Talking To Myself

Studs Terkel (19122008) 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.

Part 1: The visit; dreamland; do you like Bruegel?; the greatest story ever told; I ring the bell; the dream-possessed; the man who shook the hand of the man shook the hand of Napoleon; a free and fair election; a bad citizen; a good citizen. Part 2: The native; meeting the chief; singing bird. Part 3: Boy seated; the architect; the Scotsman; the midwife. Part 4: The whole world is watching; a study in clout; a brief vacation; glasses; the impertinent question; a farce; a seminar. Part 5: "La Divina Claudia"; Mahalia; oh, freedom; Big Bill; northern lights. Afterword: the ultimate fantasy - my first inaugural address; a backward glance, 1995.