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Ask Again Later: A Novel
Jill A. Davis
Manufacturer: Ecco
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Because She Can
The Double Bind: A Novel
Nineteen Minutes: A Novel
Him Her Him Again The End of Him
Skylight Confessions: A Novel

ASIN: 0060875968
Release Date: 2007-02-20

Book Description

Emily has a tendency to live with one foot out the door. For her, the best thing about a family crisis is the excuse to cut and run. When her mother dramatically announces they've found a lump, Emily gladly takes a rain check on life to be by her mother's side, leaving behind her career, her boyfriend, and those pesky, unanswerable questions about who she is and what she's doing with her life.

But back in her childhood bedroom, Emily realizes that she hasn't run fast or far enough. One evening, while her mother calls everyone in her Rolodex to brief them on her medical crisis and schedule a farewell martini, Emily opens the door, quite literally, to find her past staring her in the face. How do you forge a relationship with the father who left when you were five years old? As Emily attempts to find balance on the emotional seesaw of her life, with the help of two hopeful suitors and her Park Avenue Princess sister, she takes a no-risk job as a receptionist at her father's law firm and slowly gets to know the man she once pretended was dead.

From the brainy, breezy writer who "writes like a professional comic" (The Onion) and is "hard to stop reading once you start" (USA Today) comes a laugh-out-loud tale that confirms you can recover from your parents, the bad habit of missed opportunities, and men who romance you with meat. When opportunity knocks, it's time to stop running and start living.

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Bread Givers: A Novel
Anzia Yezierska
Manufacturer: Persea Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Coming of Age in Mississippi
Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez
Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media
1185 Park Avenue: A Memoir
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (Dover Thrift Editions)

ASIN: 0892552905

Book Description

The classic novel of Jewish immigrants in new trade paperback format and design, with sixteen period photographs.

This masterwork of American immigrant literature is set in the 1920s on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and tells the story of Sara Smolinsky, the youngest daughter of an Orthodox rabbi, who rebels against her father's rigid conception of Jewish womanhood. Sarah's struggle towards independence and self-fulfillment resonates with a passion all can share. Beautifully redesigned page for page with the previous editions, Bread Givers is an essential historical work with enduring relevance. 16 b/w photographs.

Sister of the Solid Rock: Edna Mae Barnes Martin and the East Side Christian Center
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Sister of the Solid Rock: Edna Mae Barnes Martin and the East Side Christian Center
Wilma Rugh Taylor
Manufacturer: Indiana Historical Society
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0871951614

Book Description

First settled by African Americans in 1878, Indianapolis's east-side district of Martindale had, by the early 1940s, fallen on hard times. A bleak economic outlook had helped fuel a growing crime rate among the neighborhood's young people. Into this seemingly hopeless situation stepped a forty-four-year-old wife and mother who knew something about despair, having endured the death of a child. In 1941 the woman—Edna Barnes Martin—established a day care center for the children of working mothers, offering hope and security to countless young African Americans.

Amazon.com

We've heard about drive-by shootings and territorial battles in the news. "East Side Stories" brings the code, the lives, the words, and the hope of actual gang members to light in this stunning collection of essays, photographs, and an interview of ex-gang member Luis Rodriguez, now the author of five books and the recipient of several major awards. The labyrinthine rules and codes of gang life are examined and explained, while intimate photographs of "gang bangers" in their homes and with their families put a human face on what is, for many of us, just another story in the afternoon newspaper.

Luis Rodriguez explains in his interview that the demonization and false glorification of gang life has done much disservice to the termination of gang activity, activity which he defines as "90% boredom." What's the key to reduction of gang violence and improvement of inner-city lives, to the dissolution of prisons as a right of passage? Part of the solution lies in providing better education by informed and supportive teachers who are able to tap into the overlooked creativity in inner-city communities. And a great part lies in nationally understanding and supporting communities bound by poverty, and encouraging people to work together to help people work for themselves.

STREETS (Helen Rose Scheuer Jewish Women's)
Average customer rating:

I love that book!

I love that book!

Recommended to students of Jewish history & women's studies.

