Book picks similar to
Twice Upon a Time: Listening to New York by Hari Kunzru
fiction
read-it-in-audio
botns
nyc-book-club
Overwhelming Odds
Susan O'Leary - 2004
The book unveils a truth of universal importance, namely, by helping others in need we can become their miracles.
Retrospective, 1964-1984
H.R. Giger - 1984
Carefully rendered reproductions of Giger's best paintings are accompanied by his own commentary. 70 color illus. 75 b&w illus. 25 b&w photos.
Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M.: Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany's, and the Dawn of the Modern Woman
Sam Wasson - 2010
Here, for the first time, Sam Wasson presents the woman behind the little black dress that rocked the nation in 1961. The first complete account of the making of Breakfast at Tiffany's, Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M. reveals little-known facts about the cinema classic: Truman Capote desperately wanted Marilyn Monroe for the leading role; director Blake Edwards filmed multiple endings; Hepburn herself felt very conflicted about balancing the roles of mother and movie star. With a colorful cast of characters including Truman Capote, Edith Head, Givenchy, "Moon River" composer Henry Mancini, and, of course, Hepburn herself, Wasson immerses us in the America of the late fifties before Woodstock and birth control, when a not-so-virginal girl by the name of Holly Golightly raised eyebrows across the country, changing fashion, film, and sex for good. Indeed, cultural touchstones like Sex and the City owe a debt of gratitude to Breakfast at Tiffany's.In this meticulously researched gem of a book, Wasson delivers us from the penthouses of the Upper East Side to the pools of Beverly Hills, presenting Breakfast at Tiffany's as we have never seen it before—through the eyes of those who made it. Written with delicious prose and considerable wit, Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M. shines new light on a beloved film and its incomparable star.
Chronicles: Volume One
Bob Dylan - 2004
But now destiny was about to manifest itself. I felt like it was looking right at me and nobody else." So writes Bob Dylan in Chronicles: Volume One, his remarkable book exploring critical junctures in his life and career. Through Dylan's eyes and open mind, we see Greenwich Village, circa 1961, when he first arrives in Manhattan. Dylan's New York is a magical city of possibilities -- smoky, nightlong parties; literary awakenings; transient loves and unbreakable friendships. Elegiac observations are punctuated by jabs of memories, penetrating and tough. With the book's side trips to New Orleans, Woodstock, Minnesota and points west, Chronicles: Volume One is an intimate and intensely personal recollection of extraordinary times.By turns revealing, poetical, passionate and witty, Chronicles: Volume One is a mesmerizing window on Bob Dylan's thoughts and influences. Dylan's voice is distinctively American: generous of spirit, engaged, fanciful and rhythmic. Utilizing his unparalleled gifts of storytelling and the exquisite expressiveness that are the hallmarks of his music, Bob Dylan turns Chronicles: Volume One into a poignant reflection on life, and the people and places that helped shape the man and the art.
Rage Is Back
Adam Mansbach - 2013
Bracken is running for mayor of New York City. And who should Dondi discover on a rooftop in Brooklyn but his father, newly returned to the city and ready to settle the score. The return of Rage and the mayoral race of Bracken prompt a reunion of every graffiti writer who mattered in the 1980s—in order to thwart Bracken with the greatest graffiti stunt New York City has ever seen.Rage Is Back delivers a mind-bending journey through a subterranean world of epic heroes and villains. Moving through the city’s unseen communities, from the tunnel camps of the Mole People to the drug dens of Crown Heights, Rage Is Back is many things: a dramatic, hilarious thrill ride; a love letter to NYC that introduces the most powerful urban underdog narrator this side of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, and a literary tour de force from a writer on the brink of real stardom.
The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone
Olivia Laing - 2016
Increasingly fascinated by this most shameful of experiences, she began to explore the lonely city by way of art. Moving fluidly between works and lives -- from Edward Hopper's Nighthawks to Andy Warhol's Time Capsules, from Henry Darger's hoarding to the depredations of the AIDS crisis -- Laing conducts an electric, dazzling investigation into what it means to be alone, illuminating not only the causes of loneliness but also how it might be resisted and redeemed.
