German Home Towns: Community, State, and General Estate 1648-1871

Book Description

"German Home Towns certainly illuminates habits of life in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries which were as distinctively German as the peasant world of Grimm's Fairy Tales."--Times Literary Supplement

Originally published in 1971, German Home Towns has been out of print for many years. Cornell University Press is pleased to make this classic book available again for the first time in a paperback edition.

"[German Home Towns] is a book of the first importance. . . . [It] is a compelling illustration of what can be achieved by historians who abandon over-cropped Prussia and Austria in favor of the still unexploited regions of the 'Third Germany.'"--English Historical Review

Amazon.com

When Rob Walker and his girlfriend relocated to New Orleans in 2000, Walker (a regular contributor to The New York Times Magazine) started filling his friends' email inboxes with tales of adventures from his new home. Those stories--capturing the simple, everyday, and often unbelievable moments that regularly transpired in the Crescent City--are the basis for the fascinating Letters from New Orleans. Here, the author describes the parades and jazz funerals not as a tourist would see them, but from behind the scenes, amidst the personalities. Over the course of 20 or so vignettes, Walker finds himself in dive bars that should probably be condemned; bicycling through an improvised community park that happens to exist directly below a busy freeway overpass; and mulling the consequences of random, celebratory gun firings that appear to be a regular occurrence in New Orleans. Throughout, Walker is the perfect fly on the wall; he's equal parts journalist, anthropologist, and tour guide. He devotes his energy equally to the beautiful, the downtrodden, and the wacky, but these are clearly love letters to the unique people of New Orleans. Walker is, quite simply, infatuated with his adopted city. With the 2005 flooding of Hurricane Katrina happening just months after the publishing of this book, these pieces serve as even more poignant snapshots; some of Walker's favorite landmarks may be gone forever. With that in mind, the author is devoting the proceeds from this wonderful effort to Katrina victims. --Jason Verlinde

Book Description

In January of 2000, Rob Walker left a high-powered media job in New York, and with his girlfriend, moved to New Orleans. Letters from New Orleans collects, in one volume, the delightful and unsettling observations Walker sent to friends and fans about his intriguing new life in New Orleans.

Customer Reviews:

In "the land of dreams".......2007-02-06

I've never drunk and eaten my way through an hours' long lunch at Galatoire's. I don't own a white suit nor do I normally hang out in jazz clubs. Sleazy bars may possess charms, but I seldom indulge. I've never dug the Comus or Zulu krewes or jumped for mass-produced Chinese beads in the streets. This is all because I've never been to New Orleans. But I've done the next best thing---read Rob Walker's LETTERS FROM NEW ORLEANS. What I liked about Walker's emailed letters to his family and friends that later got collected into a slim volume is that they offer a view of the city that is far more sombre and penetrating than the one we used to get before Katrina turned the place into a bad news hub. Yeah, "The Big Easy" definitely had its downside even before floods killed hundreds and destroyed the low-lying sections. Murder in the projects was not unknown pre-Katrina, corruption, decay, and poverty ruled much of New Orleans behind the tourist glitz. Your quaint atmosphere of down-at-heel tradition rested on the stunted lives of a lot of black folks who were caught in an old web. I never had a great desire to visit the place, not thinking someone else's misfortune very picturesque. Still, reading Walker's letters, I felt that I got the feel of it---small details, a chance conversation that you might not have elsewhere, strange characters in electric blue suits, church music. He doesn't intrude much into his descriptions, yet you feel that he liked the place, he didn't judge it with the amused or jaundiced eye of many others. Small incidents reveal many facets of the city---the controversy over a fired waiter, explorations of a freeway ramp, attending a jazz funeral, a burning teddy bear at an annual bonfire. I liked the conclusions Walker drew--not sweeping, drastic ones, but more like collections of observations and questions left to the reader. The small black and white photographs that fill the book are strangely obtuse. They hint at things rather than illustrate them grandly and perhaps that sums up this charming little book.

P.S. If you ever wanted to know stuff about the song "St. James' Infirmary" but were afraid to ask, rest easy. It's all in here.

Read it aloud, read to yourself, just read it.......2006-03-25

If you've yet to visit New Orleans, the candid "snapshots" of Walker's letters will surely entice. If you're familiar with the city, you'll nod your head & sigh in remembrance - & hope for the future to be as sadly sweet & savory - & unsavory; yeah that, too, as the past. These "letters" capture the crazy ambience of the whole package perfectly.
I am curious about one small detail, why DID the author leave?

Like being there again!.......2006-03-19

In my 65+ years, New Orleans is the place I have returned to most often, almost like a second home. This compilation of writings--done before Katrina--echo mine experiences so closely, I get the feeling that the "Spell" of this great city affects others like it did and does me.
I was in New Orleans when as Katrina approached and the Mayor urged visitors to leave. I was lucky to get three connecting flights home to California. "Letters from New Orleans" was like a balm which I needed to feel something other than sorrow.

nice snapshot.......2006-03-10

This book started out as a nice snapshot of the characters in New Orleans. About halfway in, it devolved into a sociology disseration on the racial/class ills of the city. I grew up there and am well aware of the problems. Some of the ideas put forth by the author were simplistic at best. Otherwise, a pretty good book.

