Listening Is an Act of Love: A Celebration of American Life from the StoryCorps Project Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Listening Is an Act of Love: A Celebration of American Life from the StoryCorps Project
Book Review: Truly moving stories
Summary: 5 Stars
The StoryCorps Project is dedicated to collecting and preserving the stories of ordinary Americans for future generations. People participate by being interviewed at the Storycorps booth in New York City or at one of the mobile recording booths traveling the country - they can choose to be interviewed by a relative or friend, or by a Storycorps facilitator. Selected stories are read on NPR every Friday morning and all are stored in the Library of Congress (subject to the participant's signing a release; thus far about 95% of participants have done so).
This book represents a selection of the submissions so far, and the majority of the stories are truly moving. It's divided into five broad sections:
Home and Family
Work and Dedication
Journeys
History and Struggle
Fire and Water (stories related to the attacks of September 11th and to Hurricane Katrina)
With the exception of those in the first section, the stories are universally powerful and moving, with over 10,000 to choose from, the editor has done a fine job in selecting the best. For me, the 'home and family' stories fell oddly flat, though this just may be an inability to match the power of some of the later contributions.
One could think of this as an oral version of the other NPR Story Project, stories from which are collected in the (awesome) book "I Thought My Father was God", which also deserves a 5-star rating. The stories in "Listening is an Act of Love" match those in that book in their capacity to move the reader. Although I did find the first section of this book to be somewhat weaker than the remaining four sections, it still deserves a 5-star rating.
The success of this venture is an interesting contrast with what I (in a clear minority) considered to be the weakness of the 'This I Believe' collection, which I also reviewed recently. It's interesting to me that two undertakings, which are fairly similar on the surface, should give such disparate results. What psychologists and social science researchers tell us does appear to be true - it really matters how you ask the questions...
Book Review: Great Book
Summary: 5 Stars
I gave this book as a gift to several family members and friends for Christmas. The stories are wonderful windows to the diversity of our country. Book Review: Great.
Summary: 5 Stars
I wondered if this book could measure up to the voice interviews and was pleasantly surprised.Book Review: Okay
Summary: 3 Stars
Cover was pretty scuffed up and there was a small tear but all the pages were intact.Book Review: wonderful
Summary: 5 Stars
I love listening to Story Corps every Friday morning, so was very excited to see this book. Every story is so valuable and unique. It really reminds us how special and valuable every person is, and that we all have a story to tell.