Insightful biography of George Harrison, the ‘recovering’ Beatle

Like Under the Ivy, his much-acclaimed study of Kate Bush, the title of the latest music biography by the Edinburgh-based writer Graeme Thomson promises revelation.

While fresh gen on any Beatle is difficult to unearth and would be hard to quantify without scaling the Everest of pertinent books already published, one can certainly affirm that George Harrison: Behind the Locked Door is an insightful, rigorous and beautifully written atomisation of the youngest Beatle’s life. Timed to coincide with what would have been the year of Harrison’s 70th birthday, the book is affectionate, but never hagiographic. Thomson airs myriad acute quotes from scores of fresh interviewees, and as he maps Harrison’s path from Liverpool to Allahabad, India, where the guitarist’s ashes were strewn after he succumbed to lung cancer in 2001 at the age of 58.