Related Vacation Book Subjects: Kansas
More Pages: Manhattan Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26
Books to read if you're planning a vacation in "Manhattan", sorted by average review score:
It Happened in Manhattan
Published in Paperback by Berkley Pub Group (September, 2003)
Authors: Harvey Frommer, Myrna Katz, Myrna Katz Frommer, and Harvery Frommer
Average review score:

ALL OF IT IS SO FASCINATING -- Culturevulture.net
No, this is not a quickie paperback rushed into print after September 11.
The Frommers' book, subtitled An Oral History of Life in the City During the Mid-Twentieth Century, is a loving look at a Manhattan that now seems impossibly distant, a Manhattan whose citizens worried about open admissions at City College and how they felt about the Beatles and whether they could afford to live on the East Side'but never about terrorist bombers. It is a Manhattan now lost to us forever, a Manhattan to be recollected in tranquility and cherished as never before.
The Frommers' mid-twentienth century ranges from the early post-World War II years to the mid-1970s, when the city nearly went bust. Like their earlier books (It Happened in the Catskills, It Happened in Brooklyn, It Happened on Broadway), this one is an oral history, an irresistible collection of interviews with Manhattanites rich and poor, talented and ordinary, famous and unknown, clearly united in their unanimous conviction that Manhattan was, is, and always will be the most exciting place on earth.
Here is a New York in which the Third Avenue el still existed and traffic on Fifth Avenue ran both ways, in which eleven daily newspapers covered the city beat and Walter Winchell and Ed Sullivan covered café society; in which proper young working girls still wore hats and white gloves and businesswomen couldn't get bank loans; in which Lincoln Center was going up and Penn Station was coming down and SoHo was still a dream in a gallery owner's eye.
Here are Jewish kids growing up on the Lower East Side, black kids growing up in Harlem, Italian kids growing up in the Bronx with Manhattan only a fifteen-cent train ride away. Here are politicians and performers, priests and rabbis, press agents and jazz musicians, restaurateurs and fashion designers and Tin Pan Alley songwriters, all talking in that excited New Yorker way about what a great time they had in their great city. You can almost see the hands waving.
Not many of these voices will be known to those unlucky enough never to have lived in Manhattan. Jimmy Breslin and Pauline Trigère and Robert Merrill and Jane Jacobs, most likely, but not that many others. Who but a Manhattanite will know Elaine Kaufman as the owner of a restaurant called Elaine's? Who outside of the advertising business will recognize Jerry Della Femina? Who but a New Yorker will remember the political ins and outs that brought us Robert Moses and Robert Wagner, Abe Beame and John Lindsay?
It really doesn't matter. with their tales of chocolate egg creams and 15-cent subway rides and standing room only at the old Met, are as stirring as those of the famous. The content . . . all of it is so fascinating.
As for that other thing that happened in Manhattan on September 11, there is one tiny reference to the World Trade Center toward the end of the book by Daily News sports cartoonist Bill Gallo: 'I always thought of buildings like heavyweight champions. The Empire State Building was the champion. Then the Twin Towers came up, and you felt sorry for the Empire State Building. That was still your champion.'
And is once again.

New York City from the end of World II to mid-1970s
Myrna Katz Frommer and Harvey Frommer look back to an earlier period of New York's history in 'It Happened in Manhattan.' Subtitled 'an oral history of life in the city during the mid-twentieth century,' the book covers a period from the end of World War II to the mid-1970s. Ordinary people and New York celebrities reminisce about the architectural and culinary glories of Manhattan and about the personalities and institutions that dominated business and the arts in those decades. Exclusively black-and-white photographs illustrate this backward glance at New York in the innocent '50s and the adventurous '60s and '70s.

