If you are a fan of photography, this book is definately for you. NEW YORK NOIR is chock full of amazing photographs that were the staple of the "New York Daily News." In this book, you get to see some of the poignant images that help define the term noir, and its connection to the silver screen industry, not to mention its effects on tabloid journalism. Many of these same black and white photogrpahs were often used as references to assist in making modern day motion pictures, helping to give a look into the past. From the days of "Three-Gun" Turner to the electrocution of Ruth Snyder, this book captures New York's horrid crime life in a candid, in-your-face style. There is nothing but unhidden truth in each and every photograph. NEW YORK NOIR is a well designed book loaded with powerful images and somewhat detailed descriptions. It is fascinating, riveting, and gives you a decent look at the roots of photojournalism. You can't help but be intrigued by the gritty, graphic photos that once graced the pages of a daily newspaper. It is one amazingly good book.

This is one powerful and well designed book. I picked it up at a show of the original photographs which I had read about in the New York Times. I was awestruck by the power of the images but even more so by the window it opens into life in New York City during the time they were taken. This book provides real insight into the force of photographs in the media and the their importance in the rise of the American tabloid industry.

What a cool book. It's sometimes disturbing to see some of these images of crime as beautiful, but they are beautiful, there's no escaping it. I picked it up because I like the whole genre of noir, but this book makes it very clear where Hollywood got all its ideas. Both essays are very good and informative, but what really marks this as a special book to me are the gorgeous photos and riveting stories of the people on both sides of crime in the city of the century, NYC.

I agree wholeheartedly with the following Wall Street Journal Review of November 30, 2001: "Some of the best specimens of the human animal show up in "The Importance Of Being" by Christopher Felver. And by this I do not mean the "beautiful people" but the accomplished ones - writers, artists, musicians, activists. No pretense here, just straight-ahead, black-and-white portraits of a staggering 436 "creative revolutionaries," as Mr. Felver calls them, photographed by him over the past two decades. He presents here an incredible collection of the most creative spirits of our times and it is fascinating to see the immediacy with which the subjects posed for this bohemian photographer.

Take the desolate sound of Tool and the bilateral lyrics of Pink floyd and combine it with the eeriness of the X-Files into photographs, and Staller's book is accomplished. The pictures leave you wondering "What the hell?" as they evoke the wonderment and slight fear you haven't felt since you were a child.

After viewing Hugo's art displayed at his home, I was surprised at the lack of material I could find to read about it. This book has been a great find for me, and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in Hugo or the history of modern Western art.

A fascinating collection of two hundred large, one to a page, photos capturing the fifties. The photos are divided into five sections and each picture has a caption and credit taken from the back of the print. Page sixteen shows the back of a photo from 1953 taken in Berlin and it is a mess of crossed out picture sizes, pasted on captions, five in all, and rubber stamps, this photo has been used at least six times over the years.

I was pleased to see that most of these photos can be viewed not just as historical news images but as well crafted compositions. So many photos that we see on a daily basis (especially in the media) are purely for the moment and lack any real creative input but the ones in this book encourage you to linger and think about what the photos are saying.

Apart from the two hundred pictures there are three essays, Douglas Dreishpoon's on the background to the Times Picture Desk is particularly interesting, a twenty-one page time-line to the fifties, bibliography and index. The elegant layout and excellent printing make this book a good addition to the library of anyone interested in the recent past.

The book is published in conjunction with an exhibition of the photos that is travelling around the Nation between now and 2004

Another book of photos from the paper is 'Pictures of the Times' by Peter Galassi and Susan Kismaric, this has 154 photos covering the last century and is equally as good as 'The Tumultuous Fifties'. Both books rightly conclude that The New York Times is the world's premier daily.

With this book/pictorial, it becomes quite clear, that yes indeed, a picture is worth a thousand words or more.... Each picture means more than any news report or article you've ever read... You see the evil in the world with a clarity rarely shown in few other works of media... When you look at these pictures, tears of anguish, tears of a simmering anger begin to well in your eyes... the question we all must ask ourselves, "How can we let this happen? and why does it happen?" No one should ever suffer like those people suffer in this book, and it is heartbreaking and disheartning to realize that so many Americans and others don't really give a darn enough to stand up and do something...

A book that is not for everyone, yet everyone should see it. These are the faces of death and despair, the tears of anti-war, the bravery of war, the fear of not living another day, the fear of living yet another day...the courage, the persistance, the failure to give up...the hurt, the pain, the tears, the anger..in the lives that nightmares are made of... When you look at the photographs, you will never be the same. Study them. Let them go to your heart. Cry for them. Then reach out to them. And never, never forget......when I went into the Inferno, I never realized the impact it would have. We can be so distant to the people, but in this book...they come into our lives, making us aware that the world can be a living hell. James Nachtwey did a fantastic job catching the lives that we so often want to pretend don't exist. I highly recommend this book to all. Step into the fire. We all need to see........