Real New Orleans.......2005-12-27

I've collected dozens of books about New Orleans, all in an attempt to further my understanding of the mysterious love affair so many of us have with the Crescent City.

In "Letters From New Orleans," Walker examines his own love affair by crafting slice-of-life vignettes shot through with the kind of colors and detail that make the reader want to tumble right down the rabbit hole with him.

Walker gets gets off Bourbon Street and gets real. "Letters From New Orleans" is personal and yet has wonderful, broad appeal owing to Walker's skill as a writer and storyteller. One need not have lived there or even visited to enjoy this book, but those who have had the pleasure of New Orleans, will be further delighted (and educated). It left me wanting more. I've read it three times; I'll read it again.

As for books about New Orleans, this little gem is a huge must. It captures the wackiness, the peculiarities, the enchantment and the "je ne sais quoi" that makes this American city unlike all the others. Rob Walker is donating the proceeds to hurricane relief efforts, which makes reading it even sweeter.

Motor City Blue (The Amos Walker Series #1)

Average customer rating:

The afterward explains a lot!
motor city blue by loren d. estleman
Excellent P.I. Series Debut
the next elmore leonard is here!

Motor City Blue (The Amos Walker Series #1)
Loren D. Estleman
Manufacturer: I Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0671038982

Book Description

"If I see my name in tomorrow's paper yours will be in the next edition. Bordered in black."

Marla Bernstein is a pretty, dark-haired teenager? who also happens to be the ward of Ben Morningstar-a semi-retired mobster who prefers to keep family business out of the newspapers. When Marla suddenly disappears, the gang boss is forced to call in private eve Amos Walker, who quickly learns his new employer doesn't take "no" for an answer when he offers a job opportunity.

Unfortunately, the only clue to Marla's whereabouts is a pornographic photograph that clearly proves that she's become part of a world that disgusts even her criminal guardian. .

The photo, in turn leads Walker into the seedy world of Detroit's porn shops and blue movies, where Marla's trail becomes even murkier?.and increasingly more dangerous to follow. .

As first cases go, Walker could have certainly asked for one less challenging?...

You can share your thoughts about Loren D.

Download Description

The first ever Amos Walker mystery; Marla Bernstein is a pretty, dark-haired teenager … who also happens to be the ward of Ben Morningstar - a simi-retired mobster who prefers to keep the family business out of the newspapers. When Marla suddenly disappears, the gang boss is forced to call in private eye Amos Walker. Unfortunately, the only clue to her whereabouts is a pornographic photograph that leads Walker into the seedy world of Detroit's porn shops and blue movies, where Marla's trail becomes even murkier ... and increasingly more dangerous to follow.

Customer Reviews:

The afterward explains a lot!.......2006-05-13

If MOTOR CITY BLUE sounds like an old movie, there's a good reason. Author Loren D. Estleman explains in an afterward that as a kid he was a fan of film noir. When he set out to make a living as an author, he wanted to imitate the writers whose books were made into movies: Dashiel Hammet, Raymond Chandler, Micey Spillane et. al. He picked the 1975 Chandler vehicle FAREWELL, MY LOVELY as an inspiration for MOTOR CITY BLUE.

Estleman's hero, Amos Walker, could pass for Phillip Marlowe or Travis McGee. He's a big lug who wears a snap-brim fedora, smokes too much, keeps a bottle of whiskey in his office drawer, and drives a Cutlass with a Cadillac engine. Like McGee, he gets beats beat up a lot; at one point two thugs pistol whip him. He also has a police connection on the force, detective John Alderdyce, the only true black man he's ever known.

The plot isn't much. Walker is hired to find the ward of ancient mafioso, Ben Morningstar. Estleman tries very hard to bend the stereotypes concerning organized crime, but in the end he choses an ex-hockey player as a bodyguard for Morningstar who looks more like a thug than a conventional hood.

There are too many characters in MOTOR CITY BLUE, more characters than in a Russian novel, Estleman says in his afterward. You would think you'd be able to remember the main ones at the end of the novel. I consistently found myself paging back a few pages to try to figure out who some of these people were.

Like Elmore Leonard, Estleman chose Detroit as a setting. I recognized a lot of place names like Grosse Point and Rouge Road, but that didn't help bring Detroit to life for me; the setting might as well have been Battle Creek for all the difference it makes in the plot.

Estleman spends so much time trying to sound like Chander that it interferes with the flow of the novel. But, remarkably, he succeeds. Listen to this: "The air was as bitter as a stiffed hooker and smelled of auto exhaust." And this, "Together they led him to the car like a whipped spaniel."

MOTOR CITY BLUE was published in 1980. For once I thought I'd try an author at the beginning of his career. Estleman has a new one out entitled, NICOTINE KISS, that I plan to read. I look forward to comparing the two.

motor city blue by loren d. estleman.......2004-06-28

this story is well writen, You get more than your money's worth Amos Walker private Eye is the main character in this novel,, He is in the rythm of investigating a client from the front of an apartment building when he sees his old seargent from army days accosted by two Secret service men who warn him to butt out when he attemps to inquire,he is still curious so talks with a newsbuddy of his Barry Stackpole. Later he talks with his Police buddy who hates to see him coming and explains what he saw. In the same day he is grabbed by goons from the head of the detroit underworld Old Ben Morningstar who happens to be jewish and to be retired,he is about 80 years old. Ben Morningstar forced another assignment on him,he is to search through the Detroit Porno industry and find Old Ben's niece. In the course of his search he is beatten up and almost killed in his search. At appropriate times Amos Walker gives the history of detroit as well as his cynical view of humanity,he confronts Old Ben at the appropriate time with his findings, A number of people end up dead before he is able to reach them but he finds the girl who does not want to be found.