THE NEW YORK CITY OF WONDER!!!!!
Contrary to the popular notion, nostalgia is pretty much what it's always been, judging by the latest offering from the Frommers ('It Happened on Broadway' 1998, etc.). The professors Frommer (Liberal Arts/Dartmouth) have gathered interviews with iconoclastic New Yorkers Jerry Della Femina, Robert Merrill, Jimmy Breslin, Monte Irvin, Elaine Kaufman, Saul Zabar, and 57 others. They recall life in Manhattan from the end of World War II to the mid seventies. The New York of wonder is evoked once more with as in Proust, the reference to indigenous food (e.g., entrees at Le Pavilion or classic egg creams). And from Harlem to Wall Street, Washington Heights to Greenwich Village, there are old churches and delis gone by, the surviving Guggenheim and the lost Automats, Lincoln Center newly built and Lewisohn Stadium since gone. There are shopkeepers with pencil stubs behind their ears and practitioners of the rag trades, artists, sportswriters, and gossip columnists. The memorists speak with the distinct flavor of Yiddish or of Italian. And there's a Hispanic rhythm and that of Lenox Avenue too. Study the ladies in gloves, the gents in fedoras, the haberdashers' billboards, the movie marquees, the street furniture. Self-congratulatory oral history, garrulous nostalgia, and great fun for those who recall the days of Tin Pan Alley and three baseball teams in one small, favored place

Nft Not for Tourists Guide to Manhattan 2002 (Not for Tourists: Manhattan, 2002)
Published in Paperback by Not for Tourists (November, 1901)
Author: Happy Mazza Media LLC
Average review score:

NFT in Crain's New York Business
"Not For Tourists Guide to Manhattan is nothing less than a sleekly designed, full-color guide to everything from the lighting schedule of the Empire State Building to a map of Central Park, to Web addresses and phone numbers for ferry services, to full breakdowns on the 10 branches of the Long Island Railroad (with a helpful note about the LIRR's policy on pets).

'Manhattan is an enormous city, but it's really like 2 separate cities,' explains [NFTs] Rob Tallia... 'If you go out of the neighborhood that you know, it's like going to another city.'

Is the book the next Zagat Survey...? It's certainly the goal..."

Michelle Leder, Crain's New York Business (March 5-11, 2001)

NFT in Travel Holiday
"Wouldn't it be great to be able to visit a city and get around like it's your own hometown? Well, now you can--in New York and L.A., no less. The 2002 Not For Tourists Guide to Manhattan and Not For Tourists Guide to Los Angeles are little black books that are the keys to these cities. The books provide information that is vital to anyone new to the city, and, as the titles suggest, are great toos for native dwellers as well.

"The Not For Tourists series is a new kind of guidebook. It combines the graphic functionality of street and subway maps with user-friendly information, like restaurant listings, shops, and sports arenas. The neighborhood-by-neighborhood guide lists pharmacies, gas stations, post offices, ATMs--the kinds of things you need to know to make the most of the cities."

--TRAVEL HOLIDAY MAGAZINE

NFT in Foreward This Week
"Every year I come upon a new travel or city guide concept. NFT is one of the best and elegantly thought out sourcebook ideas--each designed in a format suitable for the city covered--listing major city resources for people who live there (where to get bagels or find a gas station in any NYC neighborhood, for instance) with great maps. So far they have Manhattan and Los Angeles. DC, San Francisco, and Boston are next."

--Eugene Schwartz, from FORWARD THIS WEEK April 3, 2002

GENIUS IN THE SHADOWS
Published in Hardcover by Scribner (January, 1993)
Author: Lanouette
Average review score:

"Never Destroy What You Cannot Create"
"Never destroy what you cannot create" was one of Leo Szliard's codes of conduct. Books about unsung heros' of the scientific age are almost like novels. Nevertheless, great men seem to rise above dry biography if they had some esoteric ways. We have all read stacks of magazines and books about Albert Einstein to probe into all the details of what made him tick (in relative time, of course). Leo Szliard was a mental gypsy from the old world who saw the new world before most of the other "famous" thinkers of the 20th Century even opened their eyes. A must read for a knowledge foundation in enjoying the lifestyles of the Wise and Unusual.

