This book is a winner ! I am amazed at the initiative of Mr Denson as a kid to have the vision and mission to take as many photographs as he did. I grew up on Coney Island. I lived there until 1957. I lived on W 21st, between Mermaid and Neptune Aves.I Attended PS 80 and Mark Twain JHS.I would have liked to see more pictures and references to my area in Coney Island, but that is something I should do. Denson is from the more western part. The history and writing style is top-notch and the quality of the book is first rate. Highly recommended.

I was/always will be a Coney Island kid myself, and reading Charles Denson's accounts left me breathless. This book will transport you to a place in time that few people really know well. The writing is flawless and magical--a treat for all of your senses. Memories you never knew you had will be awakened. Thank you, "Charlie from Building 3," for this wonderful book. It was like reading an exerpt of my own autobiography. It is a work of art that will be treasured for generations to come.

Coney Island Lost and Found is just such a joy to read. A lifelong resident of the Gravesend section of Brooklyn, not far from Coney, reading this book reignited my memories and interest in this amazing fantasyland. Charles Denson's writing is well crafted and the reader can tell he put not only a lot of time and hard work in compiling all the information, but he also put his heart into this book. It captures one's imagination and is a sheer delight to anyone interested in the background of Coney Island. A memoir, an historical text, a delight. Highly
recommended.

This book is the second volume in the Library of America set on American crime noir. I enjoyed the first volume so much that I decided to read the second one during Christmas break. Once again, the LOA has done a nice job of collecting a fine series of stories. These stories were written during the 1950's and 1960's. The book is nice to look at too; it's covered in red cloth with a cloth bookmark.

The first story is from the demented mind of Jim Thompson. This story, called The Killer Inside Me, is much better than The Grifters, a book by Thompson that I read some time ago. The Grifters seemed to be pretty one-dimensional with respect to its characters. This story is the exact opposite. A deputy sheriff in a Texas city has a terrible secret. He plays dumb on the outside, but inside he is a cunning sociopath. A long simmering resentment leads to a terrible revenge. Bodies quickly stack up as a result. This seems to be the story that Thompson is best known for and it's no surprise why. This is a dark, twisted tale with a grim ending.

Patricia Highsmith wrote a whole series of stories concerning Tom Ripley. The one included here is The Talented Mr. Ripley, probably better known due to the recent film with Matt Damon. This tale isn't as noir as I would have liked, but it still has enough twists and turns to keep anybody in suspense. Ripley is a low class conniver who ingratiates himself into a wealthy family who wants him to go to Italy and bring back their son. Ripley sees the potential for bucks and meets up with the kid and his lady friend. Of course, things take a turn for the worse and the bodies start stacking up. This story was probably my least favorite out of the entire collection.

The next story, Pick-Up, by Charles Willeford, is a depressing tale about two alcoholics who go bump in the night. The story follows the adventures of this alcoholic couple as they attempt suicide, check themselves into a mental hospital, and drink themselves into a stupor. After the female half of the couple dies in another suicide pact, the story switches to a prison tale. The end is somewhat of a twist, but really doesn't impact the story that much, in my opinion. Again, not really noir as noir can be, but still a fine story that can stand by itself.

Down There, by David Goodis, is a wild ride of a tale. Full of suspense and death, this is a great story that deserves to be included here. A family of ne'er-do-wells drags their talented piano-playing brother into their personal problems. The background information on Eddie, the piano player, is phenomenal. The tragedy that has struck him once is bound to repeat itself again. This story has great bit characters that really liven up the background.

The final story, by Chester Himes, is The Real Cool Killers. This is noir on acid: pornographic violence, massive doses of grim reality, and characters you're glad to see get killed. The story is set in Harlem and involves two tough cops named Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson. Someone kills a white guy in Harlem and the cops try and track them down. This story contains one of the funniest descriptions of a person falling off a balcony that I've ever read (and I've read a few, disturbingly enough). The writing has enough similes and metaphors to give Raymond Chandler an apoplectic fit. A cool story that certainly deserves a place in this book.

If you like noir, read these two LOA novels. They are long (together they're almost 2000 pages) but it is definitely worth the effort. These kinds of stories are just a great way to while away some free time and relieve stress.

