Download or read book Low Life written by Lucy Sante and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2016-03-08 with total page 541 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The classic social history of corruption and vice in nineteenth-century NYC: “A cacophonous poem of democracy and greed, like the streets of New York themselves” (John Vernon, Los Angeles Times Book Review). Lucy Sante’s Low Life is a portrait of America’s greatest city, the riotous and anarchic breeding ground of modernity. This is not the familiar saga of mansions, avenues, and robber barons, but the messy, turbulent, often murderous story of the city’s slums; the teeming streets—scene of innumerable cons and crimes whose cramped and overcrowded housing is still a prominent feature of the cityscape. Low Life voyages through Manhattan from four different directions. Part One examines the actual topography of Manhattan from 1840 to 1919; Part Two, the era’s opportunities for vice and entertainment—theaters and saloons, opium and cocaine dens, gambling and prostitution; Part Three investigates the forces of law and order which did and didn’t work to contain the illegalities; Part Four counterposes the city’s tides of revolt and idealism against the city as it actually was. Low Life is one of the most provocative books about urban life ever written—an evocation of the mythology of the quintessential modern metropolis, which has much to say not only about New York’s past but about the present and future of all cities.

Download or read book The Death and Life of the Great Lakes written by Dan Egan and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2017-03-07 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times Bestseller Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize Winner of the J. Anthony Lukas Award "Nimbly splices together history, science, reporting and personal experiences into a taut and cautiously hopeful narrative.… Egan’s book is bursting with life (and yes, death)." —Robert Moor, New York Times Book Review The Great Lakes—Erie, Huron, Michigan, Ontario, and Superior—hold 20 percent of the world’s supply of surface fresh water and provide sustenance, work, and recreation for tens of millions of Americans. But they are under threat as never before, and their problems are spreading across the continent. The Death and Life of the Great Lakes is prize-winning reporter Dan Egan’s compulsively readable portrait of an ecological catastrophe happening right before our eyes, blending the epic story of the lakes with an examination of the perils they face and the ways we can restore and preserve them for generations to come.

Download or read book A Simpler Way written by Margaret J. Wheatley and published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers. This book was released on 1998-01-01 with total page 167 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "We want life to be less arduous and more delightful. We want to be able to think differently about how to organize human activities." So begins A Simpler Way, an exploration of a radically different world view that will reshape how we think about organizing all human endeavor. Margaret J. Wheatley and coauthor Myron Kellner-Rogers explore the question: "How could we organize human endeavor if we developed different understandings of how life organizes itself?" They draw on the work of scientists, philosophers, poets, novelists, spiritual teachers, colleagues, audiences, and their own experience in search of new ways of understanding life and how organizing activities occur. A Simpler Way presents a profoundly different world view that can change how we live our lives and how we can create organizations that thrive. A Simpler Way explores fundamental new beliefs about organizations and life. Like Leadership and the New Science, this new book is rooted in science but breaks new ground by developing insights from literature, spiritual teachings, and direct experience. The authors challenge many assumptions about life, organizations, and change, while providing inspiration and guidance for readers on their own journey to a simpler way to organize their endeavors. The authors describe a new paradigm of life as self-organizing and coevolving, drawing on sources that support modern science but predate its findings by thousands of years. They examine five major themes-play, organization, self, emergence, and coherence-each grounded in both the science and philosophy of a world that knows how to organize itself. Each theme is explored in depth, and then applied to how we think about human organizations. The book begins and ends with photo essays, providing visual imagery that recalls readers to their own experience with a world that is creative, playful, and self-organizing. Written in a relaxed, poetic, and inviting style, the book welcomes the reader into this exploration of a new way of being in the world, one which can give us increased organizing capacity and effectiveness with less of the stress that plagues us now.

Download or read book My Misspent Youth written by Meghan Daum and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2014-12-23 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: My Misspent Youth is an incisive collection that marked the start of a new millennium and became a cult classic, from the editor of Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed and the author of The Unspeakable An essayist in the tradition of Joan Didion, Meghan Daum is one of the most celebrated nonfiction writers of her generation, widely recognized for her fresh, provocative approach with which she unearths the hidden fault lines in the American landscape. From her well remembered New Yorker essays about the financial demands of big-city ambition and the ethereal, strangely old-fashioned allure of cyber-relationships to her dazzlingly hilarious riff in Harper's about musical passions that give way to middle-brow paraphernalia, Daum delves into the center of things while closely examining the detritus that spills out along the way. With precision and well-balanced irony, Daum implicates herself as readily as she does the targets that fascinate and horrify her.