Outstanding Portrait of a Catalytic Genius
Anyone interested in Szilard, early 20th Century World History, the A-Bomb, or all of the above will find this book hard to put down. This biography is comprehensive, well-researched and properly kind to its subject. Dr. Szilard probably will never get enough credit for his genius and all his great ideas and achievements, but this book does him justice. He seems to come alive in this book, always several steps ahead of everyone else.

American culture's emphasis on individualism often ignores the more collaborative contributions such as Dr. Szilard's. An original, he both created and collaborated, and this book tells his story.

At times, I thought the author might have been over-stating some of Dr. Szilard's accompishments, but the story is otherwise well-done, and frankly, Dr. Szilard deserves a little promotion, so I didn't mind.

REVISITING 20th CENTURY'S UNSUNG HERO SCIENTIST
I seem to recall having written the anonymous critique below ["Life and loves of the man who patented atomic energy "] when Amazon.com did not yet have its current database system in operation (or is it simply deja vu?). Exactly the high points of Szilard's life in GENIUS IN THE SHADOWS mentioned below still stand out in my mind. Be that as it may, the contributions by such diverse authors as William Lanouette, Leo Szilard's electrical engineer brother Bela Silard [sic], and polio vaccine pioneer Jonas Salk make for an eclectically exciting book.

I recall as a teenager in New York City viewing an historic television debate between Dr. Szilard and his erstwhile student, humble assistant, and that day self-appointed "father" of the hydrogen bomb: Edward Teller. Both my parents had arrived in the United States during the late 1920s from Hungary; they were Szilard's vintage and had crossed paths with him in Budapest. The two powerful Hungarian atomic physicists, Szilard and Teller debated the nuclear arms race on TV (Szilard was fiercely against it). My family was glued to the TV screen. The Soviet Union was menacing us in New York City with THEIR nuclear weapons. Dying of leukemia, Leo Szilard had dragged himself out of his sickbed at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research to debate Teller on this vital subject.

At one point, the condescendingly charming Teller prefaced his offensive remarks with, "But my DEAR Szilard, ..." Leo cut him off in mid sentence with, "I am NOT your 'dear Szilard' anymore ..." It was wonderful! Szilard at his worst was far, far superior to Teller at his best. Alas, Leo Szilard would soon die, and Teller would go on to dazzle his California actor-governor-president friend Ronald Reagan with Star War fantasies for furthering his beloved arms race. By contrast, as GENIUS IN THE SHADOWS reveals, Szilard not only possessed incredible insight and creativity in science and geopolitics, but he also expressed a great moral sense and love of humanity.

GENIUS IN THE SHADOWS treats one of the 20th century's most significant thinkers and humanitarians with down to earth candor not often found in biographies. Those wishing to be entertained by sharing the exciting adventures in the life of Leo Szilard, read this book.

Sounding Drum
Published in Hardcover by Kensington Publishing Corp. (01 June, 1999)
Author: Larry Jay Martin
Average review score:

This is a page-turner full of history, romance and politics
Larry Jay Martin has written a terrific thriller which incorporates not only American history, but also current political and social issues surrounding Indian gambling. From page one, the reader escapes into the lives of four individuals trying to uncover one of the most exciting archeological finds of the century. One is instantly involved in an adventurous, meaningful quest towards discovery that takes the reader all over the country. From Wall Street dealings in the Big Apple to bar brawls in Montana, Martin weaves a mysterious and intricate story of love, heritage and money. This book is an interesting combination of fast-paced storytelling and historical relevance. Although I would categorize it as a light thriller, Sounding Drum also enlightens readers about both sides of the Indian Gambling issue in this country. I am MBA student with tons of work, but once I picked this book up, I couldn't put it down! Take it on vacation, bring it on a business trip -- you won't be disappointed.

