All I Did Was Ask: Conversations with Writers, Actors, Musicians, and Artists

But the back stories and Terry's OWN take on some of her interviews is fascinating reading. I often think I know what Terry is thinking during an interview. Most of the time I feel I agree with what I imagine is her perspective. So I was eager to read this and find out if I was right.

Well, I was right - and wrong. Terry has all the deep thinking and interesting, nuanced opinions you'd expect her to have. But I found out a lot about Terry Gross that I didn't know. I came to appreciate her as an interviewer even more, when I realized I'd been projecting my own opinions and perspectives onto her as interviewer, because she's able to be so transparent.

I admire Terry Gross, Diane Rehm and other interviewers who are able to elicit the opinions, feelings and philosophies of the people they talk to. Now I understand a lot more about what it takes to get there - how Terry has to honor her curiosity and find the middle ground.

And some of the vignettes are just plain fun. I like to think I'd be able to suffer the tauntings of Gene Simmons without succumbing to anger, but after reading the book I admire Terry for just laying it out there. Nobody's perfect. None of her subjects, and not Terry herself.

Turns out, I didn't know Terry Gross well at all, even after listening to her for years. I was seeing myself in the mirror of my own perspective. But now that I know her a little better, I like her and her show even more.

If you love Fresh Air and Terry Gross, but can't catch all of the interviews, this is a great way to catch up on some of the most significant. This book covers writers, actors, musicians, and artists, and includes figures as diverse as Gene Simmons from Kiss to Eric Clapton to John Updike to Conan O'Brien. Keep in mind that the interviews are edited for inclusion in this book, so some are shorter than others, and some are combined with other interviews Terry has conducted with the person.

The best thing about the interviews chosen is that every one offers fascinating information, whether it is about a trade, like writing or acting, or about the figure, like Jodie Foster's feelings on her childhood stardom. Another added bonus to this book is Terry's introduction to each interview. In some, she adds some context around the interview, such as what she thought about the guest or newspaper reports about the interview. In others, she offers personal information on her preferences and passions, and in others, she provides further biographical information about the guest.

I greatly enjoyed reading this collection and read every interview. This is a book that I will keep for years to come, but I am hesitant to give it five stars because I can't imagine getting anything additional out of it if I reread it. Perhaps some of the interviews would be more meaningful at one time in my life or another, but they aren't as in-depth or complex as a novel, memoir, or biography, so I don't feel that this book, as enjoyable and fascinating as it was, is multi-layered.

[March 8, 2006: Interview with James Thurber on lobbyists: riveting, compelling! How Republicans get money to build bridges to nowhere in Alaska. What an "earmark" is, and more!]
[March 2, 2006: Interview with Eyal Press, abortion clinic doctor, proving Gross as a female Orpheus, descending into the dark night of the soul.]
[February 27, 2006: Terry's interview about 'Tsotsi' (A South African 'gangster' film with a heart) was one of her most remarkable ever! For comparison, see 'Ali' or 'Ali Zaoua, Prince of the Street', a Moroccan film by Filmmovement]

I have an Hyperion "Advanced Uncorrected Proofs" edition, which I use as a sort of field guide for modeling my own interviews with performers, politicians and business people. I don't think Terry Gross is necessarily America's greatest interviewer. She does seem to stumble at times, at other times she may tend to wind down the more uninteresting of two paths. Yet, she scores tet-e-tets with the highest profile characters possible.

Tonight I heard an older interview with Eric Clapton, which was one included in this book, and I realized that the transcription is imperfect, and lacks continuity, the questions/answers being slightly out of sequence. You would never know this from reading the interview alone, and it doesn't matter a whole lot. I've transcribed many an interview, and you must whittle down the "umms" and "ahhs". But, using the Clapton interview as a sample, the transcribed text was missing significant portions of the audio interview.

That being said, I think there is another NPR interviewer who does a much better job, and that is Melissa Block. Block seems to flow a little better, while Gross (don't get me wrong, I love her), sounds more like a stammering little chipmunk sometimes. But, when I listen to my own interviews, I hate how I sound, and should definitely learn to clam up more. It is exactly these little tricks and peeves that genuinely aid in the development of my interviewing skills. Gross sometimes falls prey to pretentious colloquialisms, more so with some personalities than others, especially black hip hop or blues artists, which borders on reverse racism. You know, "hey, you're cool, I dig ya, tell me about how hard life was in the ghetto, so all my white friends out there can empathize the way I do". That's caricaturizing a little, but isn't too far from the way I hear it. The upside to this technique is that she establishes personal raport with her interviewees, eliciting genuine revelations and honest personality. Gross's interviews with politicians, religious scholars, novelists and journalists are very well done, indeed.

She really is improving her interviewer skills, I believe, and is still a joy to listen to. This review isn't meant as a slam by a thoughtless troll, even if parts of it may come across that way. Listening to Fresh Air is a ritual I try never to miss, I can assure you I always enjoy the show. Another important note is that Fresh Air is not just Terry Gross, it is a team effort, much as any news article or story is not just the reporter, but a whole reporting base, including editor, printer, etc.

