Customer Reviews

P.S.: Further Thoughts from a Lifetime of Listening

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Another amazing collection of work by Studs Terkel. In the light of the inauguration of Barack Obama, the most fascinating section is the interview with James Baldwin in 1961.
"Time is always now. I think everybody who's thought about his own life knows this. You know you don't make resolutions about something you're going to do next year. No. You decide to write a book? No. The book may be finished twenty years from now, but you've got to start it now."

The last section in the book is a transcript of the production of "Born to Live" which Studs played on his radio show on New Year's Day for 31 years. I was able to find it on line and listen. Here is one of the quotes of a prayer offered by Reverend William Sloane Coffin Jr in the production.
"Grant us grace to quarrel with the worship of success and power, with the assumption that people are less important than the jobs they hold. Grant us grace to quarrel with the mass culture that tends not to satisfy, but exploit the wants of people; to quarrel with those who pledge allegiance to one race, rather than the human race. Lord, grant us grace to quarrel with all that profanes, and trivializes, and separates men."

Studs was the greatest of Chicago's 20th century icons. Do take the time to read his last work - which encompassed various parts of his career. Definitely yet another must read.

on every page, and it's the voice of a skilled reporter, egging out secrets from those reluctant to talk. And like a good radio interviewer, Studs keeps the emphasis on the person he's interviewing, not himself. But this book, his last, seems to be a transcription of some broadcasts, and, as such, lacks the punch that his other books have. It's an afterthought to his work, and worth reading for that reason alone, because, for a time, we had among us a gentle, self-made humanist, a remarkable man.