Martin takes Manhattan with this unique thriller

Construction is a way of life in Manhattan, which makes the discovery even more startling. A Native American burial site has been uncovered amidst the excavation. Anthropologist Dr. Paula Fox extracts a delicate document that clearly describes a land deal between a tribe and a colonial governor. Paula takes the deed to Native American attorney Steve Drum, an individual who left his Montana reservation for Wall St.

Steve investigates the paper, which if valid, means that the Canarsu Indians own a piece of the rock. As he continues his inquires, an unknown assailant blackmails him for his affair with the daughter of the local Don. Though his life is in danger, Steve pursues what he believes is in the best interest of his people, claiming their heritage and building a massive casino in the middle of the big Apple.

SOUNDING DRUM (Steve's Native American name) is a fast-paced tale centered on an engaging supposition. Fans will find all the characters appealing, but especially will take pride in Steve's courage to insure justice happens even when the odds seem overwhelming. Bang the drums for Larry Martin who soundly demonstrates he provides his audience with a one sitting, entertaining novel.

Harriet Klausner

Western culture is everywhere!
What happens when Native American history finds its way to the Big Apple? Chaos. While working on a steam line under a Manhattan building, a construction worker, who just happens to be an Oneida Nation chief, discovers a cave containing undisturbed Indian artifacts. Rather than informing his boss, he calls a NYU professor, Paula Fox, also of Native American descent, and informs her of the discovery. Searching the cave, Fox finds a roll of parchment that she believes to be a very important historical document. But knowing that such documents are often kept secret to avoid a cultural uprising, she removes the document from the site and delivers it to fellow Native, Stephen Drum, AKA Sounding Drum, a former New York attorney, raised on the Salish Indian reservation in Montana, and now a consultant for the Indian casino business. Drum sets out to prove the document's authenticity, dreaming that financially for his fellow Native Americans, this possible land treaty could be like "the return of the buffalo." The author does a superb job demonstrating the spiritual power behind Native culture and how it mixes with modern, big city society. Sounding Drum is a fascinating tale that will keep the reader turning pages and wondering where the story will go next. Copyright ©1999, ReadWest.com. All rights reserved

Naming New York: Manhattan Places and How They Got Their Names
Published in Paperback by New York University Press (June, 2001)
Author: Sanna Feirstein
Average review score:

Every Street Name Origin in Manhattan!
This book explains the origin of every named street in Manhattan, New York. A native of Topeka, Kansas may rightly be inclined to say "So what?" but, to anyone interested in NYC, this book will provide plenty of raised eyebrows of new found insight about "Gotham". The book is broken down into sections on Lower Manhattan, Mid-Lower Manhattan, The Villages, Midtown South, Midtown, East Side, West Side, and Upper Manhattan with additional sectional breakdowns in each group. A page and a half of historical background for each area is given along with a very basic map of the area. The story of the name for each street in the area is then explained in a couple well written lines. Many pictures are included of the persons or places named. The only detracting points are the paucity of effective maps detailing where some of the more obscure places are.

Highly recommended if you are into New York City history.

Cool Book for New York-Philes
Ever wondered how Hell's Kitchen got it's name or why Bowling Green is called that? Well, finally there is a book that can answer these and many other place name questions. "Naming New York: Manhattan Places and How They Got Their Names" by Sanna Feirstein, and published by the respectable folks at New York University Press is a great, well organized book that discusses how most places in the borough of Manhattan got their names.

Chapters, which are divided by areas on the island such as Upper East Side, Inwood, and Harlem, discusses the origin of many street, park, and neighborhood names. The author, who briefly gives the origin of the place name in a simple sentence or two, apparently has done some deep research at a local library or archive in order to amass such an extensive list of information. With a great cover design and feel, the book captured my attention at a local bookstore. Overall, the book is a must for anyone who loves the City that Never Sleeps. It's a great book for a great price, which today can be a rarity.

THE BEST NYC BOOK OUT THERE!
This book is great for everyone - from history experts to casual street walkers. I highly recommend it!!!

