Download or read book Vina A Brooklyn Memoir written by Joseph C. Polacco and published by Compass Flower Press. This book was released on 2016-10-21 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Joe Polacco has written a wonderful tribute to his mother, Vina, and in the process has learned about himself. This memoir is told with humor, and is a tale of extended family in Brooklyn headed by the author's mother, the kind and big-hearted Vina. It's all about the family, the neighborhood, and most of all about Vina. She is beautiful, selfless, a creative designer and knows how to laugh and make others laugh. She is a master of Italian cuisine, admired for her original recipes, which are willingly shared. What more could anyone want in a Mom? More to the point which of us would not want to claim Vina as Mom? And all the characters in the memoir willingly testify that they love Vina and claim her as their own. The author has a love of--and knack for—foreign language and dialects. In New York City, specifically Brooklyn, the whole world can be found in this one place. And you'll find Joe Polacco and Vina in this melting pot. But be careful not to melt down as you laugh through the pages while commemorating those who have passed before, and after, Vina.
Download or read book Literary Brooklyn written by Evan Hughes and published by Holt Paperbacks. This book was released on 2011-08-16 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the first time, here is Brooklyn's story through the eyes of its greatest storytellers. Like Paris in the twenties or postwar Greenwich Village, Brooklyn today is experiencing an extraordinary cultural boom. In recent years, writers of all stripes—from Jhumpa Lahiri, Jennifer Egan, and Colson Whitehead to Nicole Krauss and Jonathan Safran Foer—have flocked to its patchwork of distinctive neighborhoods. But as literary critic and journalist Evan Hughes reveals, the rich literary life now flourishing in Brooklyn is part of a larger, fascinating history. With a dynamic mix of literary biography and urban history, Hughes takes us on a tour of Brooklyn past and present and reveals that hiding in Walt Whitman's Fort Greene Park, Hart Crane's Brooklyn Bridge, the raw Williamsburg of Henry Miller's youth, Truman Capote's famed house on Willow Street, and the contested streets of Jonathan Lethem's Boerum Hill is the story of more than a century of life in America's cities. Literary Brooklyn is a prismatic investigation into a rich literary inheritance, but most of all it's a deep look into the beloved borough, a place as diverse and captivating as the people who walk its streets and write its stories.
Download or read book Love Hope and Tragedy written by Joan Calciano and published by . This book was released on 1998-05 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Brooklyn A Personal Memoir written by Truman Capote and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2015-11-03 with total page 109 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2001, Truman Capote’s stylish homage to Brooklyn was brought back into print, but not until 2014— more than fifty years after they were taken—were the original photographs commissioned to illustrate the essay discovered by the late photographer’s son. Also found among the negatives were previously unknown portraits of Capote; none of the photos had ever been published. Now, with the publication of Brooklyn: A Personal Memoir, with the lost photographs of David Attie, the words and images are united for the first time. With an introduction by George Plimpton and afterword by Eli Attie.
Download or read book Leaving Brooklyn written by Lynne Sharon Schwartz and published by Hawthorne Books. This book was released on 2011-10-05 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An injury at birth left Audrey with a wandering eye. Though flawed, the bad eye functions well enough to permit her an idiosyncratic view of the world, one she welcomes in the stifling postwar Brooklyn of the 1950s. During a journey to Manhattan to see a doctor about her sight, she begins to explore the sexual rites of adulthood. But can her romance last? In this beautifully observed novel, Lynne Sharon Schwartz raises themes of innocence and escape while illuminating the rich inner life of a singular girl.
Download or read book Brooklyn in Love written by Amy Thomas and published by Sourcebooks. This book was released on 2018 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of Paris, My Sweet comes the story of a modern woman embracing love, motherhood, and all the courses life has to offer, On an island where finding love can be just as hard as finding a dinner reservation on a Friday night, Amy Thomas never imagined a family would fit into her lifestyle. So when Amy finds herself turning forty, moving to Brooklyn, and making way for a baby with a new man in her life, she realizes that starting over may be her biggest opportunity yet. But how do you balance staying out all night dancing with staying up all night soothing a baby? Can a lifelong city girl trade in spontaneity for domesticity? Set amid the backdrop of Brooklyn and Manhattan's foodie scenes, Amy sets out to make her second act even sweeter than the first.