Download or read book Here is New York written by E. B. White and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2011-03-30 with total page 59 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the summer of 1948, E.B. White sat in a New York City hotel room and, sweltering in the heat, wrote a remarkable pristine essay, Here is New York. Perceptive, funny, and nostalgic, the author’s stroll around Manhattan—with the reader arm-in-arm—remains the quintessential love letter to the city, written by one of America’s foremost literary figures. Here is New York has been chosen by The New York Times as one of the ten best books ever written about the city. The New Yorker calls it “the wittiest essay, and one of the most perceptive, ever done on the city.”

Download or read book Mannahatta written by Eric W. Sanderson and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2013-11-27 with total page 663 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What did New York look like four centuries ago? An extraordinary reconstruction of a wild island from the forests of Times Square to the wetlands downtown. Named a Best Book of the Year by Library Journal, New York Magazine, and San Francisco Chronicle On September 12, 1609, Henry Hudson first set foot on the land that would become Manhattan. Today, it’s difficult to imagine what he saw, but for more than a decade, landscape ecologist Eric Sanderson has been working to do just that. Mannahatta: A Natural History of New York City is the astounding result of those efforts, reconstructing in words and images the wild island that millions now call home. By geographically matching an eighteenth-century map with one of the modern city, examining volumes of historic documents, and collecting and analyzing scientific data, Sanderson re-creates topography, flora, and fauna from a time when actual wolves prowled far beyond Wall Street and the degree of biological diversity rivaled that of our most famous national parks. His lively text guides you through this abundant landscape—while breathtaking illustrations transport you back in time. Mannahatta is a groundbreaking work that provides not only a window into the past, but also inspiration for the future. “[A] wise and beautiful book, sure to enthrall anyone interested in NYC history.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) “A cartographical detective tale . . . The fact-intense charts, maps and tables offered in abundance here are fascinating.” —The New York Times “[An] exuberantly written and beautifully illustrated exploration of pre-European Gotham.” —San Francisco Chronicle “You don’t have to be a New Yorker to be enthralled.” —Library Journal

Download or read book How the Other Half Lives written by Jacob Riis and published by Applewood Books. This book was released on 2011 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The New York Nobody Knows written by William B. Helmreich and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2015-08-25 with total page 474 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "As a kid growing up in Manhattan, William Helmreich played a game with his father they called "Last Stop." They would pick a subway line and ride it to its final destination, and explore the neighborhood there. Decades later, Helmreich teaches university courses about New York, and his love for exploring the city is as strong as ever. Putting his feet to the test, he decided that the only way to truly understand New York was to walk virtually every block of all five boroughs--an astonishing 6,000 miles. His epic journey lasted four years and took him to every corner of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island. Helmreich spoke with hundreds of New Yorkers from every part of the globe and from every walk of life, including Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former mayors Rudolph Giuliani, David Dinkins, and Edward Koch. Their stories and his are the subject of this captivating and highly original book. We meet the Guyanese immigrant who grows beautiful flowers outside his modest Queens residence in order to always remember the homeland he left behind, the Brooklyn-raised grandchild of Italian immigrants who illuminates a window of his brownstone with the family's old neon grocery-store sign, and many, many others. Helmreich draws on firsthand insights to examine essential aspects of urban social life such as ethnicity, gentrification, and the use of space. He finds that to be a New Yorker is to struggle to understand the place and to make a life that is as highly local as it is dynamically cosmopolitan."--Publisher's description.

Download or read book An Old Merchant s House written by Mary Knapp and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An authentic view of the domestic life of privileged New Yorkers in the three decades before the Civil War. It is based on memoirs, diaries, letters, and a preserved antebellum home belonging to the same family for almost 100 years. The daily life and habits of that family and their neighbors are revealed in fascinating detail.

Download or read book Humans of New York Stories written by Brandon Stanton and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2020-10-06 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The #1 New York Times Bestseller! With over 500 vibrant, full-color photos, Humans of New York: Stories is an insightful and inspiring collection of portraits of the lives of New Yorkers. Humans of New York: Stories is the culmination of five years of innovative storytelling on the streets of New York City. During this time, photographer Brandon Stanton stopped, photographed, and interviewed more than ten thousand strangers, eventually sharing their stories on his blog, Humans of New York. In Humans of New York: Stories, the interviews accompanying the photographs go deeper, exhibiting the intimate storytelling that the blog has become famous for today. Ranging from whimsical to heartbreaking, these stories have attracted a global following of more than 30 million people across several social media platforms.