Manhattan Messiah
Published in Paperback by Destiny Group (10 December, 1998)
Author: Michael Guerra
Average review score:

I couldn't put it down!
Very thrilling and exciting. The author makes it very real. In one of the sacrificing episodes ( sounds interesting huh? That's because it is very interesting ) I actually felt like I was there in the room with all those worshippers of Waerloga. Guerra came up with some wonderful names for the characters. ( Also this book would be an enticing movie; but not as good as the origanal book "Manhattan Messiah" by Michael Guerra ) Anyone with predictions about the new millenium has got to get this book. Actually everyone has got to get this book!

A timeless, timely battle of Good vs. Evil once and for all.
An absolutely riveting, roller-coaster ride of a novel! This book has it all....good vs. evil, compelling characters, and a deep spirituality that never becomes preachy, but lingers in your mind and makes you question, doubt and believe. It also just about stops your heart with excitement, fear and dread! I couldn't stop reading so that I could find out the fates of Hank, Sarah, Mike, Megan, Charlie and Waerloga and then, when I was done, I wanted to instantly read the sequel, Megan's Child. Hurry up with that book, Mr. Guerra, there's a lot of readers waiting for it!

Written with Heart and Soul, the story beckons You!
Manhattan Messiah seems to be a story written with a lot of heart and soul of the author. Mr. Guerra has given us a great adventure with the age old story of good versus evil, captured in the solid development of a diverse group of characters. His main character, Hank, touches the reader with many avenues of why he is who he is and his quest for light over darkness. Very interesting colors of historical fiction with his female lead and her daughter. I am VERY curious to see how Megan spins her own story in the author's sequel. I think the most touching aspect of the book were the miracles. How wonderful to even contemplate in fiction the possiblilty of such miracles! My congratulations to the author for spinning a wonderful tale with so much character and scene creation to place me right in the middle of all the action!

Looseleaf Streetwise Manhattan
Published in Map by Streetwise Maps (1997)
Authors: Streetwise Maps and Michael Brown
Average review score:

Great Map But Fine Print A Little Too Fine
I liked the fact that this map covered Manhattan in its entirety, but found the printing on the map a bit too tiny, and you had to turn it over to see the continuation of the island. Other than that, it is a good basic map and handy fold up size. Also quite sturdy.

Take it from a New Yorker.
I lived in Manhattan for 10 years, and I lived by this map. It's essential.

Another satisfied user ...
This is the map to get - small enough to not make you look like a big dork if you need to do a quick "map check" while out on the streets and very easy to carry around, but with plenty of detail, and very easy to immediately read with important buildings marked. It's also laminated for durability.

This little map really increased our enjoyment of New York, and I can recommend it with confidence.

Some Men Are Lookers
Published in Hardcover by St. Martin's Press (June, 1997)
Author: Ethan Mordden
Average review score:

A gay male Gotterdammerung
This book, the final of the four-volume Buddies series, is by far the best in that series. It is gripping; when I finished the book, I was emotionally drained and somewhat in shock -- the story ended and I was not exactly certain what had just happened to me, somewhat akin to viewing an accident or something else traumatic. Having read the other three volumes in short succession, I raced through the book, shocked at points, dismayed by some characters' actions, and developed a whole new appreciation and affection for Cosgrove (helped by the fact that he and I are about the same age). As I read the book, I hoped it would never end, as I wanted to continue to live the lives of these characters, but when I reached the unbelievably emotional and heavy end of the book, I realized one key element to all of Mordden's writing in this series: this series is a sort of gay male "Ring" cycle. This book, the final one, entails the destruction of the entire world that was so carefully constructed throughout the first three books: like Ragnarok, it brings about the end of the old and the creation of a new world from its ashes. I wished to see what came of these characters, to see if Little Kiwi/Virgil/J. would be redeemed, and how Cosgrove and Bud fared in this brave new world of the late 1980s: but then I realized, slowly, that it could not be seen as it was a whole different line of thought and not capable of being part of this series. Heartbroken by this, but exhilarated at the same time, I commend this series, the author who wrote it, and highly recommend the series as a "must read" for all who appreciate contemporary gay fiction. Absolutely astounding and by far the best of the series.