There are no words to describe this book. But as this is a review, I'll have to use them so I'll try. Watching these photo's for me is a physical experience. My heart starts to pound and the hairs in my neck stand on end. Reading about the atrocities that happen in the world, seeing documentaries, can't compare to James Nachtwey's work, the photo's are that powerful. James Nachtwey succeeds in making the people who read the book witnesses also. So that we can never again say that we didn't know this was happening. And by making us witnesses, he obliges us not to turn our backs to the Inferno that too many parts of the world still are. But however shocking these photo's are, love and compassion also speak through them. Love for human beings,love for the dignity the nameless persons in these pictures continue to posess in the eyes of James Nachtwey and therefore also in the eyes of the reader.This book reached out and touched me deeply. It made me feel connected to those nameless people, who speak so loudly in these photographs. And however deeply angry I am that the world is still such a cruel place for so many of us humans, the anger doesnt make me feel powerless. But hopeful that I am not the only one who feels this connection and that if enough people do feel the same, we as human beings can stop these things from happening. This book empowers us and it made a difference to me in a profound way. Thank you, James Nachtwey.

People who think that New York City reached its low point in the 1970s (or the 1980s) as the Bronx burned and crime seemed to be on every streetcorner sometimes tend to idealize the past. Perhaps it was shaped from movies from the 20s and 30s that seemed to show a simpler NYC, or maybe it was just plain misguided nostalgia.

Sante does a fantastic job of recounting the dark underbelly of New York City in the 19th and early 20th century, going into gory details about the horrible poverty along the Bowery and Lower East Side (areas that have seen extensive gentrification since the late 1980s), the filthy streets and disease outbreaks among the city's immigrant masses, the proliferation of street gangs (some of whom were representing NYC police) and other, well, "low lifes." Sante gives an engaging, well-paced description of the oft-overlooked problems a booming industrial-age city like New York was going through and boldly goes where no historian has gone before.

Required reading if you are a NYC (or urban) history fan.

Beautifully written (nice font!) All the dates, names, places, figures and facts, you'll ever need on the history of the Lower East Side. Sante puts the social, ideological, economic, and cultural characteristics of 'low-life' New York in perspective with the rest of the nation. If you enjoyed DREAMLAND or THE ALIENIST, or TIME AND AGAIN, WINTER'S TALE, and even RAGTIME, read this book as a non-fiction compliment and source for all the books hitherto mentioned. Perhaps you'll enjoy Low Life more.

I have read this book four times in the last ten years or so. Once for research, the last three times for entertainment. Don't let "critics", who complain that Luc Sante's sources are questionable, prevent you from reading this book. Not every detail might be EXACTLY right; even when the comments are of doubtful origin, there's no doubt that they are valuable to students, first-timers and long-timers, to the subject of New York's history. This is not a scholarly textbook and it doesn't claim to be. Sante's style, and the illustrations that pepper the book, evoke the dark world of old New York. You'll find this book to be fascinating, provocative, and, in my case, inspirational. After I read this book, I began writing my novel called THE FIVE POINTS, which has recently been published. Thank you, Mr. Sante.

William Roughead's accounts of great crimes from eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Scotland and England are about the most delicious mind candy I can think of; I opened this new edition from NYRB and almost couldn't put it down. While his vocabulary and style at times go a bit overboard in terms of their purpleness, he still presents very readable and exciting accounts of some incredible crimes which still haunt the popular imagination today (such as his account of the West Port murders of Burke and Hare, the body snatchers).

Re-issuing Roughead's work is really a feather in NYRB's cap, and yet I can't help wishing they had taken more pains with this edition. (Because of this, I felt I could not really offer it the five stars it otherwise would've deserved.) The introduction by Luc Sante is interesting, but not without errors: he notes that all of the crimes excepting those of Burke and Hare "are discoveries [on the part of Roughead]"; yet Roughead himself admits that Deacon Brodie's case has been dramatized many times, and inspired Stevenson's "Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." Madeleine Smith's trial inspired a film, "Madeleine," directed by David Lean in the 1950s. Similarly, no editor seems to have taken the time to annotate some of Roughead's more bizarre (or anachronistic, or peculiarly Scottish) terms: "douce" is used repeatedly for "sweet", and "lands" (apparently a term for the highrise towers in Edinburgh) recurs often too, yet there's nary a word of explanation. This lack of editorial interference is not welcome, especially since Roughead often refers repeatedly to other writings of his which his original audience would have recognized but which remain obscure to a contemporary reader.

Still, this book is a real treasure--and, as with all NYRB books, it comes on beautiful paper and with a gorgeous cover.

