It’s been either a little more than 60 years or almost 60 years since the Beatles came on the scene and transformed music and pop culture. (While the group was formed in 1960, it didn’t solidify into its world-shattering iteration until Ringo joined in 1962.)
So expect a lot of Beatlemania this year and the next (and the next and the next. The lads didn’t hit America until Feb. 7, 1964, making a sensational U.S. debut two days later on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” We’re already in Beatles’ mode: We purchased a CD of their No. 1 hits at Rite Aid. (Yeah, we know: No one listens to CDs anymore. We do.)
Anyway, the bookish Beatles buff will want to check out the recent “The Boys Next Door” by TV writer Dan Greenberger (“How I Met Your Mother,” “Everybody Loves Raymond,”), a what-if novel about a Columbia University student who finds himself studying in Hamburg, Germany, in 1960 and living next door to the boys in one of the band’s earlier incarnations.
“I had a wonderful time hanging out with the boys,” Greenberger writes in the afterword of his book (Appian Way Press, $9.99, 319 pages). “They are good company. I miss them, as so many of us do. But I’ve learned that one should never say goodbye to the Beatles. They’ve shown a remarkable ability, over so many years, and so many generations…to deliver yet another surprise.”