Excellent P.I. Series Debut.......2001-02-19

Loren D. Estleman has talent to burn and it shows in his first novel featuring private detective Amos Walker (originally published in 1980). Like any good P.I., Walker doesn't work the streets of his native Detroit, he INHABITS them. Also like any good P.I., Walker drinks a little too much despite his cynicism, cares a little too much and his personal life leaves a lot to be desired. The plot is more complex than is the norm with such stories, and perhaps it pushes credibility a bit towards the end. Nevertheless, Estleman has both talent and style to burn. He is among the best at using metaphors to describe the action.

Fans of John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee, Lawrence Block's Matthew Scudder, George Pellaconos's Nick Stefanos and Johnathan Valin's Harry Stoner will love Amos Walker.

the next elmore leonard is here!.......2000-02-10

if you like it noir, you'll like it Estleman

Average customer rating:

Doesn't live up to the hype
Overrated
Remarkable imagination, remarkable writer
Simply Exquisite
a wakling god

A Walker in the City
Alfred Kazin
Manufacturer: Harvest Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0156941767

Amazon.com

In A Walker in the City, Alfred Kazin recalls his childhood in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn with such tactile specificity that readers, too, will smell "that good and deep odor of lox, of salami, of herrings and half-sour pickles" that emanated from the neighborhood pushcarts. His story is set in the working-class Jewish community of New York City in the decade preceding the Great Depression, but this classic memoir of the first-generation American experience resonates universally. Kazin depicts his younger self as a smart, unhappy kid who dreamed of escape from a confining local landscape. He found in books the road map to a freer territory. In Kazin's case, this was "the city" ("everything just out of Brownsville") whose glamorous institutions--the New York Public Library, the Metropolitan Museum, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden--spoke of an American past and an intellectual community that this son of eastern European immigrants was determined to make his own. (And he did, with his pioneering 1942 critical work, On Native Grounds, published when he was just 27.) Yet Kazin came to understand that the roots he had been so anxious to tear up were the source of his deepest identity. His loving portrait of his past acknowledges the crucial importance of belonging, even as it affirms the compelling necessity of escape. What could be more American? --Wendy Smith

Book Description

Kazin’s memorable description of his life as a young man as he makes the journey from Brooklyn to “americanca”-the larger world that begins at the other end of the subway in Manhattan. A classic portrayal of the Jewish immigrant culture of the 1930s. Drawings by Marvin Bileck.

Customer Reviews:

Doesn't live up to the hype.......2006-05-31

A Walker in the City seems like a book that I should like. Critically acclaimed and lauded, i expected it would be wonderful. Granted, Kazin has a way with words and description unlike most, however, "A Walker" simply bored me. Reading it in comparison to McCourts Angela's Ashes for a college course, I can't help but wish Kazin had resisted the temptation to describe everything in detail and tell us more about the people. He ends the book talking about a romantic relationship, yet tells nothing of the girl, simply the reservoir and park in which they walked. I can't help but almost be angry that he seems to have no value for human relationships, he rather bury his nose in a book or stare at a brick wall on the street. I see this book as missing the mark, having potential and good qualities but overall being an overdramatic, over-emotional boring description of his emotions and surroundings. "give me a break"

Overrated.......2005-03-31

I first read A WALKER IN THE CITY as an adolescent, and the book impressed me, in that mysterious way that things that we know "should" impress us can do.

I re-read WALKER as an adult and, by modern standards, I think that it is overrated.

It is long and rambling and self-indulgent.

By rights, A WALKER IN THE CITY should have resonated for me, since my own father had grown up in Brownsville, exactly the same neighborhood that author Alfred Kazin describes, and at virtually the same time.

Yet I found little about Brownsville in this dreary memoir; it simply explores the rather maudlin sentiments of the young Kazin. Swifty Lazar, the late literary agent who was renowned for representing men of letters, as opposed to being a man of letters himself, had offered a far more compelling description of life in that same Brownsville in his own memoir.

No, WALKER only is about Kazin and his adolescent imagination, his theories about those who lived in places other than Brownsville (to wit, "the city") and about his personal (and intensely idiosynchratic, if not peculiar) yearnings.

There are points in which he uses Yiddish without offering a translation, and even a section in which he lapses into high-school French, again with no translation. His use of language often seems strained and self-conscious, such as using the word "plash" as--I think--a synonym for "splash."

Insofar as much of the book had been printed in contemporary magazines as essays, the format here has cobbled together several essays into a memoir. In consequence, this memoir could have used better editing, since things that are fully explained on their first mention do not need the identical explanations further into the book; such styling would be reasonable in a series of magazine pieces, but not in a volume offered as a cohesive work.