Brian Eno's Another Green World (33 1/3 Book 67)
Geeta Dayal - 2009
It was the first Brian Eno album tobe composed almost completely in the confines of a recording studio,over a scant few months in the summer of 1975. The album was a proofof concept for Eno's budding ideas of "the studio as musicalinstrument," and a signpost for a bold new way of thinking aboutmusic.In this book, Geeta Dayal unravels Another Green World's abundantmysteries, venturing into its dense thickets of sound. How was analbum this cohesive and refined formed in such a seemingly ad hoc way?How were electronics and layers of synthetic treatments used to createan album so redolent of the natural world? How did a deck of cardsfigure into all of this? Here, through interviews and archivalresearch, she unearths the strange story of how Another Green Worldformed the link to Eno's future -- foreshadowing his metamorphosisfrom unlikely glam rocker to sonic painter and producer.
How To Destroy A Tech Startup In Three Easy Steps
Lawrence Krubner - 2017
When inexperienced entrepreneurs ask my advice about their idea for a tech startup, they often worry "What if Google decides to compete with us? They will crush us!" I respond that far more startups die of suicide than homicide. If you can avoid hurting yourself, then you are already better off than most of your competitors. Startups are a chance to build something entirely original with brilliant and ambitious people. But startups are also dangerous. Limited money means there is little room for mistakes. One bad decision can mean bankruptcy. The potential payoff attracts capital, which in turn attracts scam artists. The unscrupulous often lack the skills needed to succeed, but sometimes they are smart enough to trick investors. Even entrepreneurs who start with a strong moral compass can find that the threat of failure unmoors their ethics from their ambition. Emotions matter. We might hope that those in leadership positions possess strength and resilience, but vanity and fragile egos have sabotaged many of the businesses that I’ve worked with. Defeat is always a possibility, and not everyone finds healthy ways to deal with the stress. In this book I offer both advice and also warnings. I've seen certain self-destructive patterns play out again and again, so I wanted to document one of the most extreme cases that I've witnessed. In 2015 I worked for a startup that began with an ingenious idea: to use the software techniques known as Natural Language Processing to allow people to interact with databases by writing ordinary English sentences. This was a multi-billion dollar idea that could have transformed the way people gathered and used information. However, the venture had inexperienced leadership. They burned through their $1.3 million seed money. As their resources dwindled, their confidence transformed into doubt, which was aggravated by edicts from the Board Of Directors ordering sudden changes that effectively threw away weeks' worth of work. Every startup forces its participants into extreme positions, often regarding budget and deadlines. Often these situations are absurd to the point of parody. Therefore, there is considerable humor in this story. The collision of inexperience and desperation gives rise to moments that are simply silly. I tell this story in a day-to-day format, both to capture the early optimism, and then the later sense of panic. Here then, is a cautionary tale, a warning about tendencies that everyone joining a startup should be on guard against."
