Mark Radcliffe Ordre des livres (chronologique)

A personal reflection on the crucial turning points in the history of music, from BBC broadcaster and musician Mark Radcliffe

Approaching 50, Mark Radcliffe decided to write about his life, most importantly, his time in music. But crucially, he only wanted to write about the most interesting days and not the dull ones in between. With predictable good taste, Mark takes his title from the Kinks' song and has written an entertaining, funny book worthy of such a pedigree. Mark's family life is covered by "The Day My Mother Hit Me With a Golf Club," his school life by "The Day I Ruined a Perfectly Good Suit" and "The Day I Got My First Guitar;" through his epiphany of the power of music in "The Day I Met the Band Who Changed My Life" and his starstruck meeting with childhood hero, David Bowie. Many other stars are covered too, for example in "The Day I Went to Kate Bush's House for Cheese Flan," and "The Day Mick Jagger Was Taller Than Me." He's very funny when recounting his days working at the BBC in 1980s and 1990s (how, when bored, he and colleagues invented a fictional department), winning Stars in Their Eyes as Shane MacGowan, and so on. Yet, among the laughter are more sober days, such as the one when he learned John Peel had died. A brief history of both one man's life and his love affair with music, this uniquely entertaining memoir will appeal not just to music fans but to connoisseurs of British popular culture.

Combining his trademark humour with his eye for the ridiculous, Radio 1's Mark Radcliffe recalls his less-than-glittering rock career in a succession of bands. Interwoven with the musical disasters is the rites-of-passage story of a middle-class grammar school boy.