NEW YORK - Hankering for bluegrass, country and folk from the Czech Republic? Like a taste of Mohawk Indian audio? Want to tune in to your old hometown radio station?

If so, the book for you is ''Passport to Web Radio,'' whose just-released second edition provides a comprehensive guide to the more than 1,550 stations from more than 100 countries that pump out music, news and more over the Internet.

A listener using a multimedia personal computer with the proper software and an Internet connection can now hear more stations than he or she could with a good radio, which can pick up 300 to 400 AM, FM and shortwave stations in a good location, according to the book's editor-in-chief, Larry Magne. There is a ''critical mass of choice,'' he said.

The $19.95 book comes from International Broadcasting Services Ltd., which since 1984 has put out ''Passport to World Band Radio,'' a bible for shortwave listeners.

The Web radio guide includes tips on what you need to hear audio over the Net: PC, sound card, modem, Internet service provider, Web browser and, most importantly, ''streaming'' audio software. The dominant software now is RealAudio, available at www.real.com/products/player/index.html.

Songs from Mohawk Bluesman

The 143-page book's real gold is in its listings. One section categorizes stations by content. Under ''Native American,'' for example, you can find Mohawk Nation Radio (www.suckercreek.on.ca/kweradio/audio1.htm), which provides such clips as an interview and songs from Mohawk bluesman Murray Porter.

Another section breaks stations down by location. You can find jazz station WBGO in Newark, New Jersey (data.centralstation.com/wbgo/index.asp), and Radio Nepal (www.virtual-nepal.com/news/radio-nepal) there.

''Some of this is really good,'' Magne said in a phone interview from Penn's Park, near Philadelphia, where International Broadcasting Services is located. ''You just don't get that on the dial.''

The book's first edition came out in January 1997. Magne said the international team that updated it found some audio surprises on the Net such as Eldoradio in the Czech Republic (broadcast.eldoradio.cz), which puts out a mix of bluegrass, folk and country music and popular romantic ballads in English as well as Czech.

''The best classical music station I've found has been Radio Beethoven in Santiago, Chile,'' Magne said. Radio Beethoven is at www.beethovenfm.cl/RealAudio/index.html.

Beethoven in Chile

Magne added that a U.S. listener would expect to hear fine classical music from cities like New York, Paris or Vienna, ''but Santiago, Chile? Up here (in the United States) we're a little provincial,'' he said. ''You turn on Web radio and you learn something right away.''

Magne also pointed to Zagreb, Croatia's HRT3 (www.hrt.hr/streams/streams-eng.html) as a good source of classical music, and Taipei, Taiwan's Philharmonic Radio Taipei (www.prtmusic.com.tw/Voice/index.html) as a spot to go for good jazz as well as classical.

Web radio is also a good place for people homesick for the old hometown station. Magne's wife, Jane Brinker, tunes in to KFDI-AM in Wichita, Kansas (www.broadcast.com/radio/country/kfidam) for a taste of home and an entertaining DJ/performer named Johnny Western.

The listings were compiled by a team headed by David Walcutt of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and including members in England, Paraguay and Australia.

One surprise, Magne said, was that search engines -- the Web sites that enable Net users to find the needles in the Internet haystack -- were not much good when it came to finding Web radio. ''It takes a lot of sleuthing,'' he said.

The book says Web radio has grown from 178 stations in 32 countries in August 1996 to more than 1,500 by mid-1998. ''Web radio is really moving,'' Magne said.

How many more stations will pop up in the next year or two? ''I think it's anybody's guess,'' he said, adding that he expects nearly every station to be on the Web in three to five years.

Although there are no reliable numbers on how many people listen to Web radio, the audience is much smaller than that tuning into conventional radio, said Magne, comparing Web radio today to conventional radio in 1923.

''This is really the beginning,'' he said, adding that Web radio's biggest limitation is that its listeners are tethered to a computer. What Web radio needs to pull even with conventional radio, he said, are low-cost, portable, wireless connections to the Net, which he expects in five to 10 years.

''It's coming,'' he said. ''It's absolutely coming.''

Something a little like that has already come to his home, where he linked his PC to wireless speakers on an outdoor patio so his wife can listen to KFDI-AM there. And he has rigged that up to a wireless FM microphone that broadcasts to her portable radio so she can listen to Wichita as she gardens.