Let's start with a supportable thesis, and duly credit a master: For pure listening satisfaction it's hard to improve on the seductive intimacy of radio. From 1956 to 1977, Jean Shepherd held weeknight seminars on WOR-AM in New York that were part Kabuki, part commedia dell'arte, part Uncle Remus. In his flat, nasal Indiana twang, playing all the parts, and the occasional kazoo, he oozed into the darkened bedrooms of East Coast America on the battery power of cheap Japanese transistor radios...