With the Beatles by Louis Lapham
Hoboken: Melville House, 2005
ISBN: 0-97665-832-1
US$12.95, paperback original

With the Beatles is Louis Lapham's featherweight book about the infamous goings-on at a Indian meditation retreat attended by the Liverpool lads in the hippy-dippy 60s. A beautifully produced volume by a new publisher, Melville House, it is hardly more substantial than gossip, and simply delicious!

What a scene it was: Mia Farrow, crushed and devastated by the breakup of her marriage to Sinatra, has made the journey with her brother and sister. The majordomo of the ashram, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, makes a big fuss over her, giving her paper hats to wear and posing her near him at photo-ops. The singer Donovan, dressed in a silk overblouse and pajama pants, has also come to meditate, fortified by cartons of cigarettes; Beach Boy Mike Love shows up wearing robes and an Astrahkan hat; supermodel Marisa Berenson steps out of a helicopter onto the ashram's private landing pad adorned by a mink coat and a good-looking baron.