Customer Reviews

Keeping Family Stories Alive: A Creative Guide to Taping Your Family Life & Lore

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Excellent book! I reviewed several books found on an annotated bibliography regarding doing oral history interviews. This one was by far the best.

As president of the Association of Personal Historians (an international network of professionals who help others preserve their life stories and family history), I was often asked to recommend books for people interested either in preserving their own family history or in getting into the business of doing this for others. There are many books on this topic, but Vera Rosenbluth's excellent book was always my number one recommendation. It is well-written, easy to understand and filled with helpful information.

Numerous oral history guides have come out since Vera Rosenbluth wrote the first edition of, and then expanded (2nd edition, 1997) Keeping Family Stories Alive, but Rosenbluth's book still is tops for what it aspires to do. Her approach works for any caring person who seeks to preserve the treasury of family lore. She also outlines solid oral history technique and gives careful attention to sensitive issues, making this book an equally valuable resource for the professional personal historian. Speaking as a seasoned professional, this is the book I would aspire to write if Vera Rosenbluth hadn't already done it.

Before I read this book I had written my own life story, however I knew nothing about interviewing other people. The book gave explicit instructions about how to conduct an interview as well as many ideas about generating memories when interviewing older people. I found the last chapter very helpful as it contained many interview questions.

I am just starting a personal historian business and I found this book very helpful, particularly the how to of recording interviews and the list of questions that are suggested. I'd say it's very useful for families and professionals. Really worth it!

Lesley Grant
Linking Lives
Saving Life Stories

Vera's easy to read style and engaging manner is hard to put down. I read it in one sitting and it propelled me to take the challenge of becoming a Personal Historian. I now love what I do everyday and owe it in part to Vera's book of inspiration.