A Fabulous Creation: How the LP saved our lives by David Hepworth (Bantam Press)

This excellent book will appeal to anyone who remembers leafing through LP racks in a shop searching for a new release or just to see what caught the eye.

It is ordered into chapters covering each of the years between 1967 and 1982 - the year of Thriller, video and the Walkman and the year that the author considers the LP era came to an end.

One chapter focuses on 'concept' albums, such as The Beatles' Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, while another concentrates on the iconic album covers that for some people were equally as important as the music itself. Another chapter hones in on comedy records, including the infamous Derek and Clive Live by Dudley Moore and Peter Cook.

But my favourite chapter is 1971 when Hepworth - as he does throughout the book - admirably conjures up the 'feel' of the times, particularly as it related to music.

In 1971 there were few radio stations and it was not always easy to get hold of records you'd heard or read about - as he puts it: 'Records were hard to find, not easy to afford and easily damaged." and 'Everything needed chasing down'.

There were few big records shops - many people would buy their LPs from an electrical retailer like Vallance's or from a pharmacy like Boots.

In those days marketing and distribution of music were not slick and sophisticated like now. Enthusiasts would visit the same shops several times a day to ask if they has received the latest release by an American band they had heard was 'hot'.

A newsagents' rusty spinner rack might twirl to reveal an Andy Williams album, the best of the Singing Postman, an album of cover versions with a picture of girl in hot pants on the front and perhaps a mysterious obscurity like Total Destruction of the Mind by Swamp Dogs.

Albums were prized possessions - in some cases a badge of honour. You listened to them time after time and if you lent a copy to a friend you wrote your name on its cover to ensure it came back.

The launch of the Sony Walkman is considered pivotal by the author. Hepworth writes: "The majority of the LPs made in the mid-seventies were listened to in bedrooms, living rooms and student dormitories. They were designed to turn your living quarters into an intimate theatre." The Walkman, he argues, changed all that and suddenly people could listen to music anywhere, not hunched around a prized record player.

The creation of CDs made a massive dent in the LP market - suddenly stores were selling vinyl at £1 to shift their stock so they could sell the more expensive format.

But Hepworth, like many, feels something was lost at this stage. No longer would people pore over their 12-inch vinyl records sleeves - and the irritating, but pleasingly-familiar clicks and scratches on long-loved albums gave way to the 'clean' digital sound of CDs.

This book is great because it cleverly conjures up a relatively short but constantly changing musical era.

It was a time when LPs were the leading form of entertainment for young people and the only form they could use to repeat a favourite experience. For those reasons, the author states, people listened harder than they had done before or would ever do again.