Best Books on Cassette
A humorous and practical approach from one of the most successful voice-over actors in Hollywood. Patrick Fraley, one of the most successful voice-over actors in the industry, has performed in thousands of TV and radio commercials, 27 feature motion pictures, including The Fisher King , and has lectured and taught at more than 100 schools.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"This "professional guide" is really for everyone; speakers, lecturers and teachers who want to enliven their speech; actors who want to make additional income in radio advertising or who want to expand their on-stage presentation; parents who want to read stories to their kids with real impact."
"Great advice on the nature of the voice over business and how to create and do more than just survive in the biz."
"I consider myself a premier voice actor with great abilities but Patrick Fraley really taught me more than that, he taught me to dig into the acting side of the business and learn exactly what steps to take to prepare and train yourself to CATALOG your voices you create."
"...and he is truly the master journeyman of this trade."
This unparalleled collection includes a booklet containing rare photographs and a detailed history on each of the 60 greatest old-time radio shows of the 20th century and a foreword written by Walter Cronkite. From either perspective, Walter Cronkite has selected a comprehensive collection of the "best" of Old-Time Radio--including comedy, Abbott & Costello doing their "Who's on First" routine; drama, Mercury Theatre doing "War of the Worlds" with Orson Welles; family listening, Jimmy Stewart in Dickens's A Christmas Carol.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"However Corwin's "The Undecided Molecule" is not only all in verse and truly funny, but features Robert Benchley and Groucho Marx among several other stars. But choosing the Abbott and Costello show that has not only the "Who's on First" but also the "Bob Feller" routine was right on target, as was the Edgar Bergen/Charlie McCarthy show in which Mae West got herself banned from the air for her suggestive reading of Eve in a sketch in which Don Ameche plays Adam. Mr. Welles' famous Mercury Theater "War of the Worlds" is the first selection, by the way, to be matched in terror only by "Three Skeleton Key" ("Escape") in which Vincent Price and two men are trapped in a lighthouse by millions of rats! Or the classic "Leinengen vs. the Ants" ("Escape") in which William Conrad defies several square miles of the man-eaters. For comedy we have Baby Snooks, Fibber McGee and Molly, Burns and Allen, Jack Benny, Fred Allen, Desi and Lucy (with the Mertz's), Eddie Cantor, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby (in a particular funny Philco Radio Time Episode), and a host of comics in a Dick Tracy spoof on a "Command Performance" designed for GI's overseas."
"we already have a good tape player in our 23 year old van! One day we will replace the tape player = good news= we don't have to throw these out!"
"Really fun to listen to in the evening."
"You have to like this stuff since it comes from a previous generation."
"It reminds her of her younger days.I would highly recommend this for the older person who grew up when radios were important for entertainment."
"I remember the comedies and those are the ones I was looking for."
"My father loved this!!!"
These original radio broadcasts from the 1940s bring back memories for nostalgia buffs and introduce the popular British sleuth Sherlock Holmes and his sidekick Dr. Watson to a new generation of listeners.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Turn you dial to the Mutual broadcast network on your mental radio and relive the actual broadcast of two shows."
"In Boucher's and Green's defense, you must admit that Conan Doyle, who only wrote 56 Holmes stories, wrote several stinkers himself."
Best Radio Reference
Use with ARRL s online Exam Review for Ham Radio. Welcome to Amateur Radio. Radio and Signals Fundamentals. Electricity, Components, and Circuits. Propagation, Antennas, and Feed Lines. Amateur Radio Equipment. Communicating With Other Hams. Licensing Regulations. Operating Regulations. Safety. As you complete each chapter of this book, use ARRL's online Exam Review for Ham Radio to help prepare you for exam day. Once you've finished this book, use the online service to take practice exams with the same number and variety of questions that you'll encounter on exam day.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Some of the other books that I see concentrate more on passing the test by learning the test questions than actually teaching the material."
"Even though you could simply memorize the questions from the FCC test bank, you'll be missing out on a great amount of information that's useful to the new ham operator."
"After the training material, there is an excellent glossary, the complete exam question pool (with correct answers indicated), as well as a supplementary chapter on choosing a ham radio. Excellent graphics -- lots of tables, charts, photographs, and line drawings. As much as I love my e-Ink Kindle, this is the sort of book that is better in paper and in a large format. Table of Contents for the course material -- Radio and Signals Fundamentals; Electricity, Components, and Circuits; Propagation, Antennas, and Feed Lines; Amateur Radio Equipment; Communicating With Other Hams; Licensing Regulations; Operating Regulations; and Safety."
"Or, you can go to hamtestlone.com, pay about the same amount of money and, after studying diligently, in a week pass the course. I HIGHLY recommend getting the book AND signing up for the course. I have NO affiliation with hamtestonline.com other than 10/15/2016 took and passed my Extra Class license exam."