Download or read book Brooklyn Story written by Suzanne Corso and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-12-28 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Perfectly evoking the sights and sounds of the summer of 1978 in Brooklyn, Suzanne Corso makes an acclaimed fiction debut with this powerful coming-of-age tale, told from an adult perspective, of family, best friends, first loves, and big dreams waiting to come true. Samantha Bonti is fifteen years old, half Jewish and half Italian, and hesitantly edging toward pure Brooklyn. She lives in Bensonhurst with her mother, Joan, a woman poisoned with cynicism and shackled by addictions; and with her Grandma Ruth, Samantha’s loudest and most opinionated source of encouragement. As flawed as they are, they are family. And this is home—a tight-knit community of ancestors and traditions, of controlling mobsters, compliant wives, and charismatic young guys willing to engage in anything illegal to get a shot at playing with the big boys. Yet Samantha has something that even her most simpatico girlfriend, Janice Caputo, doesn’t share—a desire to become a writer and to escape their insular, overcrowded little world and the destiny that is assumed for all of them. Then comes Tony Kroon. He’s a gorgeous mobster wannabe, a Bensonhurst Adonis whose seductive charms Samantha finds irresistible—even when she knows she’s too smart to fall this deep . . . but Samantha soon finds herself swallowed up by dangerous circumstances that threaten to jeopardize more than her dreams. Grandma Ruth’s advice: Samantha had better write herself out of this story and into a new one, fast.
Download or read book A Boy Grows in Brooklyn written by Robert W. Pazmiño and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2014-06-20 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Boy Grows in Brooklyn is an educational and spiritual memoir that recounts stories from life in the Midwood interfaith neighborhood during the fifties and sixties. It shares spiritual lessons for living today that are applicable to readers of all ages who yearn for the joy, humor, and challenge discovered in everyday urban life. Memories of the Brooklyn Dodgers, neighborhood encounters, family roots, public and Sunday school teachers, pastors' modeling, and scouting ventures are woven together in vibrant stories to enlighten the hearts, souls, and minds of readers across every stage of life.
Download or read book Just a Kid from Brooklyn written by Henry Aimer Harrison III and published by . This book was released on 2015-11-04 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Just a Kid from Brooklyn" was initially written to provide my children and their children with a family history before it was forever lost. I also wanted to leave behind a smooth glide path through life for generations not yet born. This is my story, but it may be everyman's story. It is a story about meeting head-on the challenges and struggles that we face every day and the choices that we make when we are faced with them. Some people use adversity as an excuse for failure-always the victim. For others, failure is an opportunity to try again; you always have another chance. My story is meant to inspire readers to exercise their inalienable right to the "pursuit of happiness," as cited in the Declaration of Independence, whether it's discovery, adventure, achievement, or even money.
Download or read book BAM and Then It Hit Me written by Karen Brooks Hopkins and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-11-02 with total page 609 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: President Emerita of the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) Karen Brooks Hopkins pens BAM…and Then It Hit Me, an inspiring memoir of her 36 years at the iconic cultural institution, America's oldest performing arts center. The book has a sharp focus on concepts such as leadership, innovation, urban revitalization (including the transformation of Brooklyn from Manhattan Outpost to the coolest neighborhood on the planet), as highly successful cultural fundraising played critical roles in the colorful evolution of this world-class cultural juggernaut in the performing arts.
Download or read book Brooklyn Boomer written by Martin H. Levinson and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2011-05-20 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Martin H. Levinson lived in Brooklyn from his birth in 1946 to 1962, the height of the baby boom following World War II. He grew up two blocks from Ebbets Field, the home of the Brooklyn Dodgers, and attended Erasmus Hall High School, which boasts alums such as Neil Diamond, Barbra Streisand, and chess-wiz Bobby Fischer. The author's personal recollections of his middle-class childhood in Brooklyn during the 1950s alternate with chapters detailing seminal cultural events of that era including the advent of television, fast-food restaurants, big cars with fins; desegregation and the white flight to the suburbs; rock and roll, beatniks, hula hoops, The Kinsey Reports, the Cold War, McCarthyism, Playboy, and much more. Part memoir, part social history, Brooklyn Boomer offers a captivating portrait of Brooklyn and America in the mid-twentieth Century.
Download or read book Brooklyn written by Colm Toibin and published by McClelland & Stewart. This book was released on 2010-04-06 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Costa Novel Award and longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, Colm Tóibín's internationally bestselling novel is a story of devastating emotional power. At the centre of Colm Tóibín's internationally celebrated novel is Eilis Lacey, one among many of her generation who has come of age in 1950s Ireland but cannot find work at home. When she receives a job offer in America, it is clear to everyone that she must go. Leaving her family and country behind, Eilis heads for unfamiliar Brooklyn, and to a crowded boarding house where the landlady's intense scrutiny and the small jealousies of her fellow residents only deepen her isolation. Slowly, however, the pain of parting and a longing for home are buried beneath the rhythms of her new life—until she begins to realize that she has found a sort of happiness. But just as Eilis begins to fall in love, tragic news summons her back to Ireland, where she unexpectedly finds herself facing an impossible decision.
