50 Years of Coronation Street by Tim Randall

Coronation Street first hit British screens at the end of 1960, a groundbreaking show based on real life and using accents that had never been heard on British television before. It was an instant hit, and has remained consistently one of the UK's most popular shows ever since. The joy of Coronation Street is in the quality and humour of its writing, and the wonderful characters that have been created over the years. For the first time, here is a book that not only reminds readers of all the storylines over the last fifty years, but also celebrates these two very special things. The book includes profiles of fifty Coronation Street icons - from Ena Sharples to David Platt - and the author has had unprecedented access in order to include interviews with all of those still with us. There are also hilarious extracts from the script and classic lines remembered. FIFTY YEARS OF CORONATION STREET is the only official book celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of Coronation Street. It is the definitive book on five decades of life on the Street and no fan of the show would want to be without it.

As many other people, I am a Coronation Street fan. I enjoy books which look back over a period in time focusing on a specific theme or person and so this sort of book is one that I would pick out to look at from a shop.

The book is split into decades: 1960s; 1970s; 1980s, 1990s, 2000s; and then the anniversary year, 2010. Each decade is looked at, with the main storylines revisited. There are character profiles of some of the most popular characters throughout the decades. Each decade had lists for births, deaths and marriages.

Flicking through the book my memory is reminded of lots of the storylines that have happened within the fifty years on the Street. There are also lots of quotes of lines from the show, which I loved to read through.

Throughout the book, there are also lots of pages from scripts. The book has a sort of magazine style to it, there are lots of 'articles'; Crimes of Fashion; Top Five Christmas Crackers; Top five Eddie Yates' Scams and other articles of interest about the soap.

I really enjoyed looking through this book, lots of interesting facts from the show, lots of memories and I really enjoyed the quotes throughout the book and laughing at many memories that sprung to mind when i read them.

This would make a great gift for a real Corrie fan and will be a great coffee table book that could be picked up and dipped into at any time.

I received this book as a competition prize from The Coronation Street Blog.