I cannot help wondering whether A WALKER IN THE CITY, first published in 1946, would be as enthusiastically received if it first saw print today. It strikes me as the literary equivalent of the Emperor's new clothes.

Remarkable imagination, remarkable writer.......2005-01-26

Alfred Kazin's eminently readable memoir of his childhood and adolescent life growing up in a Jewish enclave in New York City during the early decades of the twentieth century, offer certain insight into the realities of the cityscape but most enjoyably his personality. The first lines - 'Every time I go back to Brownsville it is as if I had never been away' - are not mere platitudes, but rather establish the style of the book and the indelible connection between the author and the city. Kazin at times meanders with his storytelling and rememberances of the textures of the city, of Brownsville and it's inhabitants, but like any good writer who has developed a truly authentic voice, he redraws the reader into the narrative, into himself. And for Kazin - and vicariously for the reader - the city, his experiences of Brownsville, and the inhabitants are bound into a seamless whole. Kazin seems at his best when he parrots the coyly yearning adolescent male. I couldn't help but smile at one particular scene in which he described an older, married, and forlorn woman, who's mysticism piqued his youthful interest. 'How did you address your shameful secret love when she walked into a kitchen, and sat down with you, and smiled, smiled nervously, never fitting herself to the great design?' the sly youth pondered, for in his imagination, which Leo Tolstoy too inhabited, she was his Anna. This scene was one of several anecdotes that I found myself smiling at as I read, enjoying the author's wit, prose, and storytelling ability.
If one reads for the love of language and for the imagination, this book will not disappoint.

Simply Exquisite.......2005-01-04

In the 1940s, Alfred Kazin (1915-1998) revisited his Brooklyn childhood in the short yet elegant memoir, A WALKER IN THE CITY. It is a stunning literary work, with the added bonus of getting a rare close-up view of a particular culture in a particular time and place that might otherwise be lost in oblivion.

The culture is the Yiddish enclave of the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, circa 1920s and the coming of the Great Depression. To the young boy, it was the entire planet, one that throbbed with the food, language and traditions of old world immigrants who want their children to preserve their ways but avail American education. The neighborhood's minorities include the Italian peddlers, the gentile school principal, and the African American population that is beginning to settle at the edges, on Livonia Avenue. It is a time of change: in the streets there are Zionist, Socialist, Communist, and union proclamations. Young women are bewildering their elders with their independence and new thoughts on marriage. As Kazin grows older, he begins to experience "the beyond" as well: the world brought in by films and literature, the wonders of "the city" (Manhattan), the mysteries of the human condition.

The telling of his story is golden. It's as if Kazin is a cinematographer, his prose growing more colorful as he slips from a walk in the present back into memory. He plays to all the senses with vivid imagery. His rhythmic prose is effortlessly lyrical. So precise is his description, that when I looked up a map of Brooklyn, the streets he named are all exactly where he laid them out in my mind.

a wakling god.......2001-09-16

This book without a doubt is the best book I have read ever.
Its clear and simple english make it a breath of freshair
to read.

Book Description

Returning home to the small Louisiana parish where he had praticed psychiatry, Dr. Tom More quickly notices something strange occuring with the townfolk, a loss of inhibitions. Behind this mystery is a dangerous plot drug the local water supply, and a discovery that takes More into the underside of the American search for happiness.

Customer Reviews:

Indeed the apes are our cousins.......2007-08-24

Only we are not descended from them but have descended into them.

A terrifying look at what we've become. words,words, words. Words disconnected from words, from reality. Mind disconnected from reality. In sum words without meaning, sex without meaning = life without meaning. As usual, Percy tries to focus our attention on postmodern man's meaningless.

Frightening indeed.

If you don't get it, I'm sorry. A small caveat: this is Percy at his most obscene also. Personally, I prefer Helprin. Percy is a bit depressing.

Great Book.......2007-05-26

This is an exciting mystery novel that talks about a doctor who gets back from jail and notices changes in his hometown which leads him on an investigation as to what is going on. Huge subtle theme on human life/euthanasia

Yuck!.......2007-01-06

Man, oh man, I think this is one of the worst books I've ever read. If I could give The Thanatos Syndrome negative stars, I would!

Seriously, half way through, I came to Amazon to see how bad other people thought it was. Boy was I shocked to see that almost all of these reviews were positive!

I found the book bizarre, unfocused and poorly written. The volcabulary repeatedly seems misused. The plot is not reasonable given the safeguards that US funding agencies have in place with regards to human experimentation. The physics, engineering, psychology, medical chemistry and biology are uninformed and unrealistic. Characters are introduced as though they will be important to the outcome, only to have them dissipate. And so on.

The characters don't even seem like real people. For example, the main character recognizes his cousin by seeing her ankles - and only her ankles - flashing below a curtain, and yet he is apparently unaware of what degree of cousins they are. How could someone know a person that well, but still only have a vague idea of how they were related by blood? Or: one of the more reliable male characters blows duck hunting calls at women he finds attractive - as though he really thinks this will attract them. C'mon, if the guys a nut (and anyone who tries to seduce women by talking 'duck' to them is nuts!), write him as a nut the whole way through, don't make him the cornerstone of reliability at the book's climax!

The book's title isn't even explained, for crying out loud. Thanatos means death in Greek, I believe, but I could never understand what the author/editors/audience thought was dying.