The early life of an unusual woman, with comedy and sadness

Fascinating, historical review

STREETS (Helen Rose Scheuer Jewish Women's)
BELLA, SPEWACK
Manufacturer: The Feminist Press at CUNY
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Out of the Shadow: A Russian Jewish Girlhood on the Lower East Side (Documents in American Social History)

Mount Allegro: A Memoir of Italian American Life (New York Classics)

Yekl and the Imported Bridegroom and Other Stories of Yiddish New York

Going Where I'm Coming from: Memoirs of American Youth (Emoirs of American Youth)

97 Orchard Street, New York: Stories of Immigrant Life

ASIN: 1558611533

Book Description

Â Â Â Born in Transylvania at the turn of the century, Bella Cohen Spewack arrived on the streets of New York's Lower East Side when she was three. At 22, while working as a reporter with her husband in Europe, she wrote this memoir of her early years, which she never chose to publish. The publication of Streets more than 70 years later recovers a remarkable voice and revivifies a lost world.

Â Â Â With a sense of the telling anecdote, the young Bella describes the sights and sounds of her neighborhood, and introduces a wide array of people as her family moves annually to save rent or find a still cheaper apartment. Her mother works as a live-in domestic, then takes on sewing and eventually boarders, as well as a new and unfriendly husband. Bella's world also includes two younger brothers, one of whom needs constant nursing.

Â Â Â Streets includes the story of Bella's high school years-her mother was determined to make "a lady" of her daughter and would not allow her to work in a factory-and ends before she meets and marries Sam Spewack. At once street-smart and unsentimental Bella is a sturdy American hero who overcomes life's obstacles in a world that will later welcome her as a celebrated author.

Customer Reviews:

I love that book!.......2001-07-22

this is my favorite book. if anyone has similar taste to me then i highly recommend them to read it.

i'm going to describe it as a story of a girl growing into a women on the streets of the lower east side of manhattan. she tells of different jobs and the boarders that her and her mother board to help pay the rent. its very hard for me to describe becuase of 2 reasons 1) you can't describe it you have to read it 2)i read it a year ago.

i was getting so into reading it that i never wanted it to end. to last forever. so i tried to do so by reading a limit of pages each day. i live in NYC and by reading the book i had grown a stronger love for the city and thats another reason i loved the book. i also loved the stories she has of her childhood. the down fall of the book? well, it was and made me sad. it was kinda a depressing book. you now. like a heart-acher.

it was indeed a pleasure to read and in the future, if you do read it, i hope you enjoy.

thats my review! i hope i helped!

I love that book!.......2001-07-22

this is my favorite book. if anyone has similar taste to me then i highly recommend them to read it. i was getting so into reading it that i never wanted it to end. to last forever. so i tried to do so by reading a limit of pages each day. i live in NYC and by reading the book i had grown a stronger love for the city and thats another reason i loved the book. the down fall of the book? well, it was and made me sad. it was kinda a depressing book. you now. like a heart-acher.

it was indeed a pleasure to read and in the future, if you do read it, i hope you injoy.

thats my review! i hope i helped!

Recommended to students of Jewish history & women's studies........2000-04-04

Streets: Memoir Of The Lower East Side was written in 1922 and published for the first time in 1955. This remarkable memoir of a young Jewish girl's coming of age in the tenement slums of New York's Lower East Side is gritty, candid, vivid, engaging, sensitive, and streetsmart. Bella Spewack overcame obstacles of gender, background, and religious discriminations to succeed as a celebrated journalist, playwright, and screenwriter. Streets is highly recommended, articulate reading and will prove of special interest to students of American Jewish history, Women's Studies, and biographies reflecting the triumph of the human spirit over social and cultural barriers.

The early life of an unusual woman, with comedy and sadness.......1999-09-09

This is a coming of age story depicting the harrowing early life of an extraordinary talent. Told with an amazing eye for detail and a highly developed sense of humor, this is one of the most moving autobiographies I have read. Bella Spewack writes of her thirst for knowledge and determination. In later life Bella invented the Girl Scout cookie, became a noted journalist and wrote successful plays and movies. Streets tells of the difficult circumstances of her childhood.

