Coming of Age

Growing Up in the Twentieth Century

By: Studs Terkel, Allen Hamilton

Narrated by: Shirley Venard

For Coming of Age, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and Peabody Award-winning radio host Studs Terkel - himself an octogenarian - interviewed several very different men and women ranging in age from 70 to 99. Some are powerful celebrities (Maggie Kuhn of the Grey Panthers, economist John Kenneth Galbraith); others are obscure people in small towns. Together they represent an extraordinary panorama of American life and work throughout this century and the ways in which the times have changed.©2000

Critic reviews

"We don't know anything about the past and we don't seem to want to know it. And all the time the people who can tell us about it, make it meaningful, the real repositories of living information, are being lost." - Studs Terkel

Making Every Day History

A great romp Through the minds of these subjects! By just simply telling their stories. It's amazing.

good but way too short!

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

yes - i love his oral histories.

What other book might you compare Coming of Age to and why?

any of his books, but this one is too short!

Was Coming of Age worth the listening time?

yes.

The stories.

I liked the storytelling, the selection of the stories, the music, the “Chicago Vibe.” Awesome audiobook.

A Classic

Accessible Wisdom, artfully presented..The rare perspective of an older person who has been paying attention all along.

Keep 'em

I enjoyed this book when I first read it several years ago, and hearing it on tape is just as good. Studs Terkel has an amazing voice (from years on radio) and it's excellent to hear him read the introduction. I also enjoyed the other narrators. It's the individuals in the book that really drew me in. Terkel has a knack for making each story come alive with rich details of the human experience. He brings to light the extraordinary attributes of seemingly ordinary people and vice versa. In this book he has captured a snapshot of America, not the way it will be found in history books, but the way it was by the people that lived it.