Common Ground

A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families

By: J. Anthony Lukas

Narrated by: Eric Michael Summerer

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, and the American Book Award, the best-selling Common Ground is much more than the story of the busing crisis in Boston as told through the experiences of three families. As Studs Terkel remarked, it's "gripping, indelible...a truth about all large American cities."

©1985 J. Anthony Lukas (P)2018 Tantor

Critic reviews

"A huge and marvelous work." (Kai Erikson, The New York Times Book Review)

A Masterpiece

I went to a catholic school in Boston graduating in 1976. It was the height of busing. 35 years ago I read this book and only just noticed there was an Audible version. With much excitement I downloaded it and went ‘on a journey’. The writing was beautiful and the research was unbelievably thorough. The reader Eric Michael Summerer hit every note perfectly and thankfully didn’t do the Boston accent. Lukas showed where society was at that time and didn’t hold back on the truth. It was hard to do anything but listen to the story and almost impossible to put down. I can’t recommend it enough.

Outstanding writing and structure.

An incredible dive into the complexity and largely unanswerable questions that have, do and will likely continue to face our diverse & free society.

great overview of ethnic sociopolitical background

...of Boston and perhaps the US. Very thorough and thoughtful. As a liberal I found this book challenging in terms of the limits of government intervention.

"And that little girl...was me!"

Came to this hoping to understand Kamala Harris' sick burn of Joe Biden over the busing issue. Left hearing more about the history and politics of Boston than I cared for. Meticulously researched and David-Halberstam-without-the-punchy-portraits well level written. But there is so much detail at times that the issue it foregrounds is hard to make out. Still the best book I have read on busing, but it's more a heaping slice-of-life than it is a work on policy.

Rich historic context, choppy structure,

The historic, cultural and judicial context of the story is rich and puts the presentation of the events so they unfolded to the public at the time in perspective. The structure of the tale as it's told here is choppy and far too verbose and after hours of listening I could not finish listening to the book. I do not like this narrator. Why does he feel it necessary to raise his voice pointedly when reading quoted text. his intimation at those times is not consistent with the tone of the speaker.