About the Author

Dave 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. Dave has also received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a MacArthur Fellowship, and a United States Artists Fellowship. He is the author (or coauthor) of four 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.

Reviews

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

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