The Rough Guide Book of Playlists

'Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom,' said the late jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker, and as the iPod and MP3 take over as the new way to listen to music, a playlist becomes a simulacrum that goes to the heart of who we are. The Rough Guide Book of Playlists will either inspire you to greater heights, or expose the shallowness of your musical taste. Mark Ellingham says Rough Guide commissioned playlists covering different bands, writers and genres. 'Playlists really are the new way of listening to popular music,' he says, because the individual tracks are what matter rather than the album they come from. It's not a new idea, but the technology makes the process a lot easier and, hence, more widely practised than in the days of the cassette mix. Rough Guide gives a 10-track playlist of Nina Simone on one page, The Simpsons on the next, the 10 best tracks of acid jazz, jazz fusion or jazz rock, and separate drive-time playlists for the US and Europe. It's all good, clever fun, and www.roughguides.com/playlists will recommend download sites. One for a rainy afternoon of iPod intimacy.