If you, too, are an aspiring interviewer, it's a no brainer that you should get this book as a reference of case studies. It is destined to become a classic, like it or not.

I'm digging the book so far. Terry Gross is a personal hero of mine, I wish I can interview just like her. Although it's not the same as hearing the interview because you can't tell the nuance of the interviewee's voice. But I believe that can be fixed by finding the interview in the archives. Nevertheless, I like how she provides context on the interview that she decides to showcase in this book. I wish there will be second volume of the interview because this book was written 10 years ago and more people have been through Fresh Air.

She doesn't explicitly tells you how to interview people but it is inferred through the introductory paragraphs for each interview section. I guess the readers can learn that by close analysis of the transcript.

If they do decide to make volume 2. I hope that through the ease of the digital age, they will provide links of said interviews. Also support your local public radio station. I feel that I just have to mention that.

Written by Terry Gross, the host of NPR’s afternoon radio show “Fresh Air”. It was a compilation of some of her interesting interviews over the years.The interviews range from the pleasant- with Michael Caine, to the unpleasant - with the remarkably crass and crude Gene Simmons.
I have been listening to her radio show for years. Now, here is a good opportunity to get behind the scenes and into her head.
If you enjoy her show, you will appreciate this book.
I only hope that she follows it up with a second one that reflects back on more of her interviews.

Am not used to read books cause I usually get bored but this book is interesting. It's like am watching a movie. Very interesting with alot to teach

Others have spoken enough in depth about the contents of the interviews contained within this for me to not waste review space repeating the same thing. What I can say is that this is a fascinating collection of interview snippets of even more fascinating artists. Gross is upfront about the fact that some of these are combined interviews from different times (i.e. Dennis Hopper interviews from 1990 and 1996 merged into one section), so don't expect that you're going to get the same experience reading the book as you might listening to her program. This takes the most insightful or interesting sections of those interviews and condenses them into bite-sized portions. It's a great introduction to Gross' style of interviewing as well as the people she talks to.

Unfortunately, I don't live in a radio market that broadcasts "Fresh Air." Last Christmas, however, a friend gave me a copy of "All I Did Was Ask," and even though it makes me feel even more strongly the lack of that program, it was certainly the next best thing to hearing it. Terry Gross, a host of wide-ranging interests and probing curiosity, publishes here the transcripts of what she considers her most fascinating interviews, and fascinating they are indeed, covering a range of guests from John Updike to Johnny Cash to Chris Rock to Divine. Some answers glow with insight, such as Updike's about being a writer at 65: "Every day, you are older than you've ever been before. In a sense, you are blazing a trail, and sending back news to the younger of what it's like." Some say things you can hardly believe, such as Michael Caine's assertion that his father believed any man who ate chicken was gay: "Real men ate red meat, and he thought that chicken was sissy food." All tell of fascinating personal journeys, such as director/screenwriter Paul Schrader, who grew up in a Calvinist family where movies were forbidden.

Of course, some of the most titillating reading is about the interviews that went astray. Gross reprints the combative, sexually aggressive answers that Kiss lead singer Gene Simmons gave her in 2001. ("By the time the encounter was over, we sounded like two first-graders calling each other names," she writes.) She doesn't, however, reprint the bulk of Bill O'Reilly's on-the-air tirade against her (he spent the next several episodes of his own program calling for an end to federal funding of public broadcasting). Sometimes the guests who walk off the show, and the reasons they do so, are suprrising: actor Peter Boyle terminated an interview because Gross insisted on asking him about his previous life as a monk, rather than focusing the interview on his latest movie. ("A well-known actor or musician has been sent out on the road to promote his latest movie or CD, and his idea of a good interview can be my idea of an infomercial," Gross writes.) Well, there are no informercials in "All I Did Was Ask," and intelligent readers will find the book pure pleasure.

The ever intelligent, inviting, and capable Terry Gross is someone I'll always listen to if I happen to be in the car when Fresh Air is on the radio. This book is both a meaningful read-thru of some of Terry's personally-selected (mostly early) interviews out of the thousands she's done since Fresh Air went national on NPR in 1987, and a nice private tour of how Fresh Air really works. It's also a little like enjoying a candid conversation with Terry Gross about her life and career and views on radio as a whole. Recently, if I may note this, Terry's website has mentioned that a number of the tapes storing Fresh Air have begun to deteriorate with age (Fresh Air's archives pre-date digital) and a call has gone out to help preserve these truly significant bits of our cultural heritage. Fresh Air gives a chance for those who helped define our age to voice themselves, and surely that's worth preserving for posterity. But that's going off track a bit. In this review I mainly just wanted to say I read this book, it was a nice read, and I recommend it!

Great book, only reason here is to see if there is a new one.