Simply put, William Roughead was and is the greatest true crime writer of them all. Combining unusually supple storytelling talents with an inimitable, pawky sense of humor, he remains the best prose stylist chronicling human depravity since, well, the compilers of the King James Bible. A Scot by birth, Roughead became a Writer to the Signet at the turn of the last century, a privileged position which allowed him to attend and write up the great murder trials of his day and his favorites from Great Britain's colorfully criminous past. Almost all of his works are shamefully out of print but are well worth searching out in used book stores: both his own popular accounts and his contributions to the more formally edited "Notable British Trials" series. Henry James was one of his many besotted fans, and even the briefest sample of his work makes it obvious why true crime buffs consider him the Master. "Classic Crimes" (which includes chapters on Deacon Brodie, Burke and Hare, Madeleine Smith, Dr. Pritchard and other irresistible villains) is the best collection of his work, and I would be remiss if I did not own that my introduction to his peerless work came via Toni Morrison, who confessed her own idolatrous admiration in the New York Times Book Review some two decades ago. If you like Roughead, you'll never be able to get enough. As Luc Sante writers in his perceptive introduction to this latest reprint, Roughead repeatedly creates narratives which contain "in full that collision of placid, well-furnished pedantry with savage howling atavism" that was the keynote of his fascination with evil--and Roughead did believe in evil--people. More of his genius is avalable on display in "Twelve Scots Trials," available from Amazon. co.uk. As Roughead so eloquently put it: "Murder has a magic of its own, its peculair alchemy. Touched by that crimson wand, things base and sordid, things ugly and of ill report, are transformed into matters wondrous, weird and tragical. Dull streets become fraught with mystery, commonplace dwellings assume sinister aspects, everyone concerned, howsoever plain and ordinary, is invested with a new value and importance as the red light fall upon each."

Simply put, William Roughead was and is the greatest true crime writer of them all. Combining a supple prose style with an inimitable, pawky sense of humor, he remains the best prose stylist chronicling human depravity since, well, the authors of the King James Bible. A Scot by birth, Roughead became a Writer to the Signet, a privileged position which allowed him to attend and write up the great murder trials of his era (1870-1952). His works are shamefully out of print and are well worth searching out in used book stores: both his commercial collections and his contributions to the "Notable British Trials" series. Henry James was one of his many devoted fans and even the briefest sample of his prose makes it obvious why true-crime buffs consider him the master. "Classic Crimes"(which includes chapters on Deacon Brodie, Burke and Hare, Madeleine Smith, Dr. Pritchard, William Palmer, etc.) is the best collection of his work in print and I would be remiss if I did not mention that I owe my introduction to this peerless writer to Toni Morrison, who confessed her own idolatrous admiration in a New York Times Book Review piece more than 20 years ago. If you like his stuff you'll never be able to get enough of it. (Also worth securing are the works of Roughead's friend, the American Edmund Pearson, whose "Studies in Murder" was reprinted last last by the Ohio State University Press.) As Roughead so eloquently put it: "Murder has a magic of its own, its peculiar alchemy. Touched by that crimson wand, things base and sordid, things ugly and of ill report, are transformed into matters wondrous, weird and tragical. Dull streets become fraught with mystery, commonplace dwellings assume sinister aspects, everyone concerned, howsoever plain and ordinary, is invested with a new value and importance as the red light falls upon each."

First, this "novel" appears to contain two unrelated stories. "Flood" is the shorter of the two. I like a lot of Drooker's work, but as a piece of narrative this just didn't hold me for very long.

In both pieces very little action occurs-- most of the longer story involves the protagonist walking from one place to another. Most of "Flood" involves the protagonist ignoring an increasing level of water.

In addition, character development is almost absent.

The visual metaphors in this book
are skillful and moving,
as well as very witty at times.
I laughed, I... well I didn't really CRY,
but I did get sniffly. ;)
An engaging commentary on life.

Note: If you don't really look at the pictures,
you won't get anything out of it.
Some of this work is very subtle.

3. Type your review in the space below: (maximum of 1,000 words)

I will write only 3 words: I LOVE IT

"The Big Con" is an excellent read from several perspectives. It is extremely well written. The pages fly by, which is saying something considering that it is non-fiction. As a 40's period piece, it is a must read for any fan of the crime/detective genre. Lastly, for anyone interested in the "confidence game" or related artforms, it is an esstential primer that considers the con at its most developed level. If the text has any weakness, it is that it leaves one with a craving for more details on the "short con." This may be forgiven because the point of the book is to examine the "big con," but as the author often notes, the masters of the big con nearly always get their start with the short con.

The only thing more astounding than the degree of thought, care, judgment and energy these con men dedicated to their dishonest trade is the fall-on-the-floor-laughing GULLIBILITY of some of the victims (marks) they ripped off. Given the plain old greed that propelled most of the victims into the traps they pretty much set for themselves, they absolutely deserved to be skinned as thoroughly as they were.

The stories in this book are eminently enjoyable, and they really make you wonder what sort of big con games are flourishing across the USA even as we speak.

Producer and Director Bruce Geller stated that this book was the textbook he used for creating his 1960's television show Mission: Impossible.