant-Buy-Me-Love-22Beatles-22/dp/074992988X/
Actually thats a quote from The Times but its true.

(assuming you don't have Mark Lewisohn's Complete Beatles Chronicle.)

Who are these Beatles, of which you speak?
Are they the games console fellas?

Can't Buy Me Love: The Beatles, Britain and America by Jonathan Gould is easily one of the best music books I've read, period. When it came out I thought, Christ another book on the Beatles!?? I've read quite a few, and up until that point I'd held Shout by Philip Norman and Revolution in the Head to have cornered the market. However, Can't Buy Me Love is equally as good as either of those, and I go as far to say it's better than Norman's simply because its more vibrantly written.

On one hand it's the Beatles story, told in fab (!) detail, but also sets their rise and fall into very colourful context. So, not only do you get their tale, but you're also treated to some brief, but highly insightful context on everything from the growth of the UK's rising fascination with colloquial accents, right through to how the Beatles came along just at the right time, where US television was concerned (they followed the assassination of Kennedy, and stations were looking for a new story). If anything the book shows how the Beatles phenomenon was actually a convergence of many different things, to which the band essentially became a collective figurehead.

Don't let this put you off, though, the book is really well written, expertly researched, and despite being a brick-of-a-thing is highly accessible and once you start reading you'll be hard-pressed to put it down.

Beyond that, the recent Lennon biography, also by Philip Norman is very good; and, again, despite being a hefty volume, highly readable and new enough in its style, approach and delivery to surpass all that went before. Quite sad, too.

is excellent, and as the_saint said, quite sad. Notable too for a far more generous assessment of Macca than in 'Shout'.

It's expensive, but I'm told it's very, very good:
http://www.recordingthebeatles.com/

Mark Lewishon as mentioned above..

I like "Love me do" by Michael Braun. Written in 1963, it captures them right at the beginning of their success. No revisionism or propaganda

I think.

But the best book just in terms of reportage and "getting" them is Michael Braun's Love Me Do. I recommend that. Written in the early days before they became full on cultural behemoths, it basically observes them on tour and neither gushes or patronizes.

Oh well...

working on a massive three-part mothership of a biography? I can't remember where I heard that. I suppose he is the bloke to do it, although I wonder if his prose will have half the same luminescent wistfulness Philip Norman's did in 'Shout!' and (IMO) to a lesser extent, the Lennon book.

The swamp of Beatle-lit hasn't unearthed more about that tie. What did it look like? What aspects so offended young Harrison's delicate sensibilities? After all, in its limp, controversially-coloured way, it cemented the bond between Georges on that fateful day.

I enjoyed "Revolution: The Making of the Beatles' White Album" by David Quantick, it's going cheap on Amazon.

It offers fascinating insight as far as the songwriting goes. It´s possibly the closest we´ll come to an autobiography by McCartney. I find myself returning to it quite often, reading various chapters.

1. Although most seem to go to his later "Beatles Chronicles", I have always preferred Mark Lewisohn's 1988 book "The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions", which as the title suggests concentrates primarily on the recordings. However, it is a bit hard to come by at the moment:

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Beatles-Recording-Sessions-1962-1970/dp/0...

2. From the previous decade, Roy Carr & Tony Tyler's "The Beatles: An Illustrated Record" was the earliest attempt I can remember of anyone analysing the Beatles recorded legacy. Originating from a consumer's guide Carr and Tyler published over several weeks in NME in 1973, it puts forward, for one of the first times in print, the (now widely accepted) opinion that "Revolver" is actually a better album than "Pepper", and exposes the "mix'n'match mess" that Capitol in the US offered to the American fans instead of the original LPs and singles (in order to make as much money out of them as possible). Although it does have its inaccuracies, it was invaluable at the time, and remains a good read.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Beatles-Illustrated-Record-Roy-Carr/dp/045005228...

...is excellent. Much better thanm Shout!, I thought.