Listening Is an Act of Love, Dave Isay
Listening Is an Act of Love, Dave Isay
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Listening Is an Act of Love
A Celebration of American Life from the StoryCorps Project

Author: Dave Isay

Narrator: Dave Isay, StoryCorps Participants

Abridged: 54 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Published: 11/08/2007


Synopsis

From more than ten thousand interviews, StoryCorps—the largest oral history project in the nation's history—presents a tapestry of American stories, told by the people who lived them to the people they love. 

StoryCorps began with the idea that everyone has an important story to tell. And since 2003, this remarkable project has been collecting the stories of everyday Americans and preserving them for future generations. In New York City and in mobile recording booths traveling the country—from small towns to big cities, at Native American reservations and an Army post—StoryCorps is collecting the memories of Americans from all ages, backgrounds, and walks of life. The project represents a wondrous nationwide celebration of our shared humanity, capturing for posterity the stories that define us and bind us together. 

In Listening Is an Act of Love, StoryCorps founder and legendary radio producer Dave Isay selects some of the most remarkable stories from the already vast collection and arranges them thematically into a moving portrait of American life. The voices here connect us to real people and their lives—to their experiences of profound joy, sadness, courage and despair, to good times and hard times, to good deeds and misdeeds. 

To read this book is to be reminded of how rich and varied the American storybook truly is, how resistant to easy categorization or caricature. Above all, this book honors the gift each StoryCorps participant has made, from the raw material of his or her life, to the Americans who will come after. We are our history, individually and collectively, and Listening Is an Act of Love touchingly reminds us of this powerful truth.

About The Author

David Isay is the founder of StoryCorps and its parent company, Sound Portraits Productions. Over the past two decades his radio documentary work has won nearly every award in broadcasting, including five Peabody awards. David has also received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a MacArthur Fellowship, and a United States Artists Fellowship. He is the author (or coauthor) of numerous books based on Sound Portraits' radio stories, including Our America: Life and Death on the South Side of Chicago and Flophouse. He and his wife, Jennifer Gonnerman, live in Brooklyn.StoryCorps Participants are individuals of all backgrounds, usually in pairs, who are given the chance to record evocative conversations. The mission of StoryCorps is to preserve and share humanity’s stories as a way of building connections between people while creating a fairer and compassionate world. StoryCorps believes in the importance of listening and is dedicated to passing on the understanding that everyone’s story matters.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Bee on April 28, 2008

*I edited this* Listening is an act of love. Even if I weren't already a huge fan of NPR's StoryCorps, that statement alone would have caught my eye. Nine times out of ten I come into work on Friday mornings sniffly and red-eyed from having listened to StoryCorps during Morning Edition. Just getting......more

Goodreads review by Sharon on December 06, 2022

Powerful, memorable story about the journey of The StoryCorps Project, an organization that provides a way for people to speak and share their oral history. A true gift for friends, family, and loved ones. This book is a collection of some of the most poignant stories from across America. Highly reco......more

Goodreads review by Carole on October 20, 2015

Short piece with questions and answers from a variety of individuals. It was interesting to hear what people had to say in their own words but these are really short pieces and I have to admit that I wanted a bit more.......more

Goodreads review by Kat on February 18, 2008

I am making my way through this extraordinary book - we saw the Storycorps booth in NYC in Grand Central and thought that it was a wonderful idea and then moved on with the crowd. I suppose that is what strikes me as I read this - if we don't consciously sit down and map out the foundation of our ro......more

Goodreads review by Elizabeth on January 26, 2012

This book earned 5 stars in my mind for reasons other than the typical ones for which I give a high rating. (I have recently repented of giving too many 5 stars in the past and am now experimenting with being more discrimating in my ratings). Usually a 5 star book for me includes masterful use of th......more


Quotes

Dave Isay's vision of collecting the everyday stories of Americans is so simple and yet so powerful. Listening Is an Act of Love will make you laugh, cry and think. These stories come from the souls of individual Americans. Collectively, they are who we are as a people. You cannot read this book without feeling proud of your country." -Former U.S. Senator Bill Bradley "Dave Isay's Listening Is an Act of Love is a gift. I loved this book. I savored these stories. So candid. So open-hearted. So full of life. The StoryCorps project may well be the most important cultural event in America today. It's about us. About who we are. About where we've come from, and where we want to go. Listening Is an Act of Love is the equivalent of eavesdropping on America. Read it - and pass it on to family and friends. It'll inspire." -Alex Kotlowitz "Here are the observations and memories of a giant, diverse nation's citizens. In its sum, StoryCorps asks Americans to reflect upon their experiences, their times of travail, their achievements. In so doing, these individuals create an encompassing national narration: a people's hopes, fears and aspirations, all rendered poignantly to attentive listeners whose respect has enabled, finally, a presentation of a people's mind, heart, soul." -Dr. Robert Coles, James Agee Professor of Social Ethics, Harvard University "This book is absolutely remarkable. Listening is an Act of Love is history in the richest sense of the word, the kind that makes people feel like they count. It's a celebration of the lives of the uncelebrated. In our world today people feel helpless, but once they speak of their lives they become alive! This is what our country is all about. Never has a book been more timely or necessary." -Studs Terkel