For decades now, one or two at a time, I have been collecting books about radio, my medium-of-first-love. In 2018, I began to more intentionally keep an eye out for volumes about imaginative audio production, theater of the mind, and the history and impact of sound-based news and entertainment. Below: what I’ve gathered so far.

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Abel, Jessica. Out on the Wire: The Storytelling Secrets of the New Masters of Radio. New York: B/D/W/Y, Broadway Books, 2015.

Ashley, Paul P. Say It Safely: Legal Limits in Publishing, Radio and Television. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1966.

Bannerman, R. Leroy. Norman Corwin and Radio: The Golden Years. University, Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 1986.

Barson, Michael (Editor). Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel: The Marx Brothers’ Lost Radio Show. New York: Pantheon, 1988.

Bernstein, Mark and Alex Lubertozzi. World War II On The Air: Edward R. Murrow and the War That Defined a Generation. Naperville, Illinois: SourceBooks, 2003.

Biewen, John, and Alexa Dilworth (Editors). Reality Radio: Telling True Stories in Sound. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017.

Bilby, Kenneth. The General: David Sarnoff and the Rise of the Communications Industry. New York: Harper & Row, 1986.

Billips, Connie, and Arthur Pierce. Lux Presents Hollywood: A Show-by-Show History of the Lux Radio Theatre and the Lux Video Theatre, 1934-1957. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 1995.

Birkby, Robert. KMA Radio: The First Sixty Years. Shenandoah, Iowa: May Broadcasting Company, 1985.

Bogosian, Eric. Talk Radio. New York: Vintage Books, 1988.

Bunis, Marty and Sue. A Collector’s Guide to Transister Radios: Identification and Values. Paducah, Kentucky: Collector Books, 1994.

Buxton, Frank, and Bill Owen. The Big Broadcast: 1920-1950. New York: Avon, 1973.

Cantor, Louis. Wheelin’ on Beale: How WDIA-Memphis Became the Nation’s First All-Black Radio Station and Created the Sound that Changed America. New York: Pharos Books, 1992.

Charnley, Mitchell V. News By Radio. New York: The MacMillan Company, 1948.

Chester, Giraud, and Garnet R. Garrison and Edgar E. Willis. Television and Radio (Third Edition). New York: Meredith Publishing Company, 1963.

Cloud, Stanley, and Lynne Olson. The Murrow Boys: Pioneers on the Front Lines of Broadcast Journalism. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1996.

Coleman, Wim and Pat Perrin. The Age of Broadcasting: Radio. Carlisle, Massachusetts: Discovery Enterprises, 1997.

Collins, Mary. National Public Radio: The Cast of Characters. Washington, D. C.: Seven Locks Press, 1993.

Collins, Philip. Radios: The Golden Age. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 1987.

Crews, Albert. Radio Production Directing. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1944.

Culbert, David Holdbrook. News for Everyman: Radio and Foreign Affairs in Thirties America. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1976.

Dary, David. Radio News Handbook (Second Edition). Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania: Tab Books, 1970.

Doolittle, John. Don McNeill and His Breakfast Club. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 2001.

Douglas, Susan J. Listening In: Radio and the American Imagination. New York: Times Books, 1999.

Dunning, John. On The Air: The Encyclopedia of Old Time Radio. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Eberly, Philip K. Susquehanna Radio: The First Fifty Years. York, Pennsylvania: Susquehanna Radio Corp., 1992

Edwards, Bob. Edward R. Murrow and the Birth of Broadcast Journalism. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2004.

Elliott, Bob, and Ray Goulding. Write If You Get Work: The Best of Bob & Ray. New York: Random House, 1975.

Ewbank, Henry L., and Sherman P. Lawton. Broadcasting: Radio and Television. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1952.

Fisher, Marc. Something in the Air: Radio, Rock, and the Revolution That Shaped a Generation. New York: Random House, 2007.

Flaherty, John J. Behind the Microphone. New York: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1944.

