It is a sad but true fact that, after about a year of assiduous if intermittent effort, I have made it barely 30 pages into Clinton Heylin’s Van Morrison bio Can You Feel the Silence? It’s not that Heylin isn’t a skillful writer, but his book is so detailed and dense with references that it’s hard to make any headway. So I decided to take a flier on a different one by Steve Turner, whose Beatles book In Their Own Write was a valued source for The Beatles Plus 50.

When it arrived yesterday I was surprised but not displeased to find that unlike Heylin’s tome, which is squat but thick — not unlike its subject — Too Late to Stop Now is more of a coffee table book, measuring a generous 9 by 12 but clocking in at an economical 182 pages, with a lot of pictures. Maybe this is what I need — something more than a children’s book but less than a magnum opus. I will soon be cracking it open here on this glorious, sunny Sunday afternoon. Will report back later.