Listen In by Beaty Rubens

Listen In by Beaty Rubens

Radio today can feel like a faithful old companion, but its early history was sensational. Between 1922 and 1939, British life was transformed by what was known as the ‘Radio Craze’. This narrative history shows what the arrival of radio meant at a personal level through the voices and experiences of individuals as they adopted the then radical form of communication technology, invested in their first-ever gadgets and tuned in by their own firesides to outside voices and music, SOS calls, the Pips, the News, sport, royalty and innovative radiogenic comedy. It traces how radio affected family life, exploring whether it shifted dynamics between children and adults and between women and men, as well as its impact on class and a wider sense of nationhood. Generously illustrated and drawing on contemporary journalism, fiction, diaries, cartoons and a remarkable cache of unpublished first-person testimonies discovered in the archives of the Bodleian Library in Oxford, Listen In is packed with entertaining and thought-provoking stories. It comes at a timely moment when traditional linear radio is shifting in response to podcasting, and the entire experience of how we consume audio is once again undergoing transformation.

Beaty Rubens’ hugely enjoyable book shows us why the medium of radio cast such a spell over those who suddenly found they could travel the world without leaving homeShe weaves a compelling story of the radical changes the wireless brought to the way people lived.

-- Rory Cellan-Jones

For all of us who love radio and feel it is the essential companion in our lives, this book is a delightful and insightful read. It's both informative and entertaining as it takes the reader on a journey behind the scenes of a medium we have come to take for granted in its scope and ability. Lord Reith would be proud!

-- Fi Glover

The author’s engrossing narrative is supported by a rich archival resource mined in the Bodleian Library in Oxford. It ranges from journalism, diaries and fiction to original testimony and is illustrated with magazine covers, cartoons, cigarette cards and contemporary photographs; scholarly it most certainly is, but wonderfully readable.

-- Timothy Mowl * Books *

In her joyous, richly illustrated book about the early years of radio from the listeners’ point of view, the BBC radio producer Beaty Rubens takes us inside the British home... For anyone curious about how British families lived in the first half of the 20th century, the book is full of gems.

-- Ysenda Maxtone Graham * The Magic of Early Radio Days *

Beaty Rubens was a BBC Radio producer for thirty-five years and is now a freelance producer, presenter and writer.

SKU	Nicht verfügbar
ISBN 13	9781851246311
ISBN 10	1851246312
Titel	Listen In
Autor	Beaty Rubens
Buchzustand	Nicht verfügbar
Verlag	Bodleian Library
Erscheinungsjahr	2025-02-06
Seitenanzahl	272
Hinweis auf dem Einband	Die Abbildung des Buches dient nur Illustrationszwecken, die tatsächliche Bindung, das Cover und die Auflage können sich davon unterscheiden.
Hinweis	Nicht verfügbar