The Olivetti Chronicles: Three Decades of Life and Music

John Peel radio shows were required listening for millions, shaping the taste of successive generations of music lovers. But all the while he was DJ-ing, Peel was also tapping away on his beloved Olivetti typewriter, creating copy for an array of patient editors. He wrote articles, columns, and reviews for publications as diverse as The Listener, Oz, Gandalf's Garden, Sounds, the Observer, the Independent, and Radio Times. Now for the first time, the best of these writings have been brought together—selected by his wife, Sheila, and his four children. Music, of course, is a central and recurring theme, and he writes on music in all its forms, from Tubular Bells to Berlin punk to Madonna. Here you can read John Peel on everything from the perils of shaving to the embarrassments of virginity, and from the strange joy of Eurovision to the horror of being sick in trains. At every stage, the writing is laced with John's brilliantly acute observations on the minutiae of everyday life.