Fong-Torres, Ben. The Hits Just Keep on Coming. San Francisco: Miller-Freeman Books, 1998.

Fornatale, Peter, and Joshua E. Mills. Radio in the Television Age. New York: The Overlook Press, 1980.

Fowler, Gene, and Bill Crawford. Border Radio: Quacks, Yodelers, Pitchmen, Psychics, and Other Amazing Broadcasters of the American Airwaves. Austin: Texas Monthly Press, 1987.

Frederick, Howard H. Cuban-American Radio Wars: Ideology in International Telecommunications. Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex Publishing Corportation, 1986.

Gabler, Neal. Winchell: Gossip, Power and the Culture of Celebrity. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995.

Garner, Joe. We Interrupt This Broadcast. Naperville, Illinois: Sourcebooks, Inc., 1998.

Gifford, F. Tape: A Radio News Handbook (Third Edition). Englewood, Colorado: Morton Publishing Company, 1987.

Gordon, George N., and Irving A. Falk. On The Spot Reporting: Radio Records History. New York: Julian Messner, 1967.

Gray, Barry. My Night People. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1975.

Hall, Claude, and Barbara Hall. This Business of Radio Broadcasting. New York: Billboard, 1977.

Hamilton, Bob. D. Radio ’73: Operating Manual for Starship. Los Angeles: Hamilton & Friends, 1973.

Harper, Laurie. Don Sherwood: The Life and Times of the “World’s Greatest Disc Jockey”. Rocklin, California: Prima Publishing, 1989.

Hart, Dennis. Monitor (Take 2): The Revised, Expanded Inside Story of Network Radio’s Greatest Program. New York: iUniverse, Inc., 2003.

Hausman, Carl, and Philip Benoit and Lewis B. O’Donnell. Radio Production: Production, Programming and Performance (Fifth Edition). Belmont, California: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2000.

Havers, Richard. Here is the News: The BBC and the Second World War. Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing, 2007.

Heil, Alan L. Voice of America: A History. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003.

Herr, Michael. Walter Winchell: A Novel. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990.

Hilmes, Michele, and Jason Loviglio (Editors). Radio Reader: Essays in the Cultural History of Radio. New York: Routledge, 2002.

Hobler, Herbert W. And Now the News, 1945: A Momentous Year Comes Alive Through Daily Brief Radio Newscasts. Princeton, New Jersey: Passport Communications, 1994.

Hoffer, Jay. Radio Production Techniques. Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania: Tab Books, 1974.

Kassis, Annette. Sacramento on the Air: How the McClatchy Family Revolutionized West Coast Broadcasting. Charleston: The History Press, 2015.

Keith, Michael C. (Editor). Radio Cultures: The Sound Medium in American Life. New York: Peter Lang, 2008.

Klavan, Gene. Turn That Damned Thing Off: An Irreverent Look at TV’s Impact on the American Scene. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1972.

Ladd, Jim. Radio Waves: Life and Revolution on the FM Dial. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991.

Lodge, Tom. The Ship That Rocked: How Radio Caroline Defied the Establishment, Launched the British Invasion and Made the Planet Safe for Rock and Roll. Washington: Bartleby Press, 2010.

Looker, Thomas. The Sound and the Story: NPR and the Art of Radio. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1995.

Lucas, Fred V. The Right Frequency: The Story of the Talk Radio Giants Who Shook Up the Political Establishment. Palisades, New York: History Publishing Company, 2012.

Lujack, Larry, and Daniel A. Jadlicka. Super Jock. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1975.

Milam, Lorenzo Wilson. The Radio Papers: From KRAB to KCHU, Essays on the Art and Practice of Radio Transmission. San Diego, California: MHO Works, 1986.

Mitchell, Curtis. Cavalcade of Broadcasting. Chicago: Follett Publishing Company, 1970.

Morgan, Henry. Here’s Morgan: The Original Bad Boy in Broadcasting. New York: Barracade Books, Inc., 1994.