I won't read this one again, nor will I look for anything else by Percy Walker.

A Smart Book.......2005-07-03

The Thanatos Syndrome was Percy's last novel before his death, and in many ways it is his final triumph.

It is one of Percy's great gifts to use absurdity and humour to introduce the gravest of concerns. Not surprisingly, therefore, Percy uses the comic genre of a detective novel. Thanatos breezes through a series of interviews with aberrant and suspicious characters, sleuthing, romance and false leads, en route to the creation of a casefile of premeditated wrongdoing. But like Dostoevsky (who also made use of the detective novel), Percy's intent is not primarily on spinning a good whodunnit, but on motivation and human character. The picture is shocking and even funny (particularly in the denouement), but it is certainly not pretty.

Readers looking for a joyous romp through the bayous or else the pacified work of a Catholic apologist need not bother with this book. Not only is this novel disturbingly explicit at times, it contains a Grand Inquisitorial holocaust memoir. While connections to late 20th century America and the Weimar elite run the risk of exaggeration, Percy's AWOL anchorite priest, Father Smith, certainly gives much to think about. Does tenderness really lead to the gas chambers?

Thanatos is actually a sequel to another dystopian drama, Love in the Ruins (1971). Connections to the earlier book, however, are broad and thematic. The protagonist is still Dr. Tom More, the randy bad catholic, fence-sitting introvert, and disturbed, marginalized expert on cortical functions and heavy sodium. Little mention is made, however, of More's lapsometer, of futuristic technology, the Ecuadorian conflict, or the racial and partisan conflict characteristic of Percy's earlier book. It is less a novel about 'the end of the world' than it is about the decay of civilization.

A disarming, smart book.

A Brave New World.......2004-01-05

This is my first book by Walker Percy, but it won't be my last.*

The asterisk? I give this story only a luke-warm review. Yes, the plot does have a thought-provoking dystopian element to it, and it does include the kind of important and bold examination of good and evil that I have heard Mr. Percy is known for. But it can also be blunt at times, and also I wonder if some of the sex-related discourse and the protagonist's navel gazing were necessary parts of the story.

What saved the day here was the talented Mr. Percy's crisp and compelling writing style. By the time I was finished with The Thanatos Syndrome, I had the impression that Mr. Percy could make a computer instruction manual seem gripping. His turns of phrase, characterizations, efficient dialogue, and ability to move the narrative forward with apparent effortlessness are rare qualities indeed.

What makes the writing work so well is its subtlety -- it all seems to mesh so naturally. And that is something that in some ways works against a story line that is at least on some level obvious and predictable.

Product Description

The bands that spearheaded the late 70s punk scene in Australia the Saints, the Birthday Party, Radio Birdman and the Go-Betweens are among the most important of their time. Inner City Sound is the classic account of the explosive development of that scene. Original articles from fanzines and newspapers, together with almost 300 photographs, vividly portray the creative ferment of the period and the dozens of bands that sprang up in the wake of the pioneers, including the Scientists, Severed Heads, Sunnyboys, Hunters and Collectors and many more. Inner City Sound was first published in late 1981, as the postpunk scene was approaching its zenith, but soon fell out of print. It became a lost classic, so sought after that it has been bootlegged like the rare singles listed in its discography, and its influence was so seminal it actually helped shape the Australian indie rock scene of the following decade. With this new edition, Inner City Sound is back in print for the first time in over 20 years. Editor Clinton Walker has added 32 extra pages of articles, photos and discographical data, which take the story through to its real resolution around 1985, when Nick Cave, the Go-Betweens, the Triffids, and others began to break through internationally. Its DIY graphics, high-octane prose and many rare images make Inner City Sound a crucial part of the culture it portrays.

Average customer rating:

The East End Plays: Part 1
George F. Walker
Manufacturer: Talonbooks
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0889224137

Average customer rating:

CHOICES
please don't miss this review,because this book is terrific.
dreams of inner city teenager

Hoop Dreams
Paul Robert Walker
Manufacturer: Turner Publishing, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1570361975

Customer Reviews:

CHOICES.......2001-02-24

Hoop Dreams gives the world an opportunity to learn about Arthur Agee, William Gates and their families. More importantly, this book is an opportunity for the reader to improve the quality of their own life by taking an intorspective look at family values, choices, and career dreams.

please don't miss this review,because this book is terrific........1999-01-06

This book tells the hardships of living in a poor inner city apartment, hoping that one day you will make it to the NBA. It tells two true storys that actually happened.How that playground kids put in the effort to get a scholarship for basketball from Isah Thomas's former highschool.It tells what life after basketball is, and how living with not much can still mean living.This book captures what reading is all about, learning things about places that you may of never been before.This book is one of the beest biographies ever, anybody who knows and understands basketball should read, and love this book.The book is better than the movie.

dreams of inner city teenager.......1997-05-14

The book was well organized and well written. I was able to understand how two young yeenagers experince life in thier low budget enviroment. And to them they see that basketball is their only way out of the inner city. Overall I feel that this book can help out many teenagers that think that playing in the NBA is the only way out of proverty

Shadows in the White City: An Inspector Alastair Ransom Mystery (Inspector Alastair Ransom Mysteries)

