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    Listening Is an Act of Love: A Celebration of American Life from the StoryCorps Project
    Unavailable
    Listening Is an Act of Love: A Celebration of American Life from the StoryCorps Project
    Unavailable
    Listening Is an Act of Love: A Celebration of American Life from the StoryCorps Project
    Audiobook (abridged)55 minutes

    Listening Is an Act of Love: A Celebration of American Life from the StoryCorps Project

    Written by Dave Isay

    Narrated by Dave Isay and StoryCorps Participants

    4.5/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    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.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateNov 8, 2007
    ISBN9781429592369
    Unavailable
    Listening Is an Act of Love: A Celebration of American Life from the StoryCorps Project
    Author

    Dave Isay

    DAVE ISAY is the founder of StoryCorps and the recipient of numerous broadcasting honors, including six Peabody awards and a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship. He is the author/editor of numerous books that grew out of his public radio documentary work, including three StoryCorps books: Listening Is an Act of Love (2007), Mom: A Celebration of Mothers from StoryCorps (2010), and All There Is: Love Stories from StoryCorps (2012)—all New York Times bestsellers. Dave is also an Executive Producer of StoryCorps Animated Shorts, as seen on the PBS documentary series, POV. StoryCorps' first-ever animated special, Listening Is an Act of Love, premiered last Thanksgiving on PBS.

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    Reviews for Listening Is an Act of Love

    4.5/5

    134 ratings18 reviews

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    • 3/5
      So-so collection of quotes that worked better on radio. By and large, the stories featured here are interesting however, most are much too short (being anecdotes cherry-picked from longer interviews). Having read several of Studs Terkel's books, I've come to expect more from pieces that are being presented as oral histories: to wit, a real sense of the subject, and a fuller picture of his or her life rather than just an isolated incident or two. Maybe that's understandable, given that StoryCorps' interviews are conducted by friends and family, but this is still a case of less is more (fewer pieces, but longer ones).
    • 5/5
      This book was unbelievably moving. It is a must read for anyone interested in the American experience of the 20th and 21st centuries. Dave Isay deserves a medal for coming up with the idea for StoryCorps, and for making it such an amazing reality. I highly recommend this book.
    • 4/5
      Really like this StoryCorps project, though the Alzheimer's pieces make me really sad. I love it that the stories of regular people are rendered important.
    • 3/5
      So-so collection of quotes that worked better on radio. By and large, the stories featured here are interesting however, most are much too short (being anecdotes cherry-picked from longer interviews). Having read several of Studs Terkel's books, I've come to expect more from pieces that are being presented as oral histories: to wit, a real sense of the subject, and a fuller picture of his or her life rather than just an isolated incident or two. Maybe that's understandable, given that StoryCorps' interviews are conducted by friends and family, but this is still a case of less is more (fewer pieces, but longer ones).
    • 4/5
      I am a fan of NPR’s StoryCorps Project. Simply put, “StoryCorps began with the idea that everyone has an important story to tell.”

      In this book, editor Dave Isay compiles some of the more memorable stories recorded in the early years of the project. They are moving, horrific, tender, funny, beautifully simple, incredibly complex, inspiring and loving. The stories are divided into five major sections: Home & Family, Work & Dedication, Journeys, History & Struggle, and Fire & Water. In relating their memories, hopes, fears, joys, disappointments and dreams those who have recorded their stories are leaving a legacy for generations to come.