Download or read book Life in New York in Doors and Out of Doors written by and published by . This book was released on 1851 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Stupid Things I Won t Do When I Get Old written by Steven Petrow and published by Citadel. This book was released on 2021-06-29 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For fans of David Sedaris and Nora Ephron, a humorous, irreverent, and poignant look at the gifts, stereotypes, and inevitable challenges of aging, based on award-winning journalist Steven Petrow's wildly popular New York Times essay, "Things I'll Do Differently When I Get Old." Soon after his 50th birthday, Petrow began assembling a list of “things I won’t do when I get old”—mostly a catalog of all the things he thought his then 70-something year old parents were doing wrong. That list, which included “You won’t have to shout at me that I’m deaf,” and “I won’t blame the family dog for my incontinence,” became the basis of this rousing collection of do’s and don’ts, wills and won’ts that is equal parts hilarious, honest, and practical. The fact is, we don’t want to age the way previous generations did. “Old people” hoard. They bore relatives—and strangers alike—with tales of their aches and pains. They insist on driving long after they’ve become a danger to others (and themselves). They eat dinner at 4pm. They swear they don’t need a cane or walker (and guess what happens next). They never, ever apologize. But there is another way... In Stupid Things I Won’t Do When I Get Old, Petrow candidly addresses the fears, frustrations, and stereotypes that accompany aging. He offers a blueprint for the new old age, and an understanding that aging and illness are not the same. As he writes, “I meant the list to serve as a pointed reminder—to me—to make different choices when I eventually cross the threshold to ‘old.’” Getting older is a privilege. This essential guide reveals how to do it with grace, wisdom, humor, and hope. And without hoarding. Praise for Stupid Things I Won't Do When I Get Old: “Unbelievably witty and relatable, I alternated bursting into laughter and placing my hand over my face in horror thinking, Oh my God, is that me? I often say, at this age we have something young people can never have…wisdom. My dear friend, Steven Petrow, has wisdom to share in this honest, funny, wry guide to keep us young at heart, without desperately hanging onto our youth. I am buying this book for all of my friends!” —Suzanne Somers, New York Times bestselling author of A New Way to Age “Stupid Things I Won’t Do When I Get Old is an irreverent, funny, honest look at aging and all the things we take for granted as normal parts of aging. They don’t need to be. If you struggle with getting older and want to find a fresh perspective on lessons learned about what NOT to do as we age, and what TO do to stay young in heart, spirit, mind and body, read this book.” —Mark Hyman, MD, #1 New York Times bestseller author of The Blood Sugar Solution 10-Day Detox Diet, and Head of Strategy and Innovation at the Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine. “Steven Petrow resolved to do things differently than his parents had when he gets old because he wished they’d been able to enjoy life more. His solution? He created a list! In this book, he shares the secrets to living a full life regardless of our age. It's all about the decisions we make every day. My advice in a nutshell: Read this book and keep it handy.” —“Dear Abby” (Jeanne Phillips), nationally syndicated advice columnist “It’s never too early to imagine what your life will look like as you age. And as I once wrote, ‘We are not hostages to our fate.’ Petrow’s book will help you plan, think, and redefine what it means to get older—and even laugh while doing it.” —Andrew Weil, MD, New York Times bestselling author of Spontaneous Healing and Healthy Aging: A Lifelong Guide to Your Well-Being “Steven Petrow not only has a great attitude about life, he is wise about how to live it. Like me, he says we should embrace our one life 100% and not let a number—our age—get in the way of anything! Steven’s book will help you rethink the word “aging” and approach this next chapter with a positive and proactive attitude. Plus, this book is fun!” —Denise Austin, renowned fitness expert, author, and columnist “Steven’s writing feels like sitting with a friend—one who is unusually gracious, warm and frank.” —Carolyn Hax, author of the nationally syndicated advice column, Carolyn Hax Praise for Steven Petrow: "Steven Petrow's Complete Gay & Lesbian Manners helps gays and straights navigate the subtleties of the same-sex world." —People "Move over, Emily Post! When it comes to etiquette for members of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community—as well as their straight friends, family members and coworkers--author and journalist Steven Petrow is the authority." —TIME "What could've easily become a novelty book has emerged as an exhaustively researched, essential resource thanks to advice columnist and etiquette expert Steven Petrow." —The Advocate "From having kids to planning funerals, Steven Petrow's Complete Gay & Lesbian Manners has most facets of gay life covered. Ms. Post would approve." —Entertainment Weekly "An indispensable refresher course...on what's proper in modern...life." —Kirkus Reviews

Download or read book Mexican New York written by Robert Smith and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Mexican New York' offers an intimate view of globalization as it is lived by Mexican immigrants & their children in New York & in Mexico.