Morrow, Cousin Brucie, and Laura Baudo. Cousin Brucie: My Life in Rock ’n’ Roll Radio. New York: Beech Tree Books / William Morrow, 1987.

Nachman, Gerald. Raised on Radio. New York: Pantheon, 1998.

Neer, Richard. FM: The Rise and Fall of Rock Radio. New York: Villard, 2001.

Paley, William S. As It Happened: A Memoir. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, 1979.

Passman, Arnold. The Deejays. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1971.

Peck, William A. Radio Promotion Handbook. Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania: Tab Books, 1968.

Phillips, Lisa A. Public Radio Behind the Voices: Profiles of Public Radio’s Most Treasured Personalities. New York: CDS Books, 2006.

Porter, Jeff. Lost Sound: The Forgotten Art of Radio Storytelling. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016.

Reed, Jim. Everything Imus: All You Ever Wanted to Know About Don Imus. Secaucus, New Jersey: Birch Lane Press, 1999.

Reel, A. Frank. The Networks: How They Stole The Show. New York: Charles Scriber’s Sons, 1979.

Rehm, Diane. On My Own. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2016.

Rubery, Matthew. The Untold Story of the Talking Book. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2016.

Rudel, Anthony. Hello, Everybody!: The Dawn of American Radio. Orlando: Harcourt, Inc., 2008.

Schiels, Michael. J. P. McCarthy: Just Don’t Tell ‘Em Where I Am. Chelsea, Michigan: Sleeping Bear Press, 1997.

Schneider, John F., in association with the California Historical Radio Society and its Bay Area Radio Museum. Images of America: Bay Area Radio. Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 2012.

Schwartz, A. Brad. Broadcast Hysteria: Orson Welles’s War of the Worlds and the Art of Fake News. New York: Hill and Wang, 2015.

Slide, Anthony. Great Radio Personalities in Historic Photographs. New York: The Vestal Press, 1982.

Smith, Sally Bedell. In All His Glory: The Life of William S. Paley, the Legendary Tycoon and His Brilliant Circle. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990.

Smulyan, Susan. Selling Radio: The Commercialization of American Broadcasting 1920-1934. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994.

Squier, Susan Merrill (Editor). Communities of the Air: Radio Century, Radio Culture. Durham: Duke University Press, 2003.

Stamberg, Susan. Every Night at Five: Susan Stamberg’s All Things Considered Book. New York: Pantheon, 1982.

Stein, Jeff. Making Waves: The People and Places of Iowa Broadcasting. Cedar Rapids: WDG Publishing, 2004.

Sterling, Christopher H., and Michael C. Keith. Sounds of Change: A History of FM Broadcasting in America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008.

Sweeney, Michael S. Secrets of Victory: The Office of Censorship and the American Press and Radio in World War II. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001.

The Man at the Microphone. Washington Broadcast. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Doran and Company, 1944.

Thomas, Bob. Walter Winchell: The Man and the Myth. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company,1971.

Vowell, Sarah. Radio On. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1996.

Walker, Jesse. Rebels on the Air: An Alternative History of Radio in America. New York: New York University Press, 2001.

Warren, Donald. Radio Priest: Charles Coughlin, The Father of Hate Radio. New York: The Free Press, 1996.

Weaver, Pat, with Thomas M. Coffey. The Best Seat in the House: The Golden Years of Radio and Television. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994.

Whittinghill, Dick. Did You Whittinghill This Morning? Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1976.

Woodfin, Jane. Of Mikes and Men. New York, McGraw-Hill, 1951.

Wolfman Jack and Byron Laursen. Have Mercy! Confessions of the Original Rock and Roll Animal. New York: Warner Books, Inc., 1995.

Journal Articles:

Bromley, Gareth. Racial Frequencies: WANN Annapolis, Black Radio, and Civil Rights. Maryland Historical Magazine, Winter 2015.