Season of Madness
Robert Scott - 2013
. .Annette Edwards was a vivacious 19-year-old on her way to watch the Fourth of July fireworks. Eighteen-year-old Pam Moore was a former beauty pageant contestant, hitching a ride on a busy street. Linda Slavik was a young mother enjoying a night out with a friend. Annette Selix was just eleven, an innocent child on her way home from the market. Each of them was attacked without warning, brutally assaulted, and left for dead by a bitter, disfigured man in the grip of a violent frenzy: the so-called "Hilltop Rapist." But serial predator Darrell Rich didn't stop at just four victims. He couldn't stop. . ."Scott tells a true story with compassion and taste." --Reviewing the Evidence
Praise for Robert Scott and Shattered Innocence
"Compelling and shocking. . .a ground-breaking book." --Robert K. Tanenbaum "Fascinating and fresh. . .a fast-paced, informative read." --Sue Russell
New York Drawings
Adrian Tomine - 2012
A bookstore owner locks eyes with a neighbor as she receives an Amazon package. Strangers are united by circumstance as they wait on the subway stairs for a summer storm to pass.Adrian Tomine's illustrations and comics have been appearing for more than a decade in the pages (and on the cover) of The New Yorker. Instantly recognizable for their deceptively simple and evocative style, these images have garnered the attention of The New Yorker's readership and the approbation of such venerable institutions as the Art Directors Club and American Illustration.New York Drawings is a loving homage to the city that Tomine, a West Coast transplant, has called home for the past seven years. This lavish, beautifully designed volume collects every cover, comic, and illustration that he has produced for The New Yorker to date, along with an assortment of other rare and uncollected illustrations and sketches inspired by the city. Complete with notes and annotations by the author, New York Drawings will also feature a new introductory comic focusing on Tomine's experiences as a New York illustrator.
Signs of Hope: Messages from Subway Therapy
Matthew "Levee" Chavez - 2017
He brought a table and chairs to subway platforms and spoke with anyone keen on conversing. A practiced listener and secret keeper for commuters, Chavez showed up in the subway a day after the presidential election with stacks of brightly colored sticky notes. "Express yourself," he told passersby. The response was electric.As the colorful squares spread along the tiled wall, a vast mosaic of personal messages took shape, beautiful to behold, rich with personality, cathartic and consoling. Calling himself "Levee"--one who supports the city's emotional tide--Chavez turned a communal underground maze into an ever-changing, ever-growing art space known as Subway Therapy. Thousands have picked up the mantle to create Subway Therapy walls in cities across the nation, including San Francisco, Oakland, Seattle, Boston, and Washington, D.C.Capturing the feelings leaping from the wonderfully diverse 3-x-3-inch notes and weaving in quotes from Chavez and participants about the project, Signs of Hope's intimate reflections, humorous musings, fond remembrances, and fierce calls to action reach out with unencumbered love to one another and to us. Individually, these "posts" bravely bring the personal and the momentary into the open. Together, they show us a vision of inclusivity, communication, and hope.
Mastermind: How Dave Brailsford Reinvented the Wheel
Richard Moore - 2013
Leading cycling writer Richard Moore's profile of Dave Brailsford, the head of Team Sky and the man who masterminded the British Cycling revolution, gives a unique insight into the psychology of one of the most fascinating figures in world sport.
A Place of Remembrance: Official Book of the National September 11 Memorial
Allison Blais - 2011
With photographs and architectural plans never before published, paired with comments in the very voices of those who witnessed the event, those who struggled in its shadow for days and months after, and those who have dedicated the years since to rebuilding a place of hope and meditation at Ground Zero, this book will stand apart from all the rest on the tenth anniversary of that world-changing event. Heavily illustrated and elegantly designed, the book recalls the excitement and symbolism of the Twin Towers, the horror and chaos of the attack of 9/11, the fierce devotion and exhaustion as rescue of living victims became recovery of remains. But it also carries on from that date in history to tell the inside story of the long, complex, and sometimes contentious efforts to turn eight acres of Downtown Manhattan into a lasting memorial to those lost in New York, Pennsylvania, and at the Pentagon. A solemn reminder, a historic keepsake, and a fascinating read, this is the official book published by and about the National September 11 Memorial, created by those who have been working for years to honor those who died that day. A special fold-out lists all the names of the victims, making the book itself an enduring memorial to those who died on September 11.
Four-Word Self-Help: Simple Wisdom for Complex Lives
Patti Digh - 2010
Pithy, provocative, poignant advice on a variety of self-help topics—in four well-chosen words.
Dating Your Mom
Ian Frazier - 1986
Ian Frazier, long considered one of our most treasured humorists, proves that comedy can be just as smart as it is entertaining.