Beatles ’66: The Revolutionary Year

Steve Turner ECCO. £20

An in-depth probe into a vital 365 days in a life.

“Our whole outlook on life is changing because our circumstances have changed our surroundings,” Paul McCartney noted in 1966. It’s these changes and their impact on the group and subsequently the world that author Turner deftly maps in his third Beatles book. Turner’s story takes in the recording of Revolver and the beginnings of Sgt. Pepper; when John met Yoko, took LSD and declared The Beatles “more popular than Jesus”; also when George became besotted with India and Paul discovered the avantgarde. “They brought colour, spontaneity, and adventure to a world largely painted in browns and greys regulated by factory hours and ruled over by people in suits and uniforms,” Turner writes. How did they do it? Lennon saw them as simply chronicling the ongoing social change; for Macca, it was about “stretch[ing] the limits of pop”.