Average customer rating:

History and murder combined nicely with great characters
Fast Read, Fun Mystery...
Butcher City
Thud-and-Blunder in the White City
Brilliant mystery

Shadows in the White City: An Inspector Alastair Ransom Mystery (Inspector Alastair Ransom Mysteries)
Robert W. Walker
Manufacturer: Harper
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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ASIN: 0060739967
Release Date: 2007-03-27

Book Description

The nation and the world gaze in awe at Chicago's magnificent "White City" in this summer of 1893. But Inspector Alastair Ransom sees the rot beneath the splendor of the great Exposition—and he is consumed with an over-powering need for vengeance. "The Phantom of the Fair," a blood-thirsty fiend who nearly added Ransom to his ever-growing list of slaughtered victims, is still lurking somewhere in the shadows of Ferris's gargantuan Wheel. And to end the maniac's reign, Ransom refuses to play by the rules established by the police brass and the corrupt politicians—appointing himself judge, jury . . . and executioner.

But white-hot hatred and zealous fury can blind a determined manhunter to a more terrible truth. And dangerous missteps may lead to even greater bloodshed . . .

Customer Reviews:

History and murder combined nicely with great characters.......2007-07-18

Inspector Alastair Ransom is fighting more than just the heat in 1893 Chicago. He's fighting murder (which he's not above committing himself for the "right" reasons); his superiors on the police force (who aren't above murder if it's to their benefit); and public opinion (which the inspector couldn't care less about--unless it helps or hinders his quest to get to the truth).

While the world's attention is centered on the wonders of the great fair, children are being slaughtered in a heinous fashion. Beyond the glamour and laughter, beyond where the average person will look, evil lurks in the shadows of the city, making the most vulnerable its prey. No one other than Alastair Ransom has the tenacity or the single-mindedness to combat evil and corruption in order to make the city safe.

But lest you think Ransom is some sort of a super hero--he's not.

This is the first Robert Walker book I've read. Perhaps because I don't read many historical novels of any genre, or perhaps because I hadn't read the predecessor, City for Ransom--it seemed to start a little slow. I found Ransom tedious in his trigger anger, and the repetition of thoughts and events overdone. But I stuck with it, mainly because of Walker's reputation. And I'm glad I did.

Walker paints a time and place of gas-lit street lamps and horse-drawn carriages--a time on the dawn of great inventions waiting to catapult this country into a different age. He brings people into our lives who are forward thinking and compassionate, and whose hearts are hardened and feel their cruelty justified.

By the end of Shadows in the White City, I felt a kinship with 1893 Chicago and many of the characters Walker has drawn and given dimension to. Even his secondary characters are fully formed and interesting in their own right.

And Ransom? I would be proud to count him as a friend.

Armchair Interviews says: Shadows in the White City is highly recommended.

Fast Read, Fun Mystery..........2007-07-04

I have not read the first book in this series (yet), but reading the prequel isn't required for the reader to pick up on the storyline of Walker's second Alastair Ransom mystery right away.

As has been pointed out elsewhere, SHADOWS IN THE WHITE CITY contains some minor historical errors, such as the use of phonographs for background music when at the time only expensive, poor-quality wax cylinders were in use--but I would not hold this mystery to the same standard I'd hold a historical novel to. Mysteries are meant to be entertaining, delivering a suspenseful, page-turning plot peppered with unexpected twists. And that is something Walker's second book in this Alastair Ransom series does very well.

The environs aren't painted completely enough by the text for me to imagine more than just bits and pieces of Chicago in 1893, which is the setting for this story. This is what cost the book its fifth star, as I expected a stronger visual impression. The characters are not deeply developed, but the dialogue between them more than makes up for that. Walker's characters speak in period prose that reads as naturally as any dialogue I've ever seen. It is the mark of an experienced author. The plot is lean. Walker didn't include any long, gratuitous digressions such as I'd be tempted to skip over.

Crime in 1893 Chicago is nasty business. The murders are horrific and vividly described, enough so it may make some readers squeamish. Having said that, I appreciate the author didn't pull his punches.

SHADOWS IN THE WHITE CITY builds into a nail-biting suspense soon after the middle, and becomes difficult to put down. I eagerly await the sequel, CITY OF THE ABSENT.

-Byron C. Justice,
Author of VIOLENT NIGHT
Violent Night

Butcher City.......2007-06-21

The gaslights are aglow once more in Chicago. Once more the gentle castanets of horse shoe on cobble stone echoes down the gloomy corridors of the "Butcher City." Again Inspector Ransom must prowl the dank night mist, for it seems that more than mere cattle grease and drip from the butchers block.
The Inspector has his hands full with more than the stout cane he sports. He must destroy an evil that breaches the confines of body and soul. The good Inspector must lower himself to the depravity of his prey.
This second installment spurs the Ransom series on. I see the Edgar Award nomination for Shadows. Can't wait for the next book. "Thank you Sir, may we have another?" John Novak

Thud-and-Blunder in the White City.......2007-06-10

This is a historical mystery set in Chicago by an author who obviously doesn't know Jack ... er, stuff about Chicago history. Consider this passage:

"Still ... we have to cover the bases, boys."

"Cover the what?" asked Behan.