Download or read book Memoirs of a Brooklyn Girl written by Christine A. Shanklin and published by America Star Books. This book was released on 2011-10-01 with total page 126 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the true life story of Chrissie; walk with this little girl hand in hand from her childhood into early adolescence through the streets of Brooklyn, New York, through the 70's and into the 80's. At the same time, you will walk with her hand in hand through her home, its dark dysfunctionality, the terror and the morbid experiences and situations she is thrust into. Ultimately understanding why she unequivocally loathes the people that most people call family, and what molded Chrissie into a tough trite and true New Yorker. What began as a therapeutic task, quickly bloomed into a story the grown-up Chrissie found compelled to tell in its entirety, so she could rid herself of the insanity, horror, fear and guilt that has haunted and shaped her life since childhood.
Download or read book The Body of Brooklyn written by David Lazar and published by University of Iowa Press. This book was released on 2005-04 with total page 181 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Even before the controversy that surrounded the publication of A Million Little Pieces, the question of truth has been at the heart of memoir. From Elie Wiesel to Benjamin Wilkomirski to David Sedaris, the veracity of writers' claims has been suspect. In this fascinating and timely collection of essays, leading writers meditate on the subject of truth in literary nonfiction. As David Lazar writes in his introduction, "How do we verify? Do we care to? (Do we dare to eat the apple of knowledge and say it's true? Or is it a peach?) Do we choose to? Is it a subcategory of faith? How do you respond when someone says, 'This is really true'? Why do they choose to say it then?" The past and the truth are slippery things, and the art of non-fiction writing requires the writer to shape as well as explore. In personal essays, meditations on the nature of memory, considerations of the genres of memoir, prose poetry, essay, fiction, and film, the contributors to this provocative collection attempt to find answers to the question of what truth in nonfiction means. Contributors: John D'Agata, Mark Doty, Su Friedrich, Joanna Frueh, Ray González, Vivian Gornick, Barbara Hammer, Kathryn Harrison, Marianne Hirsch, Wayne Koestenbaum, Leonard Kriegel, David Lazar, Alphonso Lingis, Paul Lisicky, Nancy Mairs, Nancy K. Miller, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Phyllis Rose, Oliver Sacks, David Shields, and Leo Spitzer.
Download or read book Another Brooklyn written by Jacqueline Woodson and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2016-08-09 with total page 67 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Finalist for the 2016 National Book Award New York Times Bestseller A SeattleTimes pick for Summer Reading Roundup 2017 The acclaimed New York Times bestselling and National Book Award–winning author of Brown Girl Dreaming delivers her first adult novel in twenty years. Running into a long-ago friend sets memory from the 1970s in motion for August, transporting her to a time and a place where friendship was everything—until it wasn’t. For August and her girls, sharing confidences as they ambled through neighborhood streets, Brooklyn was a place where they believed that they were beautiful, talented, brilliant—a part of a future that belonged to them. But beneath the hopeful veneer, there was another Brooklyn, a dangerous place where grown men reached for innocent girls in dark hallways, where ghosts haunted the night, where mothers disappeared. A world where madness was just a sunset away and fathers found hope in religion. Like Louise Meriwether’s Daddy Was a Number Runner and Dorothy Allison’s Bastard Out of Carolina, Jacqueline Woodson’s Another Brooklyn heartbreakingly illuminates the formative time when childhood gives way to adulthood—the promise and peril of growing up—and exquisitely renders a powerful, indelible, and fleeting friendship that united four young lives.
Download or read book Duck and Cover written by Rosemary Neri Villanella and published by Xulon Press. This book was released on 2017-04-12 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Duck and Cover is a memoir born of Rosemary's desire to transport readers back to the beloved 1960's Brooklyn of her youth, with its familiar streets and stoops, during a more innocent time in this fabled borough. Yet Duck and Cover is also a coming-of-age tale, spotlighting the universal struggle of a young girl forging an individual identity- and trying not to attract too much attention-while carefully navigating her way across that crucial border between childhood and adolescence.
Download or read book A Brooklyn Memoir written by Robert Rosen and published by SCB Distributors. This book was released on 2020-01-01 with total page 167 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A darkly comic and deeply moving story of a New York City lost to time. From the final days of the Brooklyn Dodgers in the mid-1950s to the arrival of the Beatles in 1964, A Brooklyn Memoir is an unsentimental journey through one rough-and-tumble working-class neighborhood. Though only a 20-minute and 15-cent subway ride from the gleaming towers of Manhattan across the East River, Flatbush remained insular and provincial—a place where Auschwitz survivors and WWII vets lived side by side and the war lingered like a mass hallucination. Meet Bobby, a local kid who shares a shabby apartment with his status-conscious mother and bigoted father, a soda jerk haunted by memories of the Nazi death camp he helped liberate. Flatbush, to Bobby, is a world of brawls with neighborhood “punks,” Hebrew school tales of Adolf Eichmann’s daring capture, and grade school duck-and-cover drills. Drawn to images of mushroom clouds and books about executions, Bobby ultimately turns the seething hatred he senses everywhere against himself. From the bestselling author of Nowhere Man: The Final Days of John Lennon. Formerly published under the title Bobby in Naziland.