      Frequently this type of collection is best read a little at a time. Certainly that was my intention when I opened it up. I was half-way through another book and thought I’d read a story or two of this one each day until I finished. But I was so mesmerized by these vivid yet simply told stories that I had to tear myself away. I finished it in two sessions. I want more.
    • 5/5
      Stories from the StoryCorps oral history project. Wonderful stories of the people who make up who we are as a nation. Good for the soul.
    • 5/5
      There's a huge variety of stories told in this book. Many were very touching and anyone who likes to hear other people's everyday stories would enjoy this.
    • 4/5
      This is the best of selections from StoryCorps. The project collects stories from everyday Americans. Some great stories about real people the capture the true spirit of America and it's people. The stories capture joy and corage and heartbreak and pain.
    • 4/5
       The Storycorps Project is a project that collects stories of everyday Americans. There are a few recording booths, including a mobile one, where people can enter with a friend or loved one and record their personal story in about 40 minutes. These recordings are then archived by the Library of Congress and saved for all time. This book is a collection of many such stories of American lives, including ones about how they met, a major life struggle, a high point in their lives, a fulfilling career, and surviving a terrible catastrophe like September 11th or Hurricane Katrina. The stories are taken directly from the recordings, and pictures of the people who recorded have been included. It is a really nice collection, and one of the main points of this project is that everyone has a story, and every story matters. In 1,000 years, people may look back at America and see the celebrity obsession and their skewed perspectives. Thankfully, the other side, the real side of America, is represented with this project.
    • 5/5
      I finished this in the course of a drive to/from California. I love this segment on NPR and subscribe to the podcast. The stories were so moving, I probably went through three travel packs of tissues in the car. If you love listening to StoryCorps, you'll love the somewhat longer versions of the stories compiled here. I really want to find a partner and do my own interview!
    • 5/5
      Listening is what I did in my job at the federal government. I loved that job. I loved listening to the stories of people. People are good, I discovered, much better than you’d think from the media. This was a book of everyday stories, the stories of people’s lives. It was taken from the project created after 9/11 of traveling around the country and asking people to tell their stories. I can’t wait for book two.
    • 5/5
      I read this entire book in one day, my overall impression is 'Wow'. The quilt of stories that was created was awe-inspiring, I think this should be required reading for all Americans. You can really feel the love and compassion that most of these folks had for one another. I've heard a bit about the StoryCorp organization before and snippets on the NPR show Morning Edition on Friday morning. What a wonderful thing they are doing, so many of these stories would have been lost when the individuals die, but now they will live on indefinitely.
    • 5/5
      This is a heartwearming, wonderful book. Read it.
    • 5/5
      A friend gave me this book and said she just loved it. At first I thought of it as a read-along book, the term I use for those volumes that sit on a coffee or bedside table and you dip into as the mood strikes and time is available. But all the stories in this book are riveting. They make you believe in people again; they have a voice! In it, ordinary people tell of living through the extraordinary times of our history. I read the ones about 9/11 on 9/11 and the ones about Katrina on the third anniversary of Katrina. It was a way to commemorate, celebrate, grieve, and pray.
    • 5/5
      You have no idea how bone-tired you are of being subjected to the awful, awful things that pass for "news" in this country: the depressing and hopeless stories of impending doom on every topic, the inexplicable obsession with the lives of celebrities and reality-TV idiots who take pride in their own vapid stupidity and who have done absolutely nothing to merit the attention that our equally shallow media pays to them.Luckily, "Listening is an Act of Love", at least for me, was almost a revelation: that there ARE kind and decent and wonderful and thoughtful people in this country; it's just that they tend to disappear in the barrage of nonsense we're subjected to every single day.The book is subtitled, "A Celebration of American Life from the StoryCorps Project", and that's exactly what it is: a celebration. The StoryCorps Project (probably one of the more brilliant ideas of this century that nobody knows about) has a very simple premise: to record the lives of ordinary people, and let them tell their stories. You bring your mother, or father, or grandparents, or friends and neighbors, into a small recording booth and, with the help of a facilitator, interview them. You ask questions about what they think, what they feel, what sort of events have played important roles in their lives, how they met their spouse - anything, really. And then you let them tell their story. One copy of the result is given to you, and the other goes into the StoryCorps archives.Dave Isay whittled down about 10,000 recordings to about 30, and the resulting transcriptions make up "Listening is an Act of Love". I read this wonderful book with smiles and tears ... it just does your heart good to read this book. He divided it into sections: some are about relationships, some are about historical events (the man who lost the love of his life on September 11th tears your heart out, as is the father who had, all his life, protected his daughter from the truth about his time in Auschwitz), and some are so priceless you end up with tears in your eyes (the man and his wife who have written each other love letters every single day of their marriage).Most of all, this wonderfully simple idea leaves you with a strange and wonderful and unfamiliar sensation: hope. I absolutely loved this book.
    • 5/5
      I became aware of this book while listening to the StoryCorps excerpts that air on NPR Friday mornings. One morning in particular I heard the story of the unofficial spokes people for StoryCorps, Annie and Danny. Their love affair is told in the final pages of the book, the chapter entitled "The Story of StoryCorps." When my daughter and I heard their segment on NPR one morning on our way to the coffee shop, we were held mesmerized until it came to an end. It was one of those "transfixed in the parking lot" moments. We sat there, tears streaming down our faces until the end. We didn't go inside for our time of coffee and conversation until we could compose ourselves. That was the day I heard about and decided I had to have this book.There are two versions, one which comes with a CD and one without. I made the mistake of saving a buck and going without. I recommend getting the CD. I suspect it makes the experience all the more enjoyable. Don't get me wrong, the book is fabulous and full of stories that fill your heart with light and love. StoryCorps is America's largest oral history project and was begun in 2003 by Dave Isay. Every section of the book has heart-wrenching pieces. Stories that will define the American experience. The section entitled Fire and Water is particularly emotional as it deals with stories from Hurricane Katrina and the World Trade Center on 9/11/2001. I will recommend this book, and give it as gifts to my parents and others.
    • 5/5
      Lovely stories about ordinary people. Amazing how a 2-3 page conversation can move the reader.
    • 5/5
      I loved this book -- you have to be ready to listen to the happy stories along with the heart-breaking stories. It was like listening to an old friend. It's great to go to the StoryCorps website to listen to some of the stories from the book on the website.