Fascinating, historical review.......1999-08-06

This book was written by a very eloquent author in 1922. At 23years of age, she carefully details her struggles of growing up inpoverty on the lower east side of Manhattan. This is one of a few books that deals with the difficulties faced by immigrants of to New York around the turn of the century. Her battles are those of a poor, Jewish girl growing up without a father in tenement housing. I thouroughly recommend this book to Jews, feminists and historians.

From Broadway to the Bowery: A History and Filmography of the Dead End Kids, Little Tough Guys, East Side Kids and Bowery Boys Films, with Cast Biographies

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From Broadway to the Bowery: A History and Filmography of the Dead End Kids, Little Tough Guys, East Side Kids and Bowery Boys Films, with Cast Biographies
Leonard Getz
Manufacturer: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Dead End

ASIN: 0786425350

Life on the Lower East Side: Photographs by Rebecca Lepkoff, 1937-1950

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Life on the Lower East Side: Photographs by Rebecca Lepkoff, 1937-1950
Peter E. Dans , and Suzanne Wasserman
Manufacturer: Princeton Architectural Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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New York Changing: Revisiting Berenice Abbott's New York
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ASIN: 1568986068

Book Description

Life on the Lower East Side, the first monograph of Lepkoff’s works, highlights the lost neighborhood between the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges from the Bowery to the East River. With over 170 beautifully reproduced duotone photographs and essays by Peter Dans and Suzanne Wasserman, the book reveals the dynamic community of Italians, Irish, Jews, Greeks, Spaniards, Chinese, Puerto Ricans, and African-Americans. Lepkoff’s images uncover a forgotten time and place and reveal how the Lower East Side has both stayed the same and changed forever.

An exhibition of the photographs presented in this book will be held at the Museum of the City of New York from October 2006.

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The Right Address
Carrie Karasyov , and Jill Kargman
Manufacturer: Broadway
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Wolves in Chic Clothing: A Novel
The Second Assistant: A Tale from the Bottom of the Hollywood Ladder
Bergdorf Blondes : A Novel
The Botox Diaries: A Novel
The Gift Bag Chronicles: A Novel

ASIN: 0767917219
Release Date: 2004-04-27

Amazon.com

Written by Carrie Karasyov and Jill Kargman, childhood friends who met at one of New York's most elite prep schools, The Right Address seeks to expose the cruel and wicked ways of the top echelon of the Park Avenue crowd. Peppered with seemingly unbelievable accounts of social-climbing at its worst, the characters in this novel glide from party to party, relishing every possible chance to destroy each other's reputation while simultaneously air-kissing one another. The story revolves around Melanie Sartomsky, a former airline stewardess who is thrust into the world of shatoosh parties ("they make cashmere feel like emery boards") and Narcolepsy benefits after she marries Arthur Korn, a billionaire who found his fortune in funeral homes. As Melanie tries to adjust to her new life, the authors expose us to the darker side of high society--steamy affairs between CEOs and their custodial staff, salacious scandals in Harlem flophouses, and a discreet arrangement between a kleptomaniac's husband and Tiffany, where this pedigreed socialite enjoys pocketing the wares.

A prime example of the Gossip Lit genre, which began its ascent after The Nanny Diaries and The Devil Wears Prada hit the scene, The Right Address could have been an amusing, albeit extreme, expose of the lives of the rich and well, rich. However, the unsteady cadence of the novel, coupled with the absence of any real human emotion, turn this effort into simply one nasty gossip session after another. The reader never feels invested in any of the many characters, and even when our heroine comes to her senses, there's no real sense of relief or delight. So while the tell-all nature of the book may make it hard to put down, the only real joy lies in the fact it ends quickly. --Gisele Toueg

Book Description

The Right Address sears through the upper crust of New York’s glittering Park Avenue scene to dish the dirt on the ladies who lunch, the gents who club, and the desperate climbers who will stop at nothing to join the backstabbing, champagne-sipping, socialite-eat-socialite stratosphere.

