The summer season is officially upon us, which means many of our readers will soon escape from their workplace confinements for some much needed R&R. If you’re one of the lucky ones jetting off to various beach locations or mountain retreats, might we suggest some summer reading for your journey?
After all, even while on vacation, we’ve still got radio on the mind.
Below you will find a series of book recommendations spanning an autobiography featuring rock and roll legends, a psychological thriller about radio pirates, a history of college radio, an instructional guide to powerful storytelling and so much more. Do you have a broadcast-related book that is a “must-read”? If so, send us an email with your recommendation at [email protected].
We hope you enjoy!
FM: The Rise and Fall of Rock Radio
By Richard Neer
Synopsis: FM: The Rise and Fall of Rock Radio chronicles the birth, growth, and death of free-form rock-and-roll radio through the stories of the movement’s flagship stations. In the late sixties and early seventies — at stations like KSAN in San Francisco, WBCN in Boston, WMMR in Philadelphia, KMET in Los Angeles, WNEW and others — disc jockeys became the gatekeepers, critics and gurus of new music. Jocks like Scott Muni, Vin Scelsa, Jonathan Schwartz and Neer developed loyal followings and had incredible influence on their listeners and on the early careers of artists such as Bruce Springsteen, Genesis, the Cars and many others.
Recommended by Nick Langan, RW staff writer: “I listened to the audiobook version. Neer perfectly chronicles the progressive rock era with the heyday of 102.7 WNEW(FM) in New York and what made on-air jocks like Alison Steele and Scott Muni tick. He gives first-hand accounts of how the station broke-in artists like Bruce Springsteen, his dealings with Mel Karmazin, and then the station’s downfall in the late 1980s into the 1990s.”
Wireless
By Jack O’Connell
Synopsis: Though they posture themselves as revolutionary, the jammers are harmless. Radio nerds who gather each night at a nightclub called Wireless, they get their kicks by jamming commercial radio signals, hijacking their frequencies to broadcast anarchist messages to the ordinary citizens of Quinsigamond. But even though they do no harm, their hobby has attracted murderous attention.
Recommended by Dennis Jackson, WEXP/WRIP/WPUT: “I loved its whimsical darkness and conjuring of a rebellious underground scene in a decaying New England factory town. As fantasy, it enlarges the role of local talk radio in the lives of listeners. That makes it highly satisfying to a broadcaster lamenting radio’s gradual decline.”
Live from the Underground: A History of College Radio
By Katherine Rye Jewell
Synopsis: Bands like R.E.M., U2, Public Enemy and Nirvana found success as darlings of college radio, but the extraordinary influence of these stations and their DJs on musical culture since the 1970s was anything but inevitable. As media deregulation and political conflict over obscenity and censorship transformed the business and politics of culture, students and community DJs turned to college radio to defy the mainstream — and they ended up disrupting popular music and commercial radio in the process. In this first history of U.S. college radio, Katherine Rye Jewell reveals that these eclectic stations in major cities and college towns across the United States owed their collective cultural power to the politics of higher education as much as they did to upstart bohemian music scenes coast to coast.
Beyond Powerful Radio — An Audio Communicators Guide to the Digital World
By Valerie Geller
Synopsis: Learn how to get, keep and grow audiences with powerful storytelling, and become a dynamic presenter. This book holds the tools needed to create winning content; tell compelling stories; build your brand; develop talent; produce a show; report the news; sell; and write commercials. Practical tips and methods from over 50 top experts from across the world of media illuminate interviewing, managing talent, becoming an authentic personality and getting started in the business.
[Read a snippet from her book on Radio World: “How to Be There When It Counts the Most“]
Burn, Baby! BURN!: The Autobiography of Magnificent Montague
By Magnificent Montague with Bob Baker
Synopsis: With his dynamic on-air personality and his trademark cry of “Burn, baby! BURN!” when spinning the hottest new records, Magnificent Montague was the charismatic voice of soul music in Chicago, New York and Los Angeles from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s. In this memoir Montague recounts the events of his momentous radio career, which ran from the era of segregation to that of the civil rights movement; as he does so, he also tells the broader story of a life spent in the passionate pursuit of knowledge, historical and musical.