Logan explained, "It's an expression, comes out of cricket, and now that new game people are betting on, base on balls." [Page 153 of the paperback edition]

Now, since it had been made abundantly clear long before page 153 that the World's Columbian Exposition was going on in full swing, although rapidly coming to its scheduled end, this exchange of dialogue must be dated to September or October 1893. Considering that the Chicago Cubs (ironically established under the name of Chicago White Stockings) started in 1874 and became founder-members of the National League in 1876, ending their inaugural season as the pennant winners with a 52-14 record, the cricket reference and the strange unfamiliarity with baseball terminology jangle--to say the least! (And don't forget that Thayer's "Casey at the Bat" had been a continent-wide hit since 1888.)

The jangling just goes on and on. The head of the Police Department is repeatedly called the Chief rather than the Superintendent. The sub-title of the book is "An Inspector Alastair Ransom Mystery". Considering that the rank structure of the Chicago force at the time consisted of a Superintendent, captains, lieutenants, sergeants and patrolmen, it's a bit difficult to see just where an "Inspector" fits. The plain fact that "Inspector" Ransom reports directly to the "Chief" (whom he despises) and to no-one else in the entire department is even more puzzling. No-one seems to work for Ransom, either, except for two other "inspectors" temporarily placed under his direction for the duration of a single investigation.

There are odd lapses of thought, suggesting a deplorable lack of proofreading and editing. My favorite is this: "Alastair, you have to remember our reality is an absolute three-hundred-sixty degrees from theirs." [Page 175] Not a trifling one-hundred-eighty, mind you, but a full three-hundred-sixty degrees--not a degree less!

"The hansom coach stopped, the two horses lifting on hindlegs, fearful." [Page 271] Once again, lack of knowledge or poor editing or both, for a Hansom cab was a two-wheeled, one-horse vehicle, while a Hackney coach--usually called a hack--had four wheels and two horses.

This sort of thing occurs throughout the book: the odd notion, for example, that a phonograph of the period would be capable of producing soft music to soothe nerves or to accompany a quiet meal, or Ransom's extraordinary lack of knowledge about the architecture of the so-called White City, or his amazing blindness with regard to that brand new civic wonder, the elevated railway.

But far more significant than all of these is the wholesale grafting of current ideas and attitudes onto characters living in the 1890s. Sheesh, the hand-wringing of various of the book's characters about the fate of the "homeless" would be out of place in a story set in the 1950s, which I well remember, and all but unthinkable in the 1890s. In those days--heck, even in the 1950s when I was a boy--people in general were far more hard-nosed and unforgiving than all but the most trogladytic individuals today. I can clearly remember when that nice, non-judgmental word, "homeless," shouldered aside the uglier terms of the past: unfortunates, derelicts, vagrants, skid-row dwellers ... bums.

Put the historical howlers aside to consider this book purely as a mystery novel, and it turns out to be a very strange mystery novel, indeed.

This book is the second of a series. It takes up where the first, "City for Ransom," breaks off. I mean that quite literally. "City for Ransom" does not come to an end. It merely stops. Pages 1 through most of page 88 of "Shadows in the White City" are entirely devoted to bringing the plot of "City for Ransom" to a resolution--I'll refrain from calling it a satisfactory one. That done, at the bottom of page 88, an entirely new plot begins--new crimes, new villains, new everything. It's almost as though one fine morning, author Walker sat down, looked at his manuscript and said to himself, "I'm tired of that, let's try something new."

What then of the second story occupying the back 250+ pages of the book? It's all right--not convincing in the least, but that's hardly a fatal flaw in a mystery novel.

This is a thud-and-blunder mystery. In "Inspector" Alastair Ransom, it has a thud-and-blunder hero. When I read about Ransom, I can't help but visualize him as that wonderful old ham actor, Victor MacLaglan, a real thud-and-blunder kind of guy. And, d'you what? It's a lot of thud-and-blunder fun. Forget the impossible Chicago Police Department; replace it with a corrupt County Sheriff standing toe-to-toe against Town Marshal Ransom. Forget Chicago; make Ransom's town a seedily corrupt suburb of Ankh-Morpork or Lankhmar or Far Carcosa or Wherever. And it's all kind of fun! When I get to the bottom of each page I want to know what's on the next, and the next, and the next....

Considering the innumerable historical clunkers and the downright weird plot structure, I ought to give this book two stars. Considering the fact that I'll undoubtedly snap up the third "Inspector" Ransom book on sight for the sheer, lurid pleasure of pulling it apart, I ought to assign at least four stars. Caught between these two extremes, I'll go with three.

Brilliant mystery.......2007-04-06

At the Chicago World's Fair of 1893, the Phantom of the Fair has killed seven people one of them an unborn child by garrote and then setting fire to them. Inspector Alastair Ransom has hack driver Waldo Denton arrested for the crimes. While he is recovering from a gunshot wound his nemesis police chief Nathan Kohler releases the man due to a lack of evidence. When Alastair learns of this he is livid and shadows Denton, trying to prove his guilt. He finally neutralizes Denton but he has little time to rest up on his laurels.

