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Tune in for the HPPR Radio Readers Book Club’s 2020 Spring Read: Radio Waves

The holidays are near, which often means time for rest, relaxation, & READING! Here are a few holiday book ideas that’ll keep you on track with the upcoming 2020 Spring Read for HPPR’s Radio Readers Book Club,  RADIO WAVES:

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Stormy Weather: A Novel by Paulette Jiles (2007). Oil is king of East Texas during the darkest years of the Great Depression. The Stoddard girls—responsible Mayme, whip-smart tomboy Jeanine, and bookish Bea—know no life but an itinerant one, trailing their father from town to town as he searches for work on the pipelines and derricks; that is, when he's not spending his meager earnings at gambling joints, race tracks, and dance halls. And in every small town in which the windblown family settles, mother Elizabeth does her level best to make each sparse, temporary house they inhabit a home.

Edward R. Murrow & the Birth of Broadcast Journalism by Bob Edwards (2004). "Most Americans living today never heard Ed Murrow in a live broadcast. This book is for them I want them to know that broadcast journalism was established by someone with the highest standards. Tabloid crime stories, so much a part of the lust for ratings by today's news broadcasters, held no interest for Murrow. He did like Hollywood celebrities, but interviewed them for his entertainment programs; they had no place on his news programs. My book is focused on this life in journalism. I offer it in the hope that more people in and out of the news business will get to know Ed Murrow. Perhaps in time the descent from Murrow's principles can be reversed”

Border Radio: Quacks, Yodelers, Pitchmen, Psychics, and Other Amazing Broadcasters of the American Airwaves by Gene Fowler & Bill Crawford (1987). Before the Internet brought the world together, there was border radio. These mega-watt "border blaster" stations, set up just across the Mexican border to evade U.S. regulations, beamed programming across the United States and as far away as South America, Japan, and Western Europe. This book traces the eventful history of border radio from its founding in the 1930s by "goat-gland doctor" J. R. Brinkley to the glory days of Wolfman Jack in the 1960s.

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Read along or just enjoy listening to weekly BookBytes heard weekdays at 7:45 a.m. CST during Morning Edition and again at 6:45 p.m. CST during All Things Considered. Plus, don't miss our on-air, live book discussion (date TBA).

Are you passionate about books? Or do you know someone who’d make a great commentator for this series? Become an HPPR Radio Reader today! Click here to email Kathleen Holt to help out. You can join the Book Club and stay informed by liking our Facebook page! If you'd like to contribute a BookByte, simply contact Kathleen Holt here for more information.

To download materials from previous seasons of the Book Club, please visit our archive.

***Stay tuned for the Spring Read reader's guide, with bios of our discussion leaders.

Kathleen Holt has served High Plains Public Radio—in one way or another—since its inception in 1979. She coordinates the HPPR Radio Readers Book Club.