This post is really for the non-American (not to say un-American) listener, as American radio fans already know Bob Edwards like family. Bob hosted the NPR program
Morning Edition for about 25 years; when he was displaced a few years back by bosses looking for something newer and fresher, there was a hue and cry. Over 50,000 fans wrote NPR criticizing the move, and at least one "Save Bob Edwards" website took root. All the NPR listeners I knew were upset; after all, many of us had woken up to Bob's honeyed voice and incisive interviews for most of our adult lives. After Bob switched to satellite radio, his programs became available for a fee through
Audible, and a year or so ago a free podcast edition of
Bob Edwards Weekend was made available. The latter is a distillation of the M-F daily program, and requires the reasonable commitment of 51 minutes per week. Great guests, always intelligent conversation, and Bob's everything's-going-to-be-all-right voice to top it off.
To give you an idea of content, here's a description of the episode I listened to this morning:
Eighteenth-century scientist and philosopher Joseph Priestley was one of the world's most prominent religious thinkers as well as one of The Enlightenment’s most gifted amateur scientists. Writer
STEVEN JOHNSON's book
The Invention of Air: A Story of Science, Faith, Revolution, and the Birth of America uses Priestley's life to look at how revolutionary ideas emerge and spread.
Bob talks with writer
MARK HARRIS about his book,
Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood, which compares and contrasts the five Oscar nominees for best picture of 1967. In the Heat of the Night beat out fellow nominees
Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner and Doctor Dolittle.
This post is really for the non-American (not to say un-American) listener, as American radio fans already know Bob Edwards like family. Bob hosted the NPR program Morning Edition for about 25 years; when he was displaced a few years back by bosses looking for something newer and fresher, there was a hue and cry. Over 50,000 fans wrote NPR criticizing the move, and at least one "Save Bob Edwards" website took root. All the NPR listeners I knew were upset; after all, many of us had woken up to Bob's honeyed voice and incisive interviews for most of our adult lives. After Bob switched to satellite radio, his programs became available for a fee through Audible, and a year or so ago a free podcast edition of Bob Edwards Weekend was made available. The latter is a distillation of the M-F daily program, and requires the reasonable commitment of 51 minutes per week. Great guests, always intelligent conversation, and Bob's everything's-going-to-be-all-right voice to top it off.
