Big Brother The Official Unseen Story by Jean Ritchie (Channel 4 Books, £9.99)

SADA, Andrew, Caroline, Nick, Nichola, Tom, Claire, Mel, Darren, Anna and Craig.

When they come to write the history of popular TV culture for the year 2000, those 11 names will surely be at the top of the list - they who, at the height of the summer, hi-jacked the nation's psyche for nine weeks, sent Channel 4 viewing figures through the roof and sparked serious debate about the nature of entertainment.

If you were bitten by the BB bug and couldn't tap into it the 24-7 website, then this is the book for you.

It's the conversations and antics that ended up on the cutting room floor, biographies on the 11 human guinea pigs (this is too much of a family newspaper to reveal where Mel's most intimate body piercing can be found), their feelings after they were evicted and ran into the waiting arms of the divine Davina, fact files, behaviour profiles from psychologists, colour photographs, bits of trivia, sample questions from the programme's application form and even the recipe for making bread the Big Brother way.

It reads like a novel - the build-up to the incarceration in the purpose-built house at Bow, Mel's emotional tangles with Andy and Tom, the halfway high of Nick's eviction, Craig and Claire's "will they, won't they" dalliance and Craig's eventual triumph.

It even has a classic surprise ending with the winner giving away his £70,000 cache.

It reads like a novel - but you have to keep pinching yourself... after all, it was only a game show... only a game show!

David Chapman