Listening To America

No one listens to America better than National Public Radio, and for a quarter of a century NPR has broadcast an ongoing conversation about the boisterous life of our nation. Now Linda Wertheimer has collected the best parts of that conversation; the result is a wonderfully engaging book that recalls and reveals our recent history as never before. The year 1995 marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of NPR's founding. Wertheimer was present at the creation, so she is ideally qualified to cull the best interviews and commentaries from each year. Her selections allow us to revisit the major news stories of our time - Watergate, the fall of Saigon, the Iranian hostage crisis, the rise of Ronald Reagan, the AIDS epidemic. Here too are vivid illuminations of America's rich cultural life, such as when Goodman Ace celebrates Groucho Marx, Vertamae Grosvenor reflects on the murder of John Lennon, and Red Barber meditates on the expression "suck-egg mule."