When Melanie Sartomsky, wily Floridian flight attendant, snares billionaire divorcée Arthur “the coffin king” Korn, she is catapulted into the crème de la crème of Park Avenue society, where hiring the wrong decorator is tantamount to social suicide, and where, if you’re anyone, your personal assistant has a personal assistant. But Melanie quickly discovers that in the world of the rich and idle, malicious gossip is as de rigeur as owning twenty pairs of Manolo Blahniks. And despite her frenzied plunge into the charity circuit and the right dinner reservations, her neighbors are Givenchy-clad vultures who see her as nothing more than a reinvented trailer trollop. To make matters worse, when a snide society-rag journalist rakes her over the coals, Melanie’s reputation is toast.

Meanwhile, Melanie is not the only billionaire in the neighborhood coming unhinged. Kleptomania, adultery, plagiarism, and a grisly Harlem sex murder are just a few of the secrets swirling under the pedigreed patina of furs and emeralds on Park Avenue.

Authors Jill Kargman and Carrie Karasyov know a thing or two about their subject matter. They met at the Upper East Side’s chic Spence School and claim that The Right Address is inspired by “the insane socialites we’ve eavesdropped on our entire lives.” Meow.

So kick off your Jimmy Choos, crack open the Veuve Clicquot, and get ready for a rollicking, unforgettable tour of the richer-and-bitchier-than-thou set.

A Secret Location On The Lower East Side: Adventures in Writing 1960-1980

Average customer rating:

An excellent overview

A Secret Location On The Lower East Side: Adventures in Writing 1960-1980
Jerome Rothenberg
Manufacturer: Granary Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Angel Hair Sleeps with a Boy in My Head: The Angel Hair Anthology
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ASIN: 1887123202
Release Date: 1998-09-02

Book Description

By Jerome Rothenberg. Contributions by Steven Clay, Rodney Phillips.

Customer Reviews:

An excellent overview.......2000-04-03

A Secret Location on the Lower East side is an excellent overview of independent publishing from 1960 - 1980. It focuses primarily on the mimeograph revolution and is particularly inspiring for those who wish to become independent publishers. However, this book should also be of interest to readers who are interested in the Beat Generation and the poets and writers who were inspired by the Beats.

The book contains an introduction by Jerome Rothenberg, and the majority of the book consists of burbs describing the individual small presses. As a result, the book combines the best aspects of a coffee table book (accessibilty and short pieces) and solid journalism.

Though the price may be a little high, it is a worthwhile investment for writers, publishers, and anyone interested in the literary movements the second half of the 20th century.

Caught Stealing
Average customer rating:

Stephen King was right

Yowzers!

A homerun regarding a reluctant hitman

Shades of Jim Thompson...or Hunter S.?

This is the place to start your discovery of Charlie Huston

Caught Stealing
Charlie Huston
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Six Bad Things: A Novel

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Rain Dogs

ASIN: 034546477X
Release Date: 2004-04-27

Book Description

It’s three thousand miles from the green fields of glory, where Henry “call me Hank” Thompson once played California baseball, to the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where the tenements are old, the rents are high, and the drunks are dirty. But now Hank is here, working as a bartender and taking care of a cat named Bud who is surely going to get him killed.

It begins when Hank’s neighbor, Russ, has to leave town in a rush and hands over Bud in a carrier. But it isn’t until two Russians in tracksuits drag Hank over the bar at the joint where he works and beat him to a pulp that he starts to get the idea: Someone wants something from him. He just doesn’t know what it is, where it is, or how to make them understand he doesn’t have it.

Within twenty-four hours Hank is running over rooftops, swinging his old aluminum bat for the sweet spot of a guy’s head, playing hide and seek with the NYPD, riding the subway with a dead man at his side, and counting a whole lot of cash on a concrete floor.

All because of two cowboys, two Russian mafia men, and some of the weirdest goons ever assembled in one place. All because of Bud. All because once, in another life, in another world, the only thing Hank wanted was to take third base—without getting caught.

