style="overflow: hidden; color: #000000; background-color: #ffffff; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; border: medium none;">The first part of Mark Lewisohn’s projected three-volume biography of The Beatles has already, in the course of its long gestation, prompted incredulity. Yes, it really is 960 pages long, and, yes, it finishes at the end of 1962. That’s one hell of a tease. We have not, by the end, even arrived at “From Me to You”. I found myself rushing through the final chapters, willing the story to explode, as we all know it does. But we are left suspended, a little frustrated, and mightily impressed by the author’s self-control. John Lennon’s profanity ends the volume: “We were the best fucking group in the goddamn world ... It was just a matter of time before everybody else caught on.” It wouldn’t take them very long.