Here are 13 books that Empire of the Air fans have personally recommended if you like
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I am both a musician and an author: a Juilliard-trained professional composer who fell into writing after a Ph.D. in electronic music at NYU. Both of my biographies—a favorite genre—chronicle the lives of inventors who married music to electronics and altered the trajectory of music. But their lives each took strange turns—sometimes in almost fictional dimensions—demonstrating that leaving a technological and artistic mark on posterity often has a black side that history overlooked. I’m fascinated by the psychic profiles of my subjects, and I love books that show how character is not black and white—that those who moved the needle of human progress also harbored dark realms in their personalities.
If you’ve ever wondered (or haven’t) what Richard Nixon, Jane Fonda, Linda Ronstadt, All in the Family, and the films Chinatown and Shampoo share in common, and why it matters, author and political correspondent Ronald Brownstein connects the dots in a compelling examination of how the seismic cultural upheavals we attribute to the late 60s were in fact late bloomers, leaving their mark only in the early 70s.
Part nostalgia, part pop and TV history, part political analysis, this book zeros in on the cast of personalities and classic artistic works that collectively made 1974 the pivotal year in the modern American zeitgeist. Something for everyone who lived through that time—I can attest to that—and a timely cultural history lesson for those who didn’t.
In this exceptional cultural history, Atlantic Senior Editor Ronald Brownstein-"one of America's best political journalists" (The Economist)-tells the kaleidoscopic story of one monumental year that marked the city of Los Angeles' creative peak, a glittering moment when popular culture was ahead of politics in predicting what America would become.
Los Angeles in 1974 exerted more influence over popular culture than any other city in America. Los Angeles that year, in fact, dominated popular culture more than it ever had before, or would again. Working in film, recording, and television…
I am both a musician and an author: a Juilliard-trained professional composer who fell into writing after a Ph.D. in electronic music at NYU. Both of my biographies—a favorite genre—chronicle the lives of inventors who married music to electronics and altered the trajectory of music. But their lives each took strange turns—sometimes in almost fictional dimensions—demonstrating that leaving a technological and artistic mark on posterity often has a black side that history overlooked. I’m fascinated by the psychic profiles of my subjects, and I love books that show how character is not black and white—that those who moved the needle of human progress also harbored dark realms in their personalities.
Electric guitars are all around us, but they didn’t just burst upon the scene with 1950s rock ‘n’ roll, fully formed; their zig-zaggy path to ubiquity surprised me, and I’m sure it will surprise others. Ian Port’s captivating triple biography of the electrified guitar and its creators Leo Fender and Les Paul (the Gibson guitar), is set against the atmosphere of competing visions and vicious rivalry between Fender and Gibson, and their rush to win the hearts and pocketbooks of their famed rocker customers.
This very American tale of spontaneous mom-and-pop invention that spawned a beloved tool of music we take for granted uncovers the dark and sometimes clandestine side of its creation. It resonated with my own similar discoveries about Bob Moog and his synthesizer.
"A hot-rod joy ride through mid-20th-century American history" (The New York Times Book Review), this one-of-a-kind narrative masterfully recreates the rivalry between the two men who innovated the electric guitar's amplified sound-Leo Fender and Les Paul-and their intense competition to convince rock stars like the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, and Eric Clapton to play the instruments they built.
In the years after World War II, music was evolving from big-band jazz into rock 'n' roll-and these louder styles demanded revolutionary instruments. When Leo Fender's tiny firm marketed the first solid-body electric guitar, the Esquire, musicians immediately saw its appeal. Not to…
I am both a musician and an author: a Juilliard-trained professional composer who fell into writing after a Ph.D. in electronic music at NYU. Both of my biographies—a favorite genre—chronicle the lives of inventors who married music to electronics and altered the trajectory of music. But their lives each took strange turns—sometimes in almost fictional dimensions—demonstrating that leaving a technological and artistic mark on posterity often has a black side that history overlooked. I’m fascinated by the psychic profiles of my subjects, and I love books that show how character is not black and white—that those who moved the needle of human progress also harbored dark realms in their personalities.
As a New Yorker, I’ve glanced fleetingly over the years at architect Philip Johnson’s monumental structures that dot the city, and as a Ph.D. student, I spent hours researching under the atrium of his Bobst Library at NYU, assuming incorrectly—as this book demonstrates—that Johnson was a traditionally-schooled, distinguished architect of sound personal character. Lamster’s revealing biography untangles a disturbingly complex man—an almost gentleman farmer among architects with limited technical background, lofty plans, and a lifelong engagement with fascism.
This book pulls back the curtain to unveil an unexpected trail of machinations between Johnson and his circle of the wealthy and powerful, showing how a doyen of modern culture hid his failings from the public behind the façade of his towering creations.