Download Description

It's three thousand miles from the green fields of glory, where Henry "call me Hank" Thompson once played California baseball, to the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where the tenements are old, the rents are high, and the drunks are dirty. But now Hank is here, working as a bartender and taking care of a cat named Bud who is surely going to get him killed.

It begins when Hank's neighbor, Russ, has to leave town in a rush and hands over Bud in a carrier. But it isn't until two Russians in tracksuits drag Hank over the bar at the joint where he works and beat him to a pulp that he starts to get the idea: Someone wants something from him. He just doesn't know what it is, where it is, or how to make them understand he doesn't have it.

Within twenty-four hours Hank is running over rooftops, swinging his old aluminum bat for the sweet spot of a guy's head, playing hide and seek with the NYPD, riding the subway with a dead man at his side, and counting a whole lot of cash on a concrete floor.

All because of two cowboys, two Russian mafia men, and some of the weirdest goons ever assembled in one place. All because of Bud. All because once, in another life, in another world, the only thing Hank wanted was to take third base—without getting caught.

"Wow! Brutal, visceral, violent, edgy, and brilliant."
   HARLAN COBEN, AUTHOR OF NO SECOND CHANCE

"Caught Stealing reads like The Maltese Falcon on crack. Tarantino meets Hitchcock meets Westlake meets Bukowski in a wild, relentlessly entertaining ride filled with vivid and colorful—but always believable—characters."
    WALLACE STROBY, AUTHOR OF THE BARBED-WIRE KISS

"It's hard enough for a writer to hit his mark, but Charlie Huston shreds his target with his first bullet fired. A frighteningly assured debut novel."
   JOHN RIDLEY, AUTHOR OF STRAY DOGS AND THE DRIFT

Customer Reviews:

Stephen King was right.......2007-06-09

I read Stephen King's summer reading recommendation of Caught Stealing in the NY Times Book Review on 6/3/07, picked it up, and ... wow, he was right!! Characters and setting are VIVID.. it would make a great movie. Love the cat (he should have had a bigger role).

Yowzers!.......2007-05-24

This book is violent and gruesome, but entertaining as all get out. I've never read anything like Huston before and its pretty fun. Just gotta take it with a grain of salt.

A homerun regarding a reluctant hitman.......2007-04-06

I came across the Henry Thompson series, of which "Caught Stealing" is the first of the trilogy, by what turned out to be a fortuitous accident. Huston is a terrific writer, concise and totally engaging. The stories are quite violent but that befits the subject and the tone of the story. His character, Henry Thompson, grabs at you and compels you to root for him even as events force him into steps he could never imagine taking. Once I finished I was driven to finish parts 2 and 3 and found them as good as the first. Unless you like your stories very sedate, this is a great series, well worth discovering.

Shades of Jim Thompson...or Hunter S.?.......2007-03-14

This is one of the best first novels I've read in a long time. The author has created an interesting character who's not a particularly bad guy, but who gets into a predicament through no fault of his own, and is pulled down in a spiral of violence, greed, and betrayal that just keeps going at a rocket-ship pace.

Henry "Hank" Thompson (a name picked perhaps as an homage to Jim?) was once a high school baseball prodigy, his career ended before it ever started by a broken leg. He drifted into crime, dropped out of college, drifted to New York City with a girl who promptly dumped him, and wound up tending bar in a grungy place and living in a tiny, crappy apartment. His biggest worry, now, is that his job is killing his feet, and he's in debt. He drinks too much and smokes the occasional joint.

Then his neighbor from across the hallway leaves his cat with Hank for the weekend while he goes to visit his sick father, a pair of outrageous Russians in bad-taste tracksuits beat him up so badly the doctor has to remove one of his kidneys, and suddenly everyone's trying to kill him, or at least interrogate him about things he doesn't understand. They all seem to be looking for something he doesn't have.

This is an excellent first novel. The author is sure with his plot and characters, and though there are a few things that are at least sort of unbelievable, it's a good story and it moves right along. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in this sort of story.

This is the place to start your discovery of Charlie Huston.......2007-03-09

Great book - you'll rip through this no time. Fast Pace. Death Death and more death. Excellent book!!!!

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