Working - by Studs Terkel (Paperback)

About the Book

In the first trade paperback edition of his national bestseller, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Studs Terkel presents "the real American experience" ("Chicago Daily News")--"a magnificent book. . . . A work of art. To read it is to hear America talking" ("Boston Globe").

Book Synopsis

Studs Terkel's classic oral history of Americans' working lives--and the inspiration for Barack Obama's new Netflix series about work in the twenty-first century

"Reading these stories, I started to consider my own place in the world, and understand how connected we are to one another. [Working] helped inform the choices I made in my own work." --President Barack Obama

Perhaps Studs Terkel's best-known book, Working is a compelling, fascinating look at jobs and the people who do them. Consisting of over one hundred interviews conducted with everyone from gravediggers to studio heads, this book provides a moving snapshot of people's feelings about their working lives, as well as a timeless look at how work fits into American life.

Working received rave reviews upon its initial publication, including from the New York Times Book Review, which praised its "incredible abundance of marvelous beings" and "very special electricity and emotional power," and the Boston Globe, which called it a "magnificent book . . . a work of art," adding, "To read it is to hear America talking."

Nearly fifty years after its initial publication, Working remains a deeply relevant American classic, one of the most important works of oral history ever published.

Review Quotes

Praise for Working:
"Magnificent . . . To read it is to hear America talking."
--The Boston Globe

"Splendid . . . important . . . rich and fascinating . . . the people we meet are not digits in a poll but real people with real names who share their anecdotes, adventures, and aspirations with us."
--Business Week

"The talk in Working is good talk--earthy, passionate, honest, sometimes tender, sometimes crisp, juicy as reality, seasoned with experience."
--The Washington Post

"Reading these stories, I started to consider my own place in the world, and understand how connected we are to one another. [Working] helped inform the choices I made in my own work."
--President Barack Obama

"I cannot find words to express sufficiently my admiration for Studs Terkel's Working. . . . Only an interviewer of genius, exploiting the tape recorder as hardly anyone else has done, could possibly have brought it forth."
--Lewis Mumford

About the Author

Studs Terkel (1912-2008) was an award-winning author and radio broadcaster. He is the author of Race: How Blacks and Whites Think and Feel About the American Obsession; Division Street: America, Coming of Age: Growing Up in the Twentieth Century; Talking to Myself: A Memoir of My Times; "The Good War" An Oral History of World War II; Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do; The Studs Terkel Reader: My American Century; American Dreams: Lost and Found; The Studs Terkel Interviews: Film and Theater; Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression; Will the Circle Be Unbroken?: Reflections on Death, Rebirth, and Hunger for a Faith; Giants of Jazz; Hope Dies Last: Keeping the Faith in Troubled Times; And They All Sang: Adventures of an Eclectic Disc Jockey; Touch and Go: A Memoir; P.S.: Further Thoughts from a Lifetime of Listening; and Studs Terkel's Chicago, all published by The New Press. He was a member of the Academy of Arts and Letters and a recipient of a Presidential National Humanities Medal, the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, a George Polk Career Award, and the National Book Critics Circle 2003 Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award.