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249th out of 699 books
—
479 voters
Radio On: A Listener's Diary
by
Sarah Vowell
There are approximately 502 million radios in America. For this savvy, far-reaching diary, celebrated journalist and author Vowell turned hers on and listened—closely, critically, creatively—for an entire year.
As a series of impressions and reflections regarding contemporary American culture, and as an extended meditation on both our media and our society, this keenly focu...more
As a series of impressions and reflections regarding contemporary American culture, and as an extended meditation on both our media and our society, this keenly focu...more
Paperback, 256 pages
Published
December 15th 1997
by St. Martin's Griffin
(first published 1997)
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The reason I think I really like Sarah Vowell (beyond her being both funny and cute in a "not quite out of my league" sort of way) is because she's both a cynic and an idealist. Throughout her first book, Radio On, she writes of the people she hears on the radio, both heroes (Bill Clinton, Nirvana) and villains (Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, Garrison Keillor).
She listened to the radio every day in 1995 and wrote about what she heard. Sometimes she's really funny, other times serious but she is a...more
She listened to the radio every day in 1995 and wrote about what she heard. Sometimes she's really funny, other times serious but she is a...more
As I do whenever she has a new book coming out I'm busy rereading the collected work of Sarah Vowel. She's has one of my favorite voices period, warm, funny, intelligent, confidential, conversational, and occasionally scathing.
That being said as of Radio On she hadn't quite got it right. Not that she had it wrong, she always had her knack for seeing beauty in strange places, humor where there seems little chance to find it, and a keen sense of how pop culture and history shape our lives.
It's j...more
That being said as of Radio On she hadn't quite got it right. Not that she had it wrong, she always had her knack for seeing beauty in strange places, humor where there seems little chance to find it, and a keen sense of how pop culture and history shape our lives.
It's j...more
A younger and crankier Vowell listened to the radio constantly in 1995, and left her comments on it for the world to see. Much of it was pretty negative, but there’s some positive mixed in as well. Considering that she owes some amount of her fame to NPR, it’s interesting that she’s often pretty down on it, considering it toothless and absolutely hating Garrison Keillor and his Prairie Home Companion. Rush Limbaugh is the subject of a good amount of ire as well. Vowell is someone who’s truly pas...more
The remarkable thing about this book, for Sarah Vowell fans, is that it takes place during a pivotal year of her life, and she spends a lot of time unhappily thrashing about for new opportunities. The subject is radio in 1995, but the central character is her, and the most interesting aspect is the colliision between 1995 pop culture and her professional worries and personal opinions. I'm not sure how enjoyable this book would be for people who don't like the author or don't remember the year 19...more
A valuable book in an unconventional sort of way. This is a year-long journal of listening to the radio. It was an interesting combo of commentary, news, and reflections. But what made this book more meaningful is having read it so long after its initial publication. Though not the intended point of the book, the journal captures the world of the mid-90's perfectly. It replays the hot air from Rush Limbaugh's climb from obscurity; Congressional stalemating; the state of music and how it can accu...more
Nov 20, 2010
Alan
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
The stupid and contagious
Recommended to Alan by:
Previously-read work, and subject matter close to home
Sarah Vowell is not the first or only person to decide to set down a year's worth of observations in a single volume. Brian Eno's superb A Year With Swollen Appendices (hmm, now that's a book I should go back to...) even chronicles the same year—1995. And, like Eno's book, Vowell's diary is full of music.
