BOOK REVIEWS

I bought all of the books which make up this new edition. These were "When Pirates Ruled the waves" published in July 1968 and "To be a Pirate King" printed in 1971.  I never owned the earlier compilaton of books called "Broadcasting from the High Seas"  It is sad that even the this edition has disappeared from all of the libraries bordering the Waffler's home town.

This book remains unique. It explains the political side of offshore radio.  The writer self-published the first book, risking prosecution under the Marine Offences Act. He put forward some brave points in factual form.  Paul also became involved in setting up an offshore radio station called Capital Radio. He describes how the station came on air, ran and sadly how it was possibly sabotaged.

The format of the book is quite large, the text does not fully fill each page, I thought the publishers Kennedy and Boyd had merely used the orginal masters from the small book size.  Careful reading sadly shows that the did not. There are many typographical errors in the text that are not in the 60s books which I believe were word perfect.  I will not list them all Page 272 Amzaing, Page 316 anounced in last paragraph are .  I have lost the list  I made of earlier unintentional gaffes, one of which totally ruined the flow of text.  The book has not been fully proof read The pictures though fill the entire page and are very good black and white prints.

Overall a good book though, which will serve an anorak but satisfy anyone studying the sixties or offshore period for academic or research purposes. It has a journalist lean, explains points well, and covers more about the politics and news from the relevant period.

Review of Bill Brewser and Frank Broughton's excellent book "Last Night a DJ saved my life published in 1999 Book Publishing in 1999, obtained from a charity shop in Harrow for £2.  On Amazon for 74p second hand, at time of writing in January 2008

I first saw this book when I used one of the large libraries in London.  Obviously this is now a little out of date because the music genres change very quickly. 

This book as the title suggests charts the history of the DJ. As we all know in the sixties a DJ was someone who played records and spoke in between them, on a radio station or at a disco. We have now got a generation that use turntables to mix and also to create entirely different sounds.

Full credit is given to Jimmy Saville for starting off dancing to records in the UK.  The book however has a full global approach to the history and dj scene.

Pirate Radio is covered, also USA radio.  Alan Freed, Payola etc.  

I found the definitions of music like Hip Hop, Acid and Garage excellent. There are entire chapters given over to many genres of pop music. It explains the equipment and lots lots more.

Not really a book for a total radio anorak read, but something for the dj fraternity and also for music fans.

The book has been brought up to date but worth also looking out for this book cheaply.  A book I am proud to have as a reference source on my bookshelp

 

Review of "All Our Todays" by Paul Donovan published in 1997 by Jonathan Cape ISBN 0-224-04358-7

A great hardback book which covers the first 40 years of the programme in great detail.  

It also covers all the BBC Director Generals up to and including John Birt.  Good BBC history there, and also commentary on some of the political stories covered there.  The young Robin Day, Brian Redhead, John Timpson and many more presenters are covered.

Paul Donovan is a journalist who specialises in Radio.  He does a weekly column in the Sunday Times about the the BBC and commercial radio scene. He is both critic and fan of the BBC public broadcasting aspect of Radio.

He also has written an excellent Radio Companion which is like an encyclopedia of all things BBC Radio.

The good new is that this book is still in many public library systems. It is also for sale for around 1p to 17p on Amazon Secondhand. Once again I picked mine up in a charity shop.

A great souvenir of the Today Programme. I have got, and yet have to read Sue Macgregor's autobiograhy about her time on the programme. You will read Pauls' history of her time there, and comments on her style and quality of broadcasting and interviewing in the book under review.