Peter Gzowski hosted Morningside on CBC Radio for 15 years and, in the process, became a household name. The Morningside Years is a selection of his favourite moments from the 9,000 hours of radio air time he logged. It is not, and cannot be, a comprehensive selection; much of the material on current affairs, politics, and economics appears dated now, and much of Morningside’s work, while riveting on radio, does not translate well to the printed page. Nevertheless, there is a familiarity to the selections, and even casual Morningside listeners will recognize some of the material here.

The interviews with writers and scientists overcome the problems of reading transcribed speech because the topics and the voices are interesting, as in the case of W.O. Mitchell and Robertson Davies. A 60-minute CD featuring interviews and events that would not translate well into print is also included.

The book consists of conversations with six writers including Alice Munro, Margaret Laurence, and Timothy Findley, the very poignant Life with Jessie, the drama Mourning Dove, a recreation of the trial of Louis Riel, and a varied selection of letters, recipes, and cartoons. The unfailingly pleasant, polite style of the author runs throughout, giving the collection a comfortable – almost too comfortable – feel. It is funny, intelligent, and witty, but lacks even the faintest spark of controversy.

Gzowski’s career was an influence on a young Peter Downie, past host of CBC Radio’s Tapestry and CBC TV’s Man Alive and Midday.

Downie no longer works as a broadcaster and his “civilian status” allows him to discuss his 25-year career in public radio and television. In Fresh Air he does this in an intensely personal way, which is appropriate to some aspects of his story but not others.

In sharp contrast to Gzowski, Downie is critical, sometimes repetitively, of the short-sighted goals of CBC Radio’s current management. He also enters into a long diatribe against the insincerity and dumbing-down effect of television. Neither are particularly novel arguments and Downie’s anecdotal approach adds little to them.

Where his personal style works best is in the stories covering his career from its naive and optimistic beginnings on a New Brunswick radio station, to his departures from Man Alive and Tapestry. There are some humorous tales of the bizarre things that can happen in an interviewer’s life, such as the time an Easter presentation of Haydn’s Drum Roll Mass became Dryden’s Hum Roll Mass, which was promptly repeated in Downie’s panicked attempt at a correction.

Another thread in the book is Downie’s increasing spiritual awareness, which was fuelled by his encounters with such Man Alive guests as Sir Laurens van der Post and the Dalai Lama. This is the most personal aspect of Fresh Air, but unless the reader is particularly interested in Peter Downie, there is not enough general relevance to sustain interest.