American Top 40: The Countdown of the Century

Rating:
Summary: A Good Reference Book For A Great Show
Review: This book is a comprehensive look at the History of American Top 40, from it's humble beginnings to the present. If you're a fan of the show, it's a must-purchase. The author worked for the program in it's second incarnation and gives an understandably good inside account of the "Shadoe Stevens era" at American Top 40. But I found his style of writing to be a litle annoying at times as he has a tendency to offer his personal opinions about things, some of which aren't always justified.

Rating:
Summary: A Great History of AT40
Review: This is a great book - so easy to read and so informative. It's obvious Rob Durkee spent many months (if not years) assembling all the info to document the play-by-play of American Top 40 history. Many, many interesting avenues of this great radio show are covered in detail throughout the 300 plus pages. The chart statistics alone are enough to grab any radio fan's attention. Even if you're not a fan of AT40, you have to like this book. Well done indeed!

Rating:
Summary: Brings back memories...
Review: While growing up I, like thousands, if not millions of others spent 4 hours glued to my radio every weekend listening to American Top 40. When the show left American airwaves in 1994, I really felt a profound sense of loss. With this book, I felt like I gained a part of it back. Durkee does a wonderful job telling the story of AT40 and all of the colorful characters involved. It also tells the early story of Casey Kasem and how he became involved in this american tradition. Durkee also speaks of how the show came to it's tragic end, and rebirth in the mid and late 90's. If you are a fan of this show and spent the weekends of your youth glued to the radio because of it, I recommend you get this book. It also contains a lot of different charts in the appendix that will hold great interest to the chart fanatic.