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This book is oddly personal and strangely impersonal all at once. It is both a pre-internet time capsule that only hints at a world of radio podcasts and "no-license broadcast" technologies, and an eternally relevant commentary on radio's (and music's) power no mater what time period or emotional state we're in. And it's as awkward and goofy and deadeningly cynical as it is honest and thoughtful and perfectly pessimistic. Vowell can share with us her fears about politics and art and other select segments of her life, but like someone randomly spinning the dial on a radio, there's a lot that we just don't hear. This can make for some disjointed reading, a narrative that might be followed for a few days before seeming to disappear amid more random radio reflections. That's not necessarily a failing of the book - it is ultimately all about her radio listenings and less about her - but it's just a comment on an acceptably incomplete autobiography. Ultimately, her thoughts on a year of tuning in are a scary and simultaneously quaint look back at the 90s, it's political and musical movers and shakers, that made me feel like our current world is only marginally more insane than hers was 10 or 15 years ago. If nothing else, reading this book made me think about how I engage with the voices coming in over the air, be it news, music, or other. And if it can make me do that, and even spin the dial a few notches to venture into new aural landscapes, that's a good thing, and worth reading for.

But for the record, she's totally wrong about Garrison Keillor. So, so wrong.