When Philip Johnson died in 2005 at the age of 98, he was still one of the most recognizable--and influential--figures on the American cultural landscape. The first recipient of the Pritzker Prize and MoMA's founding architectural curator, Johnson made his mark as one of America's leading architects with his famous Glass House in New Caanan, CT, and his controversial AT&T Building in NYC, among many others in nearly every city in the country--but his most natural role was as a consummate power broker and shaper of public opinion.
Johnson introduced European modernism--the sleek, glass-and-steel architecture that now dominates our cities--to…
I am both a musician and an author: a Juilliard-trained professional composer who fell into writing after a Ph.D. in electronic music at NYU. Both of my biographies—a favorite genre—chronicle the lives of inventors who married music to electronics and altered the trajectory of music. But their lives each took strange turns—sometimes in almost fictional dimensions—demonstrating that leaving a technological and artistic mark on posterity often has a black side that history overlooked. I’m fascinated by the psychic profiles of my subjects, and I love books that show how character is not black and white—that those who moved the needle of human progress also harbored dark realms in their personalities.
I’ve been a fan of Leonard Bernstein’s music and his peerless conducting since I was a child and I knew that his personal and creative life was stormy. But I was gobsmacked by Jamie Bernstein’s deeply personal tour through the up-close, at-home world of this timeless genius. She invites us into Lenny’s study, his living room, or seats us at the dinner table as he puffs his umpteenth daily cigarette, downs a scotch, and holds forth on the sacred, the profane, and the mundane.
As a biographer, I gleaned much from this powerful memoir, a confessional chronicle that emboldened me to take chances and dissect the deepest innards of my subject unapologetically. If we can witness Lenny soiling himself onstage in his last year as he is honored for lifetime achievement, we can also plumb the depths of his deeper psyche as well. A masterful portrait.
The intimate memoir of Leonard Bernstein and his family, that helped inspire the new movie Maestro
“Unique among classical-music memoirs for its physical intimacy, its humor and tenderness, its ambivalence toward an irrepressible family genius. . . . The existence of this well-written book, with its poignancy and its shuddery detail. . . is a mark of [Jamie Bernstein’s] sanity and survival. In telling [her father’s] story, she got to write her own.” —New Yorker
The oldest daughter of revered composer/conductor Leonard Bernstein offers a rare look at her father on the centennial of his birth in a deeply intimate…
I’ve suffered from depression off and on since my late teens and have also developed severe chronic migraines. However, I’m committed to not letting these conditions mean that I don’t live a rich life, even with limitations. Reading and the imagination are the key to me – and audiobooks and the radio when I’m not well enough to read. Works of art unite readers, even those who feel themselves in the dark, and reassure us that we’re not alone.
Set during the Second World War, these hilarious stories are about William, a young boy who has a very strong sense of himself. I identify with the scruffy, rebellious William. He’s always in trouble but has very passionate reasons for doing the things he does. The adult world baffles him, he’s the head of a gang that he leads, with his logic, into all kinds of scrapes. The world is unjust and he has to fit in with incomprehensible family values and oppose terrors like the vile and spoilt Violet Elizabeth Bott. I cheer for William against his older siblings and against the world that just doesn’t understand.
A tousle-headed, snub-nosed, hearty, lovable ball of mischief, William Brown has been harassing his unfortunate family and delighting his hundreds of thousands of admirers since 1922.
Part of the Macmillan Collector's Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition features original illustrations by Thomas Henry and a foreword by novelist, dramatist and screenwriter Roddy Doyle.
Just William is Richmal Crompton's first book about the incorrigible William Brown. Follow his adventures from getting over a school teacher crush…
In my freshman year at the University of Missouri-Columbia I started out as a journalism major. I joined Sigma Kappa where I met my “sister” Anne who worked at KBIA. I worked with her the rest of that year. Back home in Ellenville, NY, I convinced the station manager to hire me. I was the very first female radio announcer and engineer to work at the station. When my best friend was killed in a tragic accident, I needed to heal my loss by using the only method I knew would help; writing. Combining my experiences and passion for radio I wrote Red Wine for Breakfast to honor her memory.
Stories about women in radio are few and I was thrilled to find Radio Girls. Although it’s fiction, there is a real sense that the author did their research combining fact with fiction in the very early days of the BBC. In 1926, American-born Maisie Musgrave meets the challenges of rising from a secretary in a predominated male industry to become an unexpected heroine at a time when very few women were given the chance.
The Great War is over, and change is in the air, in this novel that brings to life the exciting days of early British radio…and one woman who finds her voice while working alongside the brilliant women and men of the BBC.