Not that she kept her radio tuned to a single station, the way I think most of us tend to do once we've settled down. Vowell took her project seriously, not just tuning into different markets as...more
Not that she kept her radio tuned to a single station, the way I think most of us tend to do once we've settled down. Vowell took her project seriously, not just tuning into different markets as...more
This book is oddly personal and strangely impersonal all at once. It is both a pre-internet time capsule that only hints at a world of radio podcasts and "no-license broadcast" technologies, and an eternally relevant commentary on radio's (and music's) power no mater what time period or emotional state we're in. And it's as awkward and goofy and deadeningly cynical as it is honest and thoughtful and perfectly pessimistic. Vowell can share with us her fears about politics and art and other select...more
My Mom gave me a used copy of this book as a stocking stuffer on Christmas Day and I started reading it on my flight back to Chicago from Boston. Sarah Vowell was 25 years old and newly-enrolled at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago when she decided to listen to the radio every day for a year and keep a listener's diary. As she traveled with her class to see earthworks in the Southwest, visited friends in Mississippi and California, and went to see her family in Montana, she tuned into t...more
I always kind of imagined Sarah Vowell and her NPR-siblings, Ira Glass and David Sedaris, sitting around a table shooting the snarky breeze while her NPR-grandpa, Garrison Keeler, and all her NPR-aunts and uncles (the various anchors from All Things Considered) sit around outside discussing old times. What I should have guessed is that like all families, the youngsters hold a certain amount of disdain toward their descendants.
Vowell's contempt for the NPR news-division is just one of many, mostl...more
Vowell's contempt for the NPR news-division is just one of many, mostl...more
Much of Radio On explores the public/private nature of the radio listener's experience, the feeling, say, that a certain song playing on the radio at a certain moment is a direct commentary on one's state of mind. Not surprisingly, the essay's best insights are delivered alongside personal revelations.
While I appreciated the prompts to re-evaluate public institutions like Nirvana (something I never thought I would do again) and Fourth of July fireworks-display soundtrack choices, Vowell's abilit...more
While I appreciated the prompts to re-evaluate public institutions like Nirvana (something I never thought I would do again) and Fourth of July fireworks-display soundtrack choices, Vowell's abilit...more
In 1995, when Sarah Vowell wrote Radio On, she was a 25-year-old, urban art student fresh out of an immersion in college radio. In 1995, I was a 21-year-old, urban art student still immersed in college radio. Not surprisingly, then and now I mostly agree with the opinions she expresses about things political, social, and musical.
I mention this just to shore myself up a little before summarily dismissing her memoir as a relentlessly whiny bit of cynical petulance. Vowell writes with the assured s...more
I mention this just to shore myself up a little before summarily dismissing her memoir as a relentlessly whiny bit of cynical petulance. Vowell writes with the assured s...more
A fascinating read, probably more so now 15-plus years after the fact when the very medium Vowell observes has changed so dramatically. I would love to see her do a follow-up, although the Web has changed radio/audio entertainment so completely that I'm not sure one could do the same book anymore with the same element of surprise and controlled discussion based completely on what happened to play on the dial as opposed to what podcast one actively decides to download and listen to. I'd also love...more
This book shows its age a bit, even in the technology described for radio transmission. But it's a great love letter to radio, and I learned a bit about Vowell as well. A lot of what she talks about - Clinton-era politics, Nirvana, Hole and other mid-90's alternative bands - take me back to my own days as a college dj (apparently Vowell is only a few years older than me). Since I loved radio and that was a fun part of my life, this was a great trip down memory lane for me.
She gets into politics...more
She gets into politics...more
Two things I love: diaries and radio.
Written over 10 years ago, art grad-student Sarah Vowell listens to the radio every day and records her commentary. 1995 was a period I remember, and I remember listening to talk radio as my mom made lunch in the summers: G. Gordon Liddy, Rush Limbaugh, NPR... all the same people she comes across. But it's interesting to go back and understand the greater implications of talk radio and what was going on in the world. How radio was representing (or not represe...more
Written over 10 years ago, art grad-student Sarah Vowell listens to the radio every day and records her commentary. 1995 was a period I remember, and I remember listening to talk radio as my mom made lunch in the summers: G. Gordon Liddy, Rush Limbaugh, NPR... all the same people she comes across. But it's interesting to go back and understand the greater implications of talk radio and what was going on in the world. How radio was representing (or not represe...more
I think I've read all of Sarah Vowell's books now, and for whatever reason I think I prefer her older work to her newer work. Maybe that's because as her style has "matured" she's found herself more interested in writing straight history, leaving out the kind of offbeat travel-diary/memoir bits that I like. Radio On reads a bit like history itself, now, fifteen years after publication. Newt Gingrich, Kurt Cobain and the NEA funding debate seem so far removed from our post-9/11, post-Recession, p...more
I suspect this is an even better read today than it was when it debuted. Vowel's diary of a year of radio listening captured radio at a crucial moment, just as the internet was on the verge of becoming a feature of regular people's media consumption. And despite Vowell's general disillusion with radio, one catches a glimpse of redemption towards the end when she sits in on an editing session for one of the first This American Life broadcasts. Maybe radio hasn't been saved, but reading Vowell's d...more
I first heard of Sarah Vowell when this book came out and mentally put it on my to-read list. Then I found her on NPR and Salon and pretty much read everything she wrote except her debut.