"You will find yourself opening the book to your current topic while you surf the web on related questions, and rather than damage the binding trying to get it to lay open, the spiral binding lets you easily just lay the book flat ... and it keeps your place."
"If you want study material that will teach you everything you need to know to pass the Technician portion of the exam, this book is it."
Best General Broadcasting
Tolkien's three-volume epic, is set in the imaginary world of Middle-earth - home to many strange beings, and most notably hobbits, a peace-loving "little people," cheerful and shy. Donald Barr has described it as "a scrubbed morning world, and a ringing nightmare world...especially sunlit, and shadowed by perils very fundamental, of a peculiarly uncompounded darkness." Sixty unremarkable years have passed since his triumphant return from the orcmines, where he outwitted the horrible Gollum and carried off his magical ring----a feat that cannot go forever unavenged.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I'll keep it brief, this is not a review of the actual story but of this specific edition."
"I did a ton of research and decided upon this version (ISBN 116-1749849-2513827), illustrated by Alan Lee and published by Harper Collins in June 2014 (I am adding these details because the Amazon.com site does not make it clear what this version is). The only drawback is that the facsimile pages of the Book of Mazarbul was not included, which I found to be surprising and a bit disappointing Also, the ring inscription and the Gandalf "rune" are printed in black rather than silver and red. Probably the main issue is the clear plastic slipcover, which is barely bigger than the book itself, and it is difficult to slip the book back inside it after taking it out."
"The font size seems to be based on the length of the books, the longer the books are, the smaller the font is (I suppose this was in order to keep them pocket-sized as well as consistent with the sizes of the other books throughout the set)."
"Most readers shouldn’t have an issue when you consider how comfortable the book is to hold in one hand. It’s a matte vinyl material that has a leather feel with recessed and stained cover lettering. After reading The Hobbit, with no special care, there were no creases in the outer binding."
"The copy I received, however, has a fairly significant manufacturing defect in that the pages of 'The Hobbit' were not cut properly."
"A terribly thick pocket book with dense letters offsets all the convenience this form of book should bring to us."
Best Radio History & Criticism
Blaring the Cream anthem “I Feel Free,” WBCN went on the air in March 1968 as an experiment in free-form rock on the fledgling FM radio band. “Alan’s book traces WBCN’s unassuming birth from the ashes of a classical music station in 1968, through its heyday as the ‘Rock of Boston’ in the ‘70s and ‘80s, to its demise in 2009, when, Alan writes, the station was ‘drained of its blood in the consolidated radio industry of the new century.’ To recount the story, Alan interviewed most every personality involved and willing to speak on the record.”— Boston Globe.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Anyone who loved and listened to this late great radio station will appreciate what's been written here, fondly remembering the DJs and volunteers who staffed the enterprise over the years and the amazing MUSIC that held it all together. It was on 'BCN that I was first exposed to everyone from Robert Johnson and Richard & Mimi Farina to Jonathan Richman and Joy Of Cooking to Spirit, Love and Pentangle to Peter Ivers, White Noise, the Velvet Underground, Frank Zappa's Mothers Of Invention, Steve Reich, Sun Ra and the outer reaches of the avant-garde. I can still remember moments and highlights from the early days, like one late night when a DJ whose identity I can't recall was creating this crazy sound collage that flowed on for some forty minutes interspersing the Firesign (not "Fireside") Theatre's third album with snippets from Serge Gainsbourg & Jane Birkin's "Je t'Aime (Moi Non Plus)" and Ravel's Bolero and an obscure spoken word composition by Takemitsu that I didn't hear again for over three decades. By the time I graduated from Milford High School (Charles Laquidara's alma mater, FYI) in the Bicentennial year of 1976 and left the area to go to school in San Diego, the "American Revolution" was finished as far as I was concerned and I'd already started exploring other stations at the low end of the FM dial, college stations out of Brandeis and Brown Universities which kept the torch of truly freeform radio burning brightly as WBCN inched closer and closer to the mainstream as the years drew on."
"This book blew me away for it's depth and rendering of the decades where BCN ruled the radio universe."
"If you're a person "of a certain age" who grew up listening to WBCN in the 1970's and 1980's, this is an amazing read that paints a fantastic picture of what was going on on the other side of the microphone (or turntable)."
"The reason I do not give it 5 stars is there is some conspicuous details missing and I am guessing it is due to Mr Alan carefully editing a few details to protect his friends."
"I can remember finding 104.1 as I lie in bed turning the thumb dial on the side of my TRANSISTOR radio, the single, nipple-shaped plug embedded in my ear, and wondering if I had tapped into one of those mythical Mexican border stations Wolfman Jack was rumored to have broadcast from."
"I worked in Boston Radio during much of the time covered, and am still in touch with a couple of people mentioned (Capt. It was good to have to complete story filled in on what was "the" Boston Radio station for many, many years."