Download or read book The Bowery Boys written by Greg Young and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-06-21 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Uncover fascinating, little-known histories of the five boroughs in The Bowery Boys’ official companion to their popular, award-winning podcast. It was 2007. Sitting at a kitchen table and speaking into an old karaoke microphone, Greg Young and Tom Meyers recorded their first podcast. They weren’t history professors or voice actors. They were just two guys living in the Bowery and possessing an unquenchable thirst for the fascinating stories from New York City’s past. Nearly 200 episodes later, The Bowery Boys podcast is a phenomenon, thrilling audiences each month with one amazing story after the next. Now, in their first-ever book, the duo gives you an exclusive personal tour through New York’s old cobblestone streets and gas-lit back alleyways. In their uniquely approachable style, the authors bring to life everything from makeshift forts of the early Dutch years to the opulent mansions of The Gilded Age. They weave tales that will reshape your view of famous sites like Times Square, Grand Central Terminal, and the High Line. Then they go even further to reveal notorious dens of vice, scandalous Jazz Age crime scenes, and park statues with strange pasts. Praise for The Bowery Boys “Among the best city-centric series.” —New York Times “Meyers and Young have become unofficial ambassadors of New York history.” —NPR “Breezy and informative, crowded with the finest grifters, knickerbockers, spiritualists, and city builders to stalk these streets since back when New Amsterdam was just some farms.” —Village Voice “Young and Meyers have an all-consuming curiosity to work out what happened in their city in years past, including the Newsboys Strike of 1899, the history of the Staten Island Ferry, and the real-life sites on which Martin Scorsese’s Vinyl is based.” —The Guardian

Download or read book The Buried Giant written by Kazuo Ishiguro and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2015-03-03 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature and author of Never Let Me Go and the Booker Prize–winning novel The Remains of the Day comes a luminous meditation on the act of forgetting and the power of memory. In post-Arthurian Britain, the wars that once raged between the Saxons and the Britons have finally ceased. Axl and Beatrice, an elderly British couple, set off to visit their son, whom they haven't seen in years. And, because a strange mist has caused mass amnesia throughout the land, they can scarcely remember anything about him. As they are joined on their journey by a Saxon warrior, his orphan charge, and an illustrious knight, Axl and Beatrice slowly begin to remember the dark and troubled past they all share. By turns savage, suspenseful, and intensely moving, The Buried Giant is a luminous meditation on the act of forgetting and the power of memory.

Download or read book The Cat Men of Gotham written by Peggy Gavan and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2019-05-03 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book tells the stories of the tender-hearted men who adopted stray cats from the cruel streets of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century New York. Its forty-two profiles introduce us to an array of remarkable men and extraordinary cats, including sports team mascots, artists' muses, and presidential pets.

Download or read book Life Stories written by David Remnick and published by Modern Library. This book was released on 2001-05-15 with total page 626 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of art's purest challenges is to translate a human being into words. The New Yorker has met this challenge more successfully and more originally than any other modern American journal. It has indelibly shaped the genre known as the Profile. Starting with light-fantastic evocations of glamorous and idiosyncratic figures of the twenties and thirties, such as Henry Luce and Isadora Duncan, and continuing to the present, with complex pictures of such contemporaries as Mikhail Baryshnikov and Richard Pryor, this collection of New Yorker Profiles presents readers with a portrait gallery of some of the most prominent figures of the twentieth century. These Profiles are literary-journalistic investigations into character and accomplishment, motive and madness, beauty and ugliness, and are unrivalled in their range, their variety of style, and their embrace of humanity. Including these twenty-eight profiles: “Mr. Hunter’s Grave” by Joseph Mitchell “Secrets of the Magus” by Mark Singer “Isadora” by Janet Flanner “The Soloist” by Joan Acocella “Time . . . Fortune . . . Life . . . Luce” by Walcott Gibbs “Nobody Better, Better Than Nobody” by Ian Frazier “The Mountains of Pi” by Richard Preston “Covering the Cops” by Calvin Trillin “Travels in Georgia” by John McPhee “The Man Who Walks on Air” by Calvin Tomkins “A House on Gramercy Park” by Geoffrey Hellman “How Do You Like It Now, Gentlemen?” by Lillian Ross “The Education of a Prince” by Alva Johnston “White Like Me” by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. “Wunderkind” by A. J. Liebling “Fifteen Years of The Salto Mortale” by Kenneth Tynan “The Duke in His Domain” by Truman Capote “A Pryor Love” by Hilton Als “Gone for Good” by Roger Angell “Lady with a Pencil” by Nancy Franklin “Dealing with Roseanne” by John Lahr “The Coolhunt” by Malcolm Gladwell “Man Goes to See a Doctor” by Adam Gopnik “Show Dog” by Susan Orlean “Forty-One False Starts” by Janet Malcolm “The Redemption” by Nicholas Lemann “Gore Without a Script” by Nicholas Lemann “Delta Nights” by Bill Buford