7 Books Like 150 Glimpses of the Beatles

There is plenty of market lore about what influences a corporate acquisition’s probability of success. It took the authors of this book to produce a thorough, empirically supported answer to that question. Using a database of 40,000 transactions over a 40-year period, Lev and Gu identify a total of 43 factors that make an acquisition more likely to succeed or to fail. They provide a ten-factor model that is practical for investors to apply in assessing a given deal’s odds of beating the overall observed failure rate of 70%-75%. (That is twice the failure rate of internal projects reported by Wrike, Inc.)

Despite its quantitative rigor, The M&A Failure Trap is no dry recitation of statistics. The authors present their findings in colorful prose, not hesitating to point the finger at the parties and incentive arrangements they hold responsible for the appalling high failure rate. I especially like the case… show more.

This is a book that was truly needed. Bitcoin is a controversial subject, with passions that run high on both sides. Unfortunately, the passions are rarely accompanied by productive discussion of the actual pros and cons. It fell to the philosophy professors who wrote this book to address fairly and frankly the arguments against the most famous cryptocurrency, even as they conclude that on balance we are better off living in a world with bitcoin than in one without it.

Readers who are skeptical about bitcoin’s usefulness, but willing to approach the matter with an open mind, will learn how it can serve the world’s billions of unbanked people. Others facing censorship and political oppression stand to gain some relief through the use of bitcoin. At the same time. Bailey, Rettler, and Warmke bring up objections that even the digital currency’s critics have probably not seen raised previously.

The authors… show more.

When I was growing up, the fabled 1969 Woodstock music festival was a byword for the alternative drop-out culture of hippiedom then at its height.

Even today, people remember it and the town that gave it its name (although it's actually located 40 miles from the site of the festival). What’s perhaps less well known is that Woodstock first became Hippie Central several years before, after Bob Dylan and his manager Albert Grossman moved there, and it continued to attract musicians and artists long afterwards.

This book tells an often shocking tale of excess – drink, drugs, and sexual shenanigans. (And incidentally, Donald Fagen now divides his time between Woodstock and New York.)

I make no apology for including this immense and important work. So much of the music I love originated with the kidnapping of black people from Africa.

This book shows how not merely the music of Africa but whole swathes of culture now considered “American” were imported along with the slaves. How did they cope with being ripped from their homeland, transported across the Atlantic in chains, and forced to work in the fields of an alien land?

Levine lays it all out, including everything from Black religion to Black comedy, and despite what you might think, it’s a real page-turner.

I grew up in south-west London, and still live here.

My formative years were spent going to rock gigs in local clubs, pubs, and colleges, when bands like Genesis, Black Sabbath, the Soft Machine, and Pink Floyd were still playing in small venues. Queen’s Brian May went to my school, as did half of the Yardbirds.

This book reflects that era, particularly the amazing goings-on at Eel Pie Island in Twickenham, where gigs were held in a crumbling hotel infested with hippies and other ne’er-do-wells… including me and some of my closest friends.

This is the most fun you’ll ever have reading about music history, guaranteed. Gioia focuses on outsiders, renegades, and people at the margins of society who launched musical innovations that were later adopted – and legitimized – by leaders of mainstream culture.

“So don’t be surprised,” he warns early on, “if a woman’s erotic love song gets turned into a scriptural utterance by a king. That’s how the history of music unfolds, especially for anything innovative or transgressive.”

I especially appreciated how, in examining music’s 4,000-year history, Gioia never fails to highlight contributions by women, which sets his book apart. 

You thought you knew everything there was to know about The Beatles. I thought I did. I was wrong.

Craig Brown somehow manages to tell a very familiar story with details that either you never knew or had forgotten. He isn’t scraping the barrel: the book is full of excellent stories about the Fab Four, and sheds new light on where the band came from and where they ended up. It’s more than 600 pages long, and beautifully written, but a very easy read.