Touch and Go Audiobook By Studs Terkel cover art

Touch and Go

A Memoir

Preview

Try for $0.00
Access a growing selection of included Audible Originals, audiobooks, and podcasts.
You will get an email reminder before your trial ends.
Audible Plus auto-renews for $7.95/mo after 30 days. Upgrade or cancel anytime.

Touch and Go

By: Studs Terkel
Narrated by: Norman Dietz
Try for $0.00

$7.95 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $15.47

Buy for $15.47

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

About this listen

At nearly 95, Studs Terkel has written about everyone's life, it seems, but his own. In Touch and Go, he offers a memoir that, embodying the spirit of the man himself, is youthful, vivacious, and enormous fun.

Terkel begins by taking us back to his early childhood with his father, mother, and two older brothers, describing the hectic life of a family trying to earn a living in Chicago. He then goes on to recall his own experiences as a poll watcher charged with stealing votes for the Democratic machine, as a young theatergoer, and eventually as an actor himself in both radio and on the stage - giving us a brilliant and often hilarious portrait of the Chicago of the 1920s and 1930s. He tells of his beginnings as a disc jockey after World War II and as an interviewer and oral historian, a craft he would come to perfect and indeed personify. Finally, he discusses his involvement with progressive politics, leading inevitably to his travails during the McCarthy period, when he was blacklisted and thrown out of work, despite having become by then one of the country's most popular television hosts.

Fans of Studs Terkel will find much to discover in these remarkable reminiscences. Others will be captivated to learn of the unique and eclectic life of one of America's greatest living legends.

©2007 Studs Terkel (P)2007 Tantor Media Inc.
Authors Entertainment & Celebrities Celebrity Funny Witty
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Critic reviews

"A fitting portrait of a legendary talent....Americans might get to know their collective past a lot better if all history lessons were as absorbing and entertaining as this one." ( Publishers Weekly) "Emotionally charged (but never sentimental), politically charged (but never formulaic) and energy-charged....Terkel is a self-aware and self-effacing presence who happily knows he has been at the center of many things." ( Kirkus Reviews)

What listeners say about Touch and Go

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    9
  • 4 Stars
    6
  • 3 Stars
    4
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    3
Performance
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    7
  • 4 Stars
    3
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars