Dave Isay

Ties That Bind, edited by David Isay is a collection of personal anecdotes from people who participated in the Storycorps Project. This project was a series of oral histories from everyday people in the form of a dialogue between two of them, with one being “the most important person” in the other’s life. Isay founded the project in 2003 and it has been ongoing ever since. Copies of the participants’ interviews are preserved at the Library of Congress and certain of them, with the interviewee’s permission, have been broadcast on NPR and even turned into animations.

This book is a collection of those interviews and highlights human spirit and resiliency: stories are told of the relationships between parents and children, bosses and employees, teachers and students, even between the mother of a murdered man and his murderer. Really diverse and eye-opening stuff. One of my former tenants and her mom even participated in this project (but they aren’t in this book.)… (mere)