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melaniem03's review against another edition
3.0
I picked this up at a used books store as Terkel is one of my favorites. This short collection of works is not one of my favorites - it doesn't hold a central theme as effectively as some of his more notable collections, and some of his own essays I found harder to decipher in today's day and age. But there were a few notables I enjoyed, including his interviews with James Baldwin, E. Y. Yip Harburg, and the collections in Part III - A Gathering of Survivors (children of the Great Depression) and Born to Live (a wide ranging group of voices with a central theme of man's menace to man). For his own essays, while aspects I found harder to interpret, are still a fascinating glimpse into Chicago's past.
jenmillie's review against another edition
Studs Terkel is one of my all time favorites. The books I've read by him are thematic interviews with everyday people. This book was kind of all over the place.
lep42's review against another edition
4.0
I read a little bit of Studs Terkel in my high school Humanities class, but never really got into him until I read this book. My favorite pieces are the interviews with James Baldwin, E.Y. "Yip" Harburg (inspired me to check out his Finnian's Rainbow on Netflix), one interviewing a woman named Peggy Terry (marvelous quotes on the intersection of race and class), and the last piece (originally a 1962 radio montage) called Born to Live."
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