The term Old Time Radio refers to the relatively brief period from 1926, when the National Broadcasting Company first began network broadcasting, until approximately 1960, when television became the dominant communication medium in the United States. During this time, radio was as popular and ubiquitous as television is today. It was amazingly varied in the types of programming it offered; many characters and programs were so popular that virtually everyone was familiar with them. Even today, recorded versions of these programs are still extremely popular and widely available, both from commercial outlets and from hobbyists. Behind the production of these programs was a complex technological and financial infrastructure that had to be developed virtually from scratch in a world unaccustomed to the rapid communication and technological marvels that we take for granted today. The A to Z of Old Time Radio provides essential facts and information on the Golden Age of Radio. This is accomplished through the use of a chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries on the radio networks, programs, directors, producers, writers, actors, radio series, and radio stations. Entries on your favorite shows—The Lone Ranger, The Shadow, Dragnet, and Suspense—and actors—Bob Hope, George Burns, Gracie Allen, and Edgar Bergen—will have you jumping from one entry to the next as you relive old favorites and discover hidden treasures from the Golden Age of Radio.

The period from 1925 to 1960 was the heyday of the American Radio Soap Opera. In addition to being part of popular culture, the soap opera had important commercial aspects as well that were not only related to their production, but also to the desperate need to sell products or perish. Both sides of this story are traced in this comprehensive compendium. The dictionary section, made up of more than 500 cross-referenced entries, provides brief vignettes of the more popular and also less well-known 'soaps,' among them Back Stage Wife, Our Gal Sunday, Pepper Young's Family and The Guiding Light. Other entries evoke those who brought these programs to life: the actors, announcers, scriptwriters, networks, and even the sponsors. Nor are the basic themes, the stock characters and the gimmick, forgotten. The book's introduction defines the soap opera, examines the span of the radio serial, reviews its origins and its demise, and focuses on the character types that made up its denizens. The chronology outlines the period and the bibliography offers further reading. Together, these elements make a comprehensive reference work that researchers will find invaluable long into the future.

The dictionary section, made up of more than 500 cross-referenced entries, provides brief vignettes of the more popular and also less well-known "soaps," among them Back Stage Wife, Our Gal Sunday, Pepper Young's Family and The Guiding Light. Other entries evoke those who brought these programs to life: the actors, announcers, scriptwriters, networ

A wonderful reader for anyone who loves the great programs of old-time radio, this definitive encyclopedia covers American radio shows from their beginnings in the 1920s to the early 1960s.

This encyclopedic work comprehensively covers the performers and programming on American radio from its inception to its golden age. Extensively researched over the course of more than twenty years, this new work is the definitive source for scholars of communication, social and cultural history and the popular arts, as well as devoted fans of radio history. The encyclopedia includes entries for programs, announcers, orchestras, musicians, vocalists, comedians, vocal groups, readers, whistlers, musical saw soloists, ministers, sports commentators, reviewers (of books, plays and movies), celebrities, and other personnel broadcasting over American radio from the 1920s to the 1960s. Additional entries cover commercial radio, educational broadcasting, firsts in radio history, opera on radio, religious broadcasting, sports broadcasting, women in radio, border radio, children's programs, comedy on radio, crime shows and mysteries, daytime dramatic serials, and disk jockeys, among other topics.

“A novelistic mosaic that simultaneously reads like a thriller and like a strange, dreamlike excursion into the subconscious.” —The New York Times Years ago, when House of Leaves was first being passed around, it was nothing more than a badly bundled heap of paper, parts of which would occasionally surface on the Internet. No one could have anticipated the small but devoted following this terrifying story would soon command. Starting with an odd assortment of marginalized youth -- musicians, tattoo artists, programmers, strippers, environmentalists, and adrenaline junkies -- the book eventually made its way into the hands of older generations, who not only found themselves in those strangely arranged pages but also discovered a way back into the lives of their estranged children. Now this astonishing novel is made available in book form, complete with the original colored words, vertical footnotes, and second and third appendices. The story remains unchanged, focusing on a young family that moves into a small home on Ash Tree Lane where they discover something is terribly wrong: their house is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. Of course, neither Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Will Navidson nor his companion Karen Green was prepared to face the consequences of that impossibility, until the day their two little children wandered off and their voices eerily began to return another story -- of creature darkness, of an ever-growing abyss behind a closet door, and of that unholy growl which soon enough would tear through their walls and consume all their dreams.