Recommended by Clark Novak, Telos Alliance: “Montague was a very influential black DJ who worked in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. His career parallel the Black Power movement of the ’60s and he details not only his life on the radio but his lifelong pursuit to collect and preserve the heritage and contributions of Black persons to U.S. culture. Fascinating read told in first-person narrative.”
Buy it on the University of Illinois Press website.
Let’s Talk Podcasting for Kids
By Amanda Cupido
Synopsis: Let’s Talk Podcasting for Kids is written for children age 5–8. It offers a non-fictional approach to learning about the medium and encourages readers to try recording their own story and interview their family members.
Recommended by Elle Kehres, RW assistant editor: “I had the pleasure of meeting Amanda at the 2025 NAB Show and loved the idea of broadcast-related books for kids. She also has an ‘adult version’ of this book, titled ‘Let’s Talk Podcasting: The Essential Guide to Doing it Right,’ in case you’re looking to educate the whole family.”
Dead Air: The Night That Orson Welles Terrified America
By William Elliott Hazelgrove
Synopsis: On a warm Halloween Eve, Oct. 30, 1938, during a broadcast of H G. Wells’ War of the Worlds, a twenty-three-year-old Orson Welles held his hands up for radio silence in the CBS studio in New York City while millions of people ran out into the night screaming, grabbed shotguns, drove off in cars, and hid in basements, attics, or anywhere they could find to get away from Martians intent on exterminating the human race. As Welles held up his hands to his fellow actors, musicians, and sound technicians, he turned six seconds of radio silence ― dead air ― into absolute horror, changing the way the world would view media forever, and making himself one of the most famous men in America.
[Read Radio World’s related story: “Radio Is Theater of the Mind“]
Dead Air: The Day the Music Died
By Kelly Orchard
Synopsis: Set in a single, tension-packed 24 hours, this novel chronicles the dramatic takeover of more than 100 radio stations across five major U.S. cities by a mysterious group of pirates who hijack transmitter sites. The pirates, using advanced AI to generate chilling messages of terror, have weaponized the airwaves, and the dead silence soon gives way to broadcasts designed to incite panic and fear.
[Read the Radio World Story: “Psychological Thriller About Radio Pirates Hits the Shelves“]
A Passion for Broadcasting: Stories of My Life
By Milton Selwyn Maltz
Synopsis: A candid and captivating memoir, successful broadcasting entrepreneur Milton Maltz delights us with stories of his beginnings as a schoolboy radio actor in Chicago in 1940, leading to his passion and obsession with the broadcast industry, as well as his dedication to espionage.
Recommended by Bill Harland: “The autobiography of the founder and leader of Malrite Broadcasting, which owned 31 radio and television stations across the country. The book chronicles his adventures from a child actor on the radio in 1940, to working for the NSA (National Security Agency), to taking Z100 in New York from Worst to First, and finally selling Malrite’s radio group to the Walt Disney Company and the television group to Raycom Media.”
Buy it at the International Spy Museum Store.
All I Wanna Do Is Play the Hits
By Tom Irwin with Neil Ross
Synopsis: All I Wanna Do Is Play The Hits! delivers a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to witness the golden age of radio with a heartfelt and insightful story told firsthand by one of the most important people ever to turn a station’s listeners into a community. Still playing the hits today, Shotgun Tom remains one of the last big Top 40 radio personalities. Even as the world’s technology has changed around him, this bear of a man remains instantly identifiable by his trademark ranger hat and “brrrrrr-yah” sign-on.
[Read the Radio World story “‘All I Wanna Do Is Play the Hits!’“]
Radio Waves: Life and Revolution on the FM Dial
By Jim Ladd
Synopsis: An explosive, unforgettable look at the FM radio business through the eyes of one of its most colorful and idealistic personalities. Ladd follows the birth, blazing success and tragic demise of FM free-form radio.
[Related: “Radio World Introduces Its 2025 Summer Playlist“]