Thunderstorms in the family
Change, difficult change is happening in the characters. Dennis Savage growing bitter, almost unrecognizable to Bud. Cosgrove growing, both in himself, but also in the author's understanding of Cosgrove the character--it feels to me like the author reveals more as he figures out more. Cosgrove as holy fool archetype, but also more a real young man, and the same happening, at a much more accelerated rate, to Little Kiwi/Virgil/J. (And we have the reference to Aeneas so the choice of the name Virgil seems to be no accident).

The line that broke me, and I had to put the novel down and cry for awhile before I could pick it up again, was when Virgil has just returned, and Cosgrove says in one of his free-floating divinations, "I want a little faithful dog with a cute nose that he pushes against you because he doesn't know what will become of him."

This novel (yes, it is stories, but it's really a novel, isn't it) is a thunderstorm of characters growing, changing, resisting loss, resisting change, angry, and leaving, and trying to come back--from Cash, perhaps to Dennis--but everything is changed now and he doesn't know what will become of him.

Yes, the novel is funny. But more often than not it's difficult, and frightening.

And love, and desire for a family, and fear of loss of that family, and rage at the ORIGINAL families--parents who were capricious, and vicious, and unwilling to accomodate the changes and the signs of life in their children, reverberate beneath the surface of the characters.

Thumbs Up!
"The fourth volume in Mordden's acclaimed and beloved "Buddies" cycle follows the exploits of his best loved characters - Dennis Savage, Little Kiwi, Carlo, Cosgrove, and Bud -- as he lays bare the emotional landscape of the city within a city that is Gay Manhattan." - from Stonewall Inn

Jessica Takes Manhattan (Sweet Valley High Super)
Published in Paperback by Bantam Skylark (February, 1997)
Authors: Francine Pascal and Kate William
Average review score:

love it, love it, love it!!!!!!!!!!!
all that and more!!! i really liked the part when jessica and lila kept blaming each other for the kidnapping. i recommend this book to any true sweet valley fan. ...

Da Bomb!
This book is da bomb!:) And I want you to read it! It's a romantic and shocking book that you don't want to miss!

Just one word. WOW
In the maximity of the SV books, I'd have to say that Jessica Takes Manhattan was one of the best. Probably what I wanted most was to see Lila actually carted off and never seen again. But after her drama in the SVU series, I regret my opinion.

The Los Alamos Primer: The First Lectures on How to Build an Atomic Bomb
Published in Hardcover by University of California Press (March, 1992)
Authors: Robert Serber and Richard Rhodes
Average review score:

Excellent!
Excellent book, it takes a bit to stick with it, but the modern day excerpts/perspectives threaded into the book give it a good historical perspective. This is a good combo to go together with Richard Rhodes "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" and "Dark Sun".

10 STARS! Essential reading
- for anyone seriously interested in our nuclear heritage, weaponeering, or the NWEPS program. Gives INCREDIBLE insight as to the minds and directions these young physicists were going.

This book is a must-read. Simple, concise, straightforward technically. You gotta read it, 'nuff said.

Fascinating
This is an incredible book. This is originally a compilation of Robert Serber's notes he gave to incoming scientists at Los Alamos in the 1940s, explaining to them the purpose of the Manhattan Project and the expected means by which they would achieve their goal. This particular copy, courtesy of the University of California Press, contains not only an introduction by Mr. Richard Rhodes (author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb - strongly recommended), but notes throughout the Primer itself by Robert Serber. It is fascinating to read comments on a document by the man who wrote it many years afterward. Be warned: This is NOT a how-to book, and does require some basic knowledge of calculus and physics. It is, however, unbelievably interesting, and worth the cost to add it to your collection.

Related Vacation Book Subjects: Kansas
More Pages: Manhattan Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26