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John Dunning was the Nero Wolfe Award-winning author of Booked to Die; The Bookman's Wake, a New York Times Notable Book of 1995; and The Bookman's Promise. An expert on rare and collectible books, he owned the Old Algonquin Bookstore in Denver for many years. He was also an expert on American radio history and the author of a novel about old-time radio, Two O'Clock, Eastern Wartime, and a nonfiction book, On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio.
His other works include The Holland Suggestions, Denver, Deadline, The Sign of the Book and The Bookwoman's Last Fling.
He was for many years host of the weekly Denver radio show Old-Time Radio. John Dunning lived with his wife, Helen, in Denver, Colorado. He died in May 2023.
John Dunning's website
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What's the
story behind Two O'Clock Eastern Wartime?
It's a novel I've
wanted to write for years -- to show what it was like to work in radio when it
was the top entertainment medium in the country. Even movies took a back seat to
radio in the Thirties and Forties, especially in the Thirties. The country was
in the middle of a depression and people couldn't afford to go out. It cost a
dime or a quarter to see Eddie Cantor on the screen -- you got him free on the
radio, and it was all live, that was the excitement and magic of it, it was
happening right then as you were listening to it. There was no phony laugh
track, a comic lived or died by his material, and there were a dozen ways a
dramatic show could fall apart. But when it worked, ah, man!...there were some
great shows, some almost perfect pieces of air. Radio was a wonderfully creative
business then, but everything you read and see plays it as high camp, as if the
entire radio era was directed by Woody Allen. It wasn't like that, not to the
actors who did fifteen shows a week, not to the writers who created what went on
the air. To them it was the stuff of life. And at its best it approached high
art. That's what my book is about...
John M. Daniel is a graduate of Stanford University (American Literature), where he also did graduate study as a Wallace Stegner Fellow in the Creative Writing Program. He completed the Radcliffe College Publishing Procedures... (more)
If you enjoyed:
The Sign of The Book
Try:
The Poet's Funeral
by John M. Daniel
Louis de Bernières works include A Partisan's Daughter, Birds Without Wings, Red Dog, Sunday Morning at the Centre of the World, Corelli's Mandolin (Commonwealth Writers' Prize, Best Book, 1995), The ... (more)
If you enjoyed:
Two O'Clock, Eastern Wartime
Try:
Birds Without Wings
by Louis de Bernieres
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