As it turns out, that is a good thing. Not that the book is irredeemably bad, but it certainly doesn't wear well. Mid-nineties/twenty something Sarah was a hard-to-stomach hipster. In the book she is contemptuous of middle-brow culture, impatient with political compromise and angst-ridden in a way that stopped...more
As it turns out, that is a good thing. Not that the book is irredeemably bad, but it certainly doesn't wear well. Mid-nineties/twenty something Sarah was a hard-to-stomach hipster. In the book she is contemptuous of middle-brow culture, impatient with political compromise and angst-ridden in a way that stopped...more
I adore Sarah Vowell -- she's one of those writers I want to carry around in my pocket. But this was one of the hardest books to get through. It's "A Listener's Diary," chronicling a year of what she hears on the radio: 1995 start to finish. I graduated from high school and started college in 1995; it's a year I remember vividly. I listened to all that music, I read every news article I could get my hands on, and I argued those political issues of the day possibly more passionately than I ever h...more
Vowell's first book was a diary of listening to the radio in a time when radio was on the wane. It was clearly a project about which she was passionate, but the narrative fell flat for me. After hearing her on The American Life, I was excited to read her work. This was all I had at the time. But it WAS her early work, before she hit her stride and had the freedom to focus on any topic of her choosing. (I imagine writing essays about historical figures wasn't the easiest pitch early on in Vowell'...more
I didn't love this book. I found the diary format kind of rambling and disorienting. And, at times she complains a lot about NPR which I thought was fun as I have always associated her as NPR.
What I did love was remembering this year in my life (1995) as it was probably one of the last years I really listened to the radio. I remember driving home from dropping off a video (not a DVD!) at the video store and hearing about Kurt Cobain's death on 107.7 (The End). I remember seeing Courtney Love at...more
What I did love was remembering this year in my life (1995) as it was probably one of the last years I really listened to the radio. I remember driving home from dropping off a video (not a DVD!) at the video store and hearing about Kurt Cobain's death on 107.7 (The End). I remember seeing Courtney Love at...more
Dec 03, 2007
Sarah Smith
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
supporters of public radio, 20somethings, cranks
When I saw Sarah Vowell read in Pittsburgh a few years ago, somebody asked her during the Q&A about this book, and she made disparaging comments. She said it was unfocused and vitriolic and kind of cringe-inducing. Essentially, it's a diary of every little bit of radio Vowell listened to in 1994--the heady times of Rush Limbaugh and "the Republican Revolution" and O.J. and Newt. And Kurt and Courtney. I guess Rush Limbaugh had incited this new wave of radio listening through his shit-mongeri...more
I'm in this habit of purchasing books by Sarah Vowell in hopes that I will be wowed enough to keep them around on my bookshelf. With this in mind I have purchased two of her books and, after reading them in the span of a few hours or a few days, turned around and sold them right back to a second-hand bookstore.
