But can I say how in love I am with Joshua Wolf Shenk's series on John Lennon and Paul McCartney on Slate? I tweeted it out last week, but I really think it's a must-read, and I desperately hope that Shenk's turning this into a book, be it on creative partnerships in general or John and Paul in particular.
The series is excellent both because it's a tremendous portrait of Lennon and McCartney as men and collaborators for intense Beatles fans and folks who know the band because everyone does. But it also feels, to someone like me, who has VHS tapes of the Beatles Anthology, who snapped a pair of headphones in half when I got my first Beatles tapes so my best friend and I could listen at the same time, who made a meticulously hand-drawn "Make Love Not War" sign with a sketch of John's face in Sgt. Pepper mode that my mother wouldn't let me carry when I dressed as a hippie for Halloween, entirely fresh. The Beatles, and other great artists, are fascinating and complicated enough that it seems you can always learn more about them, and what brought their art out. I drifted away from the Beatles in college, sacrificing time with music I was tremendously familiar with for exploration of a whole new world of sound, but I feel pulled back to them every so often, like gravity, like tides.
Who doesn't want a promise this perfect?
It's not every group where I feel the obsessive need to know how they got it right. But Shenk unlocked a long-dormant hunger with this series. I really hope there's more to come.