I gave it 5 stars based on the collection as a whole, rather than each story individually. I enjoyed all of the stories, in that they were a good representation of the genre as a whole, yet they were all stylistically different.

Individually, I would rate the stories in pretty much the order they appear in the book. "The Killer Inside Me" is the most powerful, in my opinion, and is a great indroduction to Jim Thompson if you haven't read his work previously. "The Talented Mr. Ripley" is also excellent, and is a must read for any fan of crime fiction. What I found more interesting was the contrast between the protagonists in the first two novels. Both are cold-hearted killers, but you couldn't find two more different voices. Its a tribute to both Mr. Thompson and Ms. Highsmith that you actually root for these people to get away with their crimes.

The other three novels are good, but they pale in comparison to the first two. "Pick-up" is a good study in a relationship between two alcoholics who know they are alcoholics and are okay with it. It takes awhile for the crime to be committed, but its an interesting journey. I didn't care for the twist ending, but that's just me. "Down There" was interesting to read, if only because it was the basis for a great movie. "The Real Cool Killers" was the only story of the five that I had trouble getting through. I think that was because I didn't really care (or even really believe) that A) a group of street punks would dress in the manner they were described in, or that B) a pair of street detectives would be as violent, feared, and given such free reign as the ones in this novel.

All in all, a good book to add to your collection, if only for the one-two punch of Thompson and Highsmith (by the way, that would be a great name for a law firm).

I usually don't like genre fiction, but this book is a great collection of "Noir" novels. Film buffs will be particularly interested in reading the novel on which "Shoot the Piano Player" was based, as well as the first "Mr. Ripley" novel (much nastier and darker than the recent film). Most highly recommended.

an amazing look at the reality of life as illustrated by one who tells it like it is without shame

classic bukowski
long narrative thoughtful poetry carefully planned and executed regardless of how he may have described his own techniqe here
the ending short poem is classic

Absolutely top drawer. Whenever i get worked up over paying bills, decorating a house, having the right career, blah blah blah. I turn to this book, pick a page and start reading. Some of the poetry is distilled meaning of life. Some would say a woman wouldn't like bukowski. Some probably wouldn't. To me he's like the print version of Tom Waits. Knows the meaning of life and drinks a beer to the struggle.

This is one of the funniest books ever written by french intellectuals. The only field work ever done by the founder of structuralist anthropology, who preferred to work from his Paris armchair, its centerpiece is an account of how Claude loses touch with the rest of the company and in the process of trying to find them by firing his revolver, also scares his pack-mule away and thereafter discovers the dangers of writing.

It comes as no surprise to students of L-S to find that the elegiac quality to his science (recherche des temps perdu, indeed!) starts in his formative years in the Amazon jungle. There L-S search for Comte's structure finds the romance of the human mystery, and it sings...a song that would continue through his complex studies of myths...the Immortal has a soul and that soul is the human condition, individual and ineffable; this book is a coda to the nostalgia of Rousseau's savage in Provident nature.

The traditional definition of anthropology is the study of man. And the activity immediately associated therewith are the field notes taken on the spot which the anthropologist then transcribes so the immediacy of his findings is preserved.

Then there is Claude Levi-Strauss, often called the 'armchair anthropologist.' This literate personage journeyed through central Brazil in the 30s, only to record his findings some 20 later in his book Tristes Tropiques, an untranslated title because no equivalent can be found in English.

Reminiscent of his forebear, Marcel Proust, Levi-Strauss presents us with memories distilled through time from which a structure emerges. Let me make clear that Tristes Tropiques is not a chronological account of Levi-Strauss' travels through South America.

Recollections, filtered in Tristes Tropiques, are further distilled in subsequent works and become systems or units which can be analyzed structurally, resulting in the fundamental concept of structuralism, that of universal analogies whose 'differences resemble each other.' One social organization, one myth is without value. Compared to a multitude, they acquire meaning.

Proust's universe is that of his personal recollections, whereas Levi-Strauss extends his own and from there goes on to establish cross-cultural analogies. But both are a product of the French intellectual tradition. The supremacy of the mind goes back to Rene Descartes, the 17th century French philosopher who said: "Je pense, donc je suis." "I think, therefore I am."