"Radio On" was a decent read. It kept me occupied on the bus rides home. Vowell's ascerbic criticism of NPR radio personalities echoed similar conversations I have with myself when listeni...more
"Radio On" was a decent read. It kept me occupied on the bus rides home. Vowell's ascerbic criticism of NPR radio personalities echoed similar conversations I have with myself when listeni...more
This is Sarah Vowell's first book, and I actually found it more interesting reading it 14 years after being originally published (1996) than I would have if I'd read it in the mid-90's when it was "current". This is because the book is a snapshot of what our society was like back then, as well as what were the current events of the day. For example, I didn't realize that Rush Limbaugh was a national presence that long ago (I was a sophomore in college at the time and too self-absorbed to pay att...more
Her first, and therefore not best, work, Sarah Vowell still manages to establish her writer's voice very early on in this diarist's look at the radio waves in the year 1995. Spanning politics, music, art and, most of all, looking inward, Vowell is never afraid to voice her opinions. While she may go off on the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Republican power, NPR, and whoever else stands in her way, she does it with style and without any real blind venom. For that I can appreciate all her arguments even...more
It's not Assasination Vacation. It's not Take the Cannoli. But it's a valiant first work whose essence is th core of the latter incarnations we all love.
For a 25 year old's perspective, it's a bit too cynical for me. A bit too black (t-shirt) and white (noise) for someone claiming to not know it all and not wanting to pretend to know it all.
But, overall, I like a 25 year old with a good idea. I like music as a state of mind. And I like a new playlist, any day of the week.
For a 25 year old's perspective, it's a bit too cynical for me. A bit too black (t-shirt) and white (noise) for someone claiming to not know it all and not wanting to pretend to know it all.
But, overall, I like a 25 year old with a good idea. I like music as a state of mind. And I like a new playlist, any day of the week.
Thirteen years after she wrote this, it's interesting to see what was happening in 1995 from an immediate perspective. Thirteen years from now, will we look back on our writings from today and see them as comparably hyperbolic and more apocalyptic than they needed to be? Will we regret the musical artists we spoke ill of, like Mariah Carey? This book is a relic of the 1990s, and it has a lot of the same flaws as the decade: too serious, too restrictive in its definition of acceptable art, too ma...more
I really like Sarah Vowell. This book was kind of a diary of a year listening to the radio. She listened to different music and programs every day and wrote thoughts about them. The year was 1995, so the book is pretty dated. There were a lot of events and music that I didn't know about. I was still amused by her comic wit, and it was very interesting that she talked a lot about Rush Limbaugh and how much of an idiot he is. I guess some things don't change much in 14 years.
I love Sarah Vowell, but this really is a bad book. Whiny, unfocused, sophomoric, and (worst) unthoughtful. She is definitely angry throughout the book, and occasionally that can be engaging if you agree (especially about Rush Limbaugh), but mainly she's dismissive, which does not make for entertaining reading. Pick up any of her other books--or start with "Shooting Dad" or the story where Ira Glass tries to teach her how to drive--and the feel is completely different. In those stories, and in a...more
I love Sarah Vowell's other books, and hadn't heard of this one, so I decided to get it from the library. It's exactly what it sounds like - she listened to the radio a lot for a year, and wrote her thoughts about it. In some ways, it brought me back to 1995. There's a lot of Kurt Cobain, and her graduate art school thoughts, some talk about her days as a college DJ. All in all it was okay, but not nearly as good as her other books that I've read.
She listens to the radio every day for a year--scanning the dial, then comments on whatever grabs her interest. First of all, why didn't I think of this for a book topic?? Secondly, I just got through the days when my mom died: I recognized the current events she was discussing--mainly the death of Jerry Garcia (Grateful Dead). I loved when she slammed the band because I could never see the attraction to the those who religiously followed the band from city to city in the psychedelic painted van...more
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Sarah Jane Vowell is an American author, journalist, humorist, and commentator. Often referred to as a "social observer," Vowell has authored several books and is a regular contributor to the radio program This American Life on Public Radio International. She was also the voice of Violet in the animated film The Incredibles and a short documentary, VOWELLET - An Essay by SARAH VOWELL in the "Behin...more
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“Radio is the playground of coincidence.”
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“My lips are chapped from the winds of change.”
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Jan 22, 2009 12:24pm