Reading List · Lisanne Swart
Authors Like
By Lisanne Swart · 6 authors · Oral History & Ordinary Voices · Updated July 2026
Studs Terkel built an entire body of work on the conviction that ordinary people's own words, transcribed and lightly edited rather than paraphrased, constitute genuine history. Working compiles interviews with people across every kind of job describing what their labor actually feels like, and the effect is cumulative rather than argumentative — you finish it understanding something no single perspective could convey. The writers below share his commitment to letting real voices, rather than a narrator's summary, carry the historical or journalistic record.
Readers who enjoy Studs Terkel often turn to Nellie Bly for undercover journalism getting past institutional gatekeeping in a more immersive, participatory register, Brooke Kroeger for the historian who has documented the broader undercover reporting tradition Terkel's method complements, Barbara Ehrenreich for contemporary undercover immersion into low-wage work, Gay Talese for narrative nonfiction elevating journalism to literary craft, Anna Deavere Smith for oral testimony transformed into theatrical performance, and Ronan Farrow for persistent, methodical investigative journalism in a different register than Terkel's compiled interviews.
Similar Voice & Approach
Nellie Bly
Bly shares Terkel's conviction that the journalist's job is surfacing truths institutions would rather keep hidden, though her method is undercover immersion rather than compiled interview, going inside a mental asylum herself rather than transcribing others' accounts of it.
Read Bly for a more immersive, participatory method of getting past institutional gatekeeping than Terkel's compiled interviews. Ten Days in a Mad-House is essential.
→ Read more about Nellie BlyBrooke Kroeger
Kroeger's historical study of undercover reporting documents a method distinct from but complementary to Terkel's own oral-history approach, both writers sharing a conviction that getting the real story sometimes requires methods conventional, distanced journalism can't achieve.
Read Kroeger for the historian's perspective on a related but distinct method of getting past institutional gatekeeping to the truth.
→ Read more about Brooke KroegerBarbara Ehrenreich
Ehrenreich shares Terkel's fundamental subject — what work actually feels like from the inside — though her method is undercover participation in low-wage jobs herself rather than transcribed interview, extending Terkel's project into a contemporary economic context.
Read Ehrenreich for Terkel's core subject of ordinary labor examined through direct participation rather than interview. Nickel and Dimed is essential.
Gay Talese
Talese, a pioneer of the New Journalism movement, shares Terkel's respect for ordinary and extraordinary lives alike as subjects worth genuinely literary attention, elevating reportage into narrative nonfiction with the same conviction that real observed detail carries more weight than imposed argument.
Read Talese for journalism treated as literary craft, sharing Terkel's respect for closely observed, unembellished human detail.
Anna Deavere Smith
Smith extends Terkel's oral-history method directly into theatrical performance, conducting interviews after moments of civic crisis and then performing the subjects' own words verbatim onstage, sharing Terkel's conviction that unedited real speech carries more truth than any summary.
Read Smith for Terkel's oral-history method carried directly into theatrical performance. Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 is the essential entry point.
Ronan Farrow
Farrow's contemporary investigative reporting shares Terkel's underlying conviction that ordinary people's testimony, carefully gathered and presented, can expose truths institutions would rather keep buried, even though Farrow's method is methodical documentation rather than Terkel's compiled oral history.
Read Farrow for a contemporary, more institution-focused continuation of the truth-gathering tradition Terkel's oral history belongs to. Catch and Kill is essential.
More from the shelf
Frequently asked questions about authors like Studs Terkel
Who should I read if I like Studs Terkel?
Readers who enjoy Studs Terkel often turn to Nellie Bly for undercover journalism getting past institutional gatekeeping in a more immersive, participatory register, Brooke Kroeger for the historian who has documented the broader undercover reporting tradition Terkel's method complements, Barbara Ehrenreich for contemporary undercover immersion into low-wage work, Gay Talese for narrative nonfiction elevating journalism to literary craft, Anna Deavere Smith for oral testimony transformed into theatrical performance, and Ronan Farrow for persistent, methodical investigative journalism in a different register than Terkel's compiled interviews.
Is Anna Deavere Smith similar to Studs Terkel?
Yes, Smith extends Terkel's oral-history method directly into theatrical performance, conducting interviews after moments of civic crisis and then performing the subjects' own words verbatim onstage. Both share the conviction that unedited real speech carries more truth than any summary or paraphrase could.
What should I read after Working by Studs Terkel?
Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed extends Terkel's core subject of ordinary labor into direct undercover participation rather than interview. Anna Deavere Smith's Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 carries Terkel's oral-history method into theatrical performance. For a related but distinct method of surfacing hidden truths, Nellie Bly's Ten Days in a Mad-House is essential.
Is Barbara Ehrenreich's work related to Studs Terkel's?
Both share the same fundamental subject: what ordinary work actually feels like from the inside. Ehrenreich's method is undercover participation in low-wage jobs herself, documented in Nickel and Dimed, while Terkel compiled transcribed interviews across many kinds of work in Working, but both insist that labor deserves genuinely serious literary attention.