London, 1926. American-raised Maisie Musgrave is thrilled to land a job as a secretary at the upstart British Broadcasting Corporation, whose use of radio—still new, strange, and electrifying—is captivating the nation. But the hectic pace, smart young staff, and intimidating bosses only add to Maisie’s insecurity.
Soon, she is seduced by the work—gaining confidence as she arranges broadcasts…
As a career journalist who has worked in print, online, on the radio and on television, I’ve long been intrigued by the influence of mass media and the vast technological changes in how information is transmitted that have occurred over the course of my career. Burnt out from the daily deadlines and transformed by a chance to work in the Kingdom of Bhutan, I began writing books and gravitate toward the “origin stories” of influential US entities.
Mitchell was the first person hired by NPR when it was first charted in 1970. He was appointed its first producer after the first initial, scattered year of production of its first news program, All Things Considered, which debuted in May, 1971. This is an excellent survey of the early years from the perch of a behind-the-scenes insider and offers to clues about how the network developed.
Public radio stands as a valued national institution, one whose fans and listeners actively support it with their time and their money. In this new history of this important aspect of American culture, author Jack W. Mitchell looks at the dreams that inspired those who created it, the all-too- human realities that grew out of those dreams, and the criticism they incurred from both sides of the political spectrum. As National Public Radio's very first employee, and the first producer of its legendary All Things Considered, Mitchell tells the story of public radio from the point of view of an…
As a career journalist who has worked in print, online, on the radio and on television, I’ve long been intrigued by the influence of mass media and the vast technological changes in how information is transmitted that have occurred over the course of my career. Burnt out from the daily deadlines and transformed by a chance to work in the Kingdom of Bhutan, I began writing books and gravitate toward the “origin stories” of influential US entities.
Stamberg is a pioneer broadcaster, whom Mitchell appointed to host a nightly newscast and as someone who worked in public radio back when it was called "educational broadcasting." Read this book of annotated transcripts of some of her best interviews and see why she got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for putting public radio on the proverbial map. Bonus: Linda Wertheimer's Listening to America, derived from her years as host of ATC, and long-time Morning Edition host Bob Edwards’ memoir, A Life in the Box.
I can recommend this topic because of my interest in anything about WWII and the Nazi horror. It also comes from the recent revival of the ideology, even though the entire world fought to defeat them seventy years ago. I have been haunted by PTSD because of my experiences as a first responder and can speak to that personally. As a former reservist with the Canadian Armed Forces, I also have experience in firearms and munitions. I have recently written my own story, The Home Front, which deals with the rise of the neo-Nazis in the United States through the eyes of a WWII veteran.
This story hit home because it is set within my own community, so it could have really happened. We never know who our neighbors are and what they do behind closed doors.
Dead Air portrays radio morning host, Lee Garrett, who comes to work one morning to find a death threat taped to his radio console. At first, he thinks it’s a joke, but one accident after another convinces him that someone is really out to kill him. Can it be a member of the local neo-Nazi group, the Skins, a jealous radio personality for his or another station, or has he inadvertently insulted someone online? He must figure it out before they strike again.
It’s a hard thing to accept that someone wants you dead. It forces you to decide if you have anything worth living for. When radio morning host Lee Garrett finds a death threat on his control console, he shrugs it off as a prank. Until a series of minor harassments turns into undeniable attempts on his life. The suspects are many—he’s made enemies—and the police are strangely uncooperative. The radio career he loved has turned sour, leaving behind a dwindling audience and the wreckage of his marriage. Then the friendship of a newly blind boy and the boy’s attractive teacher…
As a career journalist who has worked in print, online, on the radio and on television, I’ve long been intrigued by the influence of mass media and the vast technological changes in how information is transmitted that have occurred over the course of my career. Burnt out from the daily deadlines and transformed by a chance to work in the Kingdom of Bhutan, I began writing books and gravitate toward the “origin stories” of influential US entities.
Millions of people love and tune in to public radio every day. But how many people understand how public radio works, or how it got to where it is today? When it was first chartered in 1970, it wasn't clear NPR would work-or exactly how. For years, it struggled to find an audience—in part because of the technological limitations of the network and the emerging FM medium. McCauley interviewed early luminaries in public radio to construct this terrific look at its early years.
The people who shaped America's public broadcasting system thought it should be "a civilized voice in a civilized community"-a clear alternative to commercial broadcasting. This book tells the story of how NPR has tried to embody this idea. Michael P. McCauley describes NPR's evolution from virtual obscurity in the early 1970s, when it was riddled with difficulties-political battles, unseasoned leadership, funding problems-to a first-rate broadcast organization. The book draws on a wealth of primary evidence, including fifty-seven interviews with people who have been central to the NPR story, and it places the network within the historical context of the wider…
