Radio On: A Listener's Diary (Paperback)

by Sarah Vowell (Author) "Number 23. That's it. Decent, but not monumental..." (more)
Key Phrases: Morning Edition, San Francisco, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist
Vowell's survey of the current state of American AM and FM radio concentrates on the Chicago-area airwaves and Montana State University's KGLT in Bozeman. Aside from Nirvana, Hole, and KGLT, Vowell doesn't find much to like. NPR is too stodgy, Garrison Keillor too sappy, Republicans and Rush Limbaugh simply too much. She likes Chicago's quirky, low-powered WZRD, though, especially its airing of the Church of the SubGenius' Hour of Slack, and also establishment rock critics Greil Marcus and Jim DeRogatis. Vowell expresses her opinions strongly and forthrightly. Her criticisms of NPR and Keillor, for that matter, are hard for even their fans to disagree with, but panning Keillor while praising smarmy NPR elder newswoman Susan Stamberg seems odd, and getting the call letters of Chicago's all-sports station wrong casts doubt on her objectivity and thoroughness. Oh well, if you worship at the altar of the media god Alternative and take radio really, really seriously, Vowell's rant is just the thing. If you don't, it is still stimulating reading. Mike Tribby --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews
Be ready to hit the scan button repeatedly with this wildly uneven, day-by-day-by-day diary of a year--1995--spent listening to the radio. Like strip malls and superhighways, radio has become such an integral part of the American landscape that we rarely notice its sheer ubiquity. Between our houses, our cars, our offices, even our elevators, there are more than 500,000,000 radios in this country, all spewing a 24-hour-a-day hodgepodge of everything from rock to religion to right-wing ranting. Any account of this vast cacophony is necessarily subjective, but Vowell, a music columnist for San Francisco Weekly, spices her impressionistic stew with unhealthy dollops of narcissism and jejune banality: ``I only conceived this diary as a means to say that I'm just as confused and overwhelmed as my elders, just as ill-informed and worried and perplexed and lacking in answers (but willing to look) as people twice my age.'' In these limited terms, the book is a roaring success. As Vowell spins her way around the country, tuning in to the local radio stations, she reacts like the perfect poster girl for Generation X: I mean, don't you just hate Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich and all those mean Republicans? And how about National Public Radio, isn't it, totally nonadventurous and establishment? And doesn't Top-Forty completely bite? What little wisdom there is to be found in this landscape apparently comes mainly from grungy Seattle rockers like Nirvana and Pearl Jam (those who believe that truth resides in rock lyrics will be particularly taken with this book). By the end, Vowell is justly sick and tired of radio, of the noise and chatter, the hate and spew and ``all the stupidity.'' Unfortunately, one of those rare books in which subject and author are in near-perfect harmony. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin (December 15, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312183011
• ISBN-13: 978-0312183011
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #306,449 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Vowell's On, December 14, 1999

By	William C. Altreuter "Outside Counsel" (Buffalo, NY USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

"Grouchy" seems to be what a lot of people thought about "Radio On", and there is certainly some of that, and some whining, too. And, I would have liked the book more, I suppose, if Nirvana had meant as much to me as, say, the Clash. But anyone who has ever thought that music is important to them, and who has had the radio as a lifeline to that important thing in their life, will enjoy and understand this book. Ms. Vowell never really defines her project, which was apparently to diary her reflections on American culture by responding to what she hears on the radio, but she does spend a fair amount of time complaining about it. Her complaining is entertaining, however, and witty, which will not surprise anyone who has heard her essays on "This American Life". Sometimes her criticisms did not seem quite fair-- Bob Edwards is not the anti-Rush, and it is a little unrealistic to expect him to be. (Maybe Andrei Codrescu is the anti-Rush). I guess I liked the politics of the thing, and the fact that she really loves and cares about radio. I've been trying to read as much as I can get my hands on about radio this year, and it seems to be a difficult medium to write about (in contrast to film, say). Most good writing about radio ends up being about something else, and it is the something else that I liked about "Radio On". I would recommend it to anyone who cares about radio, or who thinks about American culture.

65 of 87 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Radio On : A Reader's Dismay, May 13, 2000

By	Michael Lerch (Upstate NY) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I got this book because I really love Sarah's essays on the NPR program This American Life. Those are (largely) collected in her book "Take the Cannoli : (Stories from the New World)." If you too have come to Sarah Vowell via This American Life, I must emphasize: "Radio On" is very likely going to disappoint you.

The idea for this book is a fantastic one. She keeps a diary largely centered around what the radio is playing at any given time. She sprinkles in liberal doses of real life, thoughts and musings. Unfortunately she seems to view many subjects through a haughty lens of her life as a microcosm of general culture...which it ain't.

Sarah has a dismaying habit of aggrandizing or belittling whole swaths of art and entertainment. Nirvanna? Fantastic. The Grateful Dead? Boring noodling. NPR? May have once had a golden age, now worthless garbage. Frequently, she casually dismisses a topic/music style/belief/person as worthless, not worth a thought, and then later rants on and on in defense of her opinion. There seems to be no middle ground: something that deserves a gentle ribbing is utterly skewered, something that deserves light praise is idolized. When she does hear something she deems worthy on NPR, she is quick to turn the radio off before it's spoiled by "snooty diction". Much the same could be said of Radio On: a great idea plus the occasional fabulous insight, spoiled in the presentation by Vowell's "snooty diction."

I saw Sarah on David Letterman in support of her much better book Take The Canoli. There was a point where she said something pretty funny and the audience laughed and laughed. As they laughed, she became obviously scornful, as if they had violated some imagined etiquette by thinking she was THAT funny, that they dared interrupt the flow of her coversation with their intrusive laughter. That kind of smugness, that kind of near mean-spiritedness, pervades this book. It renders it almost entirely unreadable.

21 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars YOU PROBABLY WON'T LIKE THIS BOOK IF..., July 31, 2000

By	Geoff Lilley "MS Office Junkie, Atheist, Poet... (Sacramento, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

...you don't listen to NPR, and radio isn't a central part of your life. I probably got more out of this book than some people, because I listened to some of the stations referenced in it (KITS in SF, for example). Sarah Vowell's critiques of modern American culture and of radio are DEAD ON. Like I said, some of the jokes in there are pretty specific to NPR listeners (like her comment about Talk of the Nation), but a lot of it is just growing up Generation X in America. If you're a Gen X NPR listener, this is worth every penny.