A new predator is stalking Chicago and the media has dubbed him Leather Apron because that was what witnesses saw him wearing. This butcher saws the person when he is still alive and cuts out the organs and the fleshy part of the body. This has been going on for some time but when Senator Chapman's granddaughter is one of the victims, the police become actually involved. The senator offers Alastair, Koehler and a physician heavily in debt a fortune if they find the killer and bring him to the senator for some good old vigilante justice. Alastair is repulsed by the idea but and has no idea who the killer is but the groups of street children lead him to a horrifying and undeniable truth. Now all he has to do is locate the killer and figure out what to do with him.

Robert W. Walker writes great historical mysteries that are compelling, complex and full of interesting historical data that brings the late 1800's to life for the reader. His protagonist is a product of his times and his actions should be viewed in that light though readers use twenty-first century historiographic perspective. In some ways this police procedural is a cerebral mystery because Alistair has to gather clues from frightened homeless children and a madwoman who has an interest in the killer. SHADOW IN THE WHITE CITY is a must read to fans of historical mysteries.

Harriet Klausner

The Country in the City: The Greening of the San Francisco Bay Area (Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books)

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Green Activism, Bay Area Style
Back to the Land
Inspiring! Understand how the Bay Area came to be such a terrific place to live

The Country in the City: The Greening of the San Francisco Bay Area (Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books)
Richard Walker
Manufacturer: University of Washington Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0295987014

Book Description

The San Francisco Bay Area is one of the world's most beautiful cities. Despite a population of 7 million people, it is more greensward than asphalt jungle, more open space than hardscape. A vast quilt of countryside is tucked into the folds of the metropolis, stitched from fields, farms and woodlands, mines, creeks, and wetlands. In The Country in the City, Richard Walker tells the story of how the jigsaw geography of this greenbelt has been set into place. The Bay Area's civic landscape has been fought over acre by acre, an arduous process requiring popular mobilization, political will, and hard work. Its most cherished environments—Mount Tamalpais, Napa Valley, San Francisco Bay, Point Reyes, Mount Diablo, the Pacific coast—have engendered some of the fiercest environmental battles in the country and have made the region a leader in green ideas and organizations. This book tells how the Bay Area got its green grove: from the stirrings of conservation in the time of John Muir to origins of the recreational parks and coastal preserves in the early twentieth century, from the fight to stop bay fill and control suburban growth after the Second World War to securing conservation easements and stopping toxic pollution in our times. Here, modern environmentalism first became a mass political movement in the 1960s, with the sudden blooming of the Sierra Club and Save the Bay, and it remains a global center of environmentalism to this day. Green values have been a pillar of Bay Area life and politics for more than a century. It is an environmentalism grounded in local places and personal concerns, close to the heart of the city. Yet this vision of what a city should be has always been informed by liberal, even utopian, ideas of nature, planning, government, and democracy. In the end, green is one of the primary colors in the flag of the Left Coast, where green enthusiasms, like open space, are built into the fabric of urban life. Written in a lively and accessible style, The Country in the City will be of interest to general readers and environmental activists. At the same time, it speaks to fundamental debates in environmental history, urban planning, and geography.

Customer Reviews:

Green Activism, Bay Area Style.......2007-09-29

This book really helped me understand the world I was born into--Berkeley in the late 1950s. As Richard Walker points out, that world reflected the work of countless Bay Area activists reaching back to John Muir. Many were civic-minded and dedicated women, and some started or built environmental organizations with national impact. This book describes it all: the people, the organizations, the issues, the victories (always temporary), the challenges, and the movement's shortcomings and unintended consequences.

Always attuned to class issues, Walker acknowledges that these movements were mostly led by upper class folks and ultimately turned parts of the Bay Area (e.g., Marin and Napa) into lightly populated enclaves for the well off. Working families in the Bay Area have had great access to public parks and the coast, but activists so far have done little to impede the siting of toxic nastiness in low-income neighborhoods. Walker questions the link between efforts to slow or stop growth and the Bay Area's high housing prices, but he notes that the growth that has occurred--in the eastern part of Contra Costa County and the San Joaquin Valley, for example--isn't very smart and may be linked to the inner Bay Area's aversion to virtually any growth at all. At the end of the day, though, it's hard to resist Walker's conclusion that Bay Area residents have plenty to be thankful for. Highly recommended.

Back to the Land.......2007-08-23

Professor Walker's book is a solidly researched, comprehensive history of the environmental movement in the Bay Area. Written in a clear, accessible style, the book covers a century of landsaving, from the early days of the Sierra Club to the exciting years from 1965-75 when most of our environmental protection laws were passed, to the recent use of land trusts , conservation easements, and urban growth boundaries to safeguard the Bay Area's precious green heritage. This book will stand, along with John Hart's "Legacy" and Amy Meyer's "New Guardians for the Golden Gate" as the canonical texts in the environmental history of California for years to come.

Inspiring! Understand how the Bay Area came to be such a terrific place to live.......2007-08-23

While this book was a bit academic and long on details, I found it a pleasant and easy read. I am a Bay Area resident and a NYC transplant and have marveled at the accessibility of the Bay Area's natural beauty and recreation.

I love the SF Bay Area for its beauty and outdoors and I wanted to know how it happened and who to thank. Now I know.

Another book worth considering, which is much more specific to the creation of one area is New Guardians for the Golden Gate: How America Got a Great National Park

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