Listening Is an Act of Love
A Celebration of American Life from the StoryCorps Project
by Dave Isay
List Price: $15.00
Pages: 320
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 9780143114345
Publisher: Penguin
StoryCorps founder and legendary radio producer Dave Isay selects the most memorable stories from StoryCorps’ collection, creating 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 stereotype. We are our history, individually and collectively, and Listening Is an Act of Love touchingly reminds us of this powerful truth.
top of the page
1. Why do our stories matter?
2. Has anyone in the group done a StoryCorps interview? Interviewed members of their family or their friends? What was their experience? Did they learn anything that surprised them?
3. If you could interview anyone, whom would you choose?
4. What questions would you most want to ask him or her?
5. What story would you like to tell?
6. In what ways will being better listeners change the world around us?
7. What important lessons have you learned in your life?
8. What does your earliest memory say about who you are? Your most precious memory?
9. Why do we—or do we—care more about celebrity stories than our own?
top of the page
"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
