My Beatles biography

In the mid-1990s The Beatles were very much in the spotlight, due to their archive-trawl and television documentary Anthology project. I had been a Beatles fan since the late 1960s, and the publisher Tiden asked me to put together a Beatles biography for the Swedish market. The result was the book Beatles Beatles, which was published in the autumn of 1996. The book was very kindly reviewed by the long-running Swedish Fan club, The Beatles Information Center.

As for the background of the book, the following is a translated extract from an article I wrote in issue 19/1996 of the Swedish book trade magazine Svensk bokhandel:

"Born in 1965 and raised in Jakobsberg just north of Stockholm, I spent a great deal of my childhood and teenage years listening to records. I was particularly fond of The Beatles, and I can, despite my relative youth, claim that I liked them while they still existed as a group. There is a tape recording from 1968 where one of my older sisters 'interviews' me and I state that Lady Madonna by The Beatles is my favourite song at the time.

Out of all this listening to their music grew a desire to know more about the group, and in 1972, when I was seven years old, I got my first Beatles book, The Beatles, by Hunter Davies. The realisation that I myself 24 years later will become one of the few authors to get books published about the group in Swedish fills me both with pride and with a certain awe.

My book, Beatles Beatles, unlike the more analytical work that has been translated from English in recent years, reads like a basic biography about the group. It is a straightforward account of their story, beginning with the day in July 1957 when John Lennon and Paul McCartney met each other, up until the group's 'reunion' during the past year. In the book I put The Beatles' visits to Sweden in 1963 and 1964 in the spotlight, and I also make a few comparisons between 'then and now', in the hope that younger readers will find it easier to understand the story of The Beatles. I can only hope that this group, that I have loved all my life, has been done justice by my book."

Since the publication of my own, rather modest Beatles book, I have also contributed to the book Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! – The Beatles Erövrar Sverige (about the group's visits to Sweden); Mark Lewisohn's massive Tune In biography; and Allan Kozinn and Adrian Sinclair's equally massive McCartney Legacy volumes 1 and 2.

In 2025, I have started conducting guided tours of The Beatles' Stockholm, based on their visits to Sweden's capital in 1963 and 1963, which is very exciting. Read more and book your tickets on the Tours For Fans website.