For years, I have heard about this book. After reading it, I am not that thrilled. I would suggest purchasing the JR Ackerly biography, as opposed to this. It's a bit sanitized for my taste.

Ackerley, a subtle and unassuming writer, has lately been quietly adopted as a "gay" writer. The term seems to have had less meaning in Ackerley's time than in ours. "My Father and Myself" would perhaps have been, at the time it was written, a suspenseful tale; it is constructed almost as a mystery. The modern reader, alert to every faint whiff of suggested homosexuality, will have guessed the memoir's (un-)shattering conclusion well before he has reached the end. No matter: Ackerley could've written elegantly and compellingly about stock-car racing, or peeling paint; his material here--his father's past and his own youth--is of universal interest, and of particular interest to unhappy sons.

The NYRB Classics series pretty much started out with a slew of reprints of the cult writer J.R. Ackerley, including his three memoirs (this, MY DOG TULIP and HINDOO HOLIDAY) and his one novel (WE THINK THE WORLD OF YOU). This, I would say, is easily his finest work. Ackerley's masterful reconstruction of his father's mysterious lovelife (comprising two unwed households and several unexplained longterm "friendships" with wealthy men) and his own conflicted sex life as a gay man in early twentieth-century London. Ackerley's tone always seems extremely honest, and while the narrative never comes to any absolute conclusions about Ackerley's father you're left convinced that these omissions and gaps are meaningful in and of themselves. This is as about a fine and interesting a memoir as I can imagine.

Lisa Preston-whatever-her-name-is obviously didn't take the time out to even read the book -- she just looked at the font and compared it to the more visually exciting one of the Nuyorican anthology without sitting back and taking in the content. Things don't have to be written in big, bold, unique lettering to hit the heart, and if she were Asian,living in NY (not Scarsdale), and intelligent enough to appreciate these new voices, she would know that the NuyorAsian anthology represents a fresh mix of the traditionally under-represented yet thriving underground communities of Asian American writers and artists. Read the book. You'll like it.

Bino A. Realuyo presents a diverse collection of Pan-Asian artists and writers representing and influenced by New York. The anthology explores the new genre of Asian writers spanning from immigrants connected to their homeland, to a new generation of American-born Asians dealing with a contrasting identity. Many of the writers have had their own books published, others are seen here for the first time.

For those that enjoy this anthology I also highly recommend "The Open Boat", edited by Garrett Hongo.

Realuyo's point is well taken in this offering of diverse voices and languages; New York City is a chorus within a chorus. This book does not pretend to encapsulate NYC, it simply opens up a window into the landscape that frequently finds itself in the imaginations of writers around the world. Reading this anthology is like riding a crowded subway car, you share a common space with the rest of the passengers without necessarily leaving from or arriving to the same (political/social/historical) platforms. And it's a trip well worth taking.

In retrospect, I should have expected this book to be as poorly written as it is. In the course of 300 pages, Professor Geisst attempts to provide the history of approximately 17 banking houses --- which translate into about 18 pages per house. (As a comparison -- Ron Chernow dedicated over 700 pages to the Morgan dynasty in his book. Imagine trying to condense that down into 18 pages). To call such treatments superficial is an understatement. Additionally, the book suffers from organizational flaws, particularly toward the beginning of the work. One even wonders if significant portions of The Last Partnerships were merely taken from Geisst's earlier work, Wall Street: A History, and shuffled around to create a new book.

I bought this book after I saw that Booklist named it one of the top ten business books of 2001. It divides each chapter into two parts, each dealing with two investment banking houses that were similar or closely related somehow.The result is excellent. The histories are clear, concise and full of color. Good anecdotes are put in boxes that complement the text. I thoroughly recommend this book to anyone interested in Wall Street.

This is a great piece of micro Wall Street history. The author looks at the financial district from street level, from the perspective of the Wall Street houses themselves.The stories range from good to fascinating and the asides in some chapters are great anecdotes. How the houses succeeded and why they ultimately dispapeared as partnerships is a great story and it is well told here. I would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in finance and history.

Very good illustrated survey of Colonial Military sites in in the Lake George, Champlain area. Nicely illustrated with a brief history of each site. A true bargain at the price!!!! The only flaw I found was the author repeats the old misinformation regarding the excavation of the HMS Invincible site in England. This warship sunk in the 1750s which was excavated along with late 18th and 19th Century military buttons that washed into the wreck afterwards leading Archeologists to believe British military buttons were regimentally marked in the 1750s. It shows how Archeology can sometimes provide misleading history when the excavators have little knowledge of material culture.

The Great Warpath is a comprehensive integration of archaeology and history, the type of book history needs more of to make past subject matter more tangible and believable. Ironically, there are surprisingly few works which supplement history with archaeology or vice-versa. With The Great Warpath Starbuck fills the vacancy as he carefully balances the two fields and raises archaeology to a new level of importance. Specifically, the book deals with British Military history in the late 18th century as Starbuck interprets it from his many years as an archaeologist. All the major sights of the French and Indian War in New York State are covered, as well as a few sights from the American Revolution. The Great Warpath refers to the Hudson River, the main corridor in New York State, along which military engagements of the French and Indian War, and the American Revolution occured. Undoubtedly, The Great Warpath has something to offer every military historian who is not satisfied solely with the limits of written history.

As the book opens, an unnamed narrator has returned, after twenty years, to the small Italian village in which he grew up, alone and unloved. A foundling abandoned on the cathedral steps, the narrator was brought up, for a fee, by a destitute farmer, who treated him more like a workhorse than a person with a soul. Eventually escaping as a youth to the United States, he worked his way to California, but when an accidental fortune leaves him "rich, big, fat, and free," he returns to Gaminella, where he confronts the harsh memories of his childhood and the even harsher wartime events which traumatized the town after he left.

In cold, realistic, and unemotional prose, the author alternates bleak memories of the boy who was always an outsider with his observations about his later life in the U.S. and his growing awareness of the atrocities that happened in Gaminella during the war. As the speaker reconnects with the characters from his past, particularly Nuto, a friend and musician, he notes the sameness of their days, their lack of hope, and the emptiness at the heart of their lives. The speaker has always believed that "a town means not being alone, knowing that in the people, the trees, the soil, there is something of yourself, that even when you're not there it stays and waits for you," a belief which acquires enormous irony as the town's collusion in events during and after the war become clear and as bodies mysteriously surface.

In language which is both understated and rigidly controlled, Pavese creates a world as bleak and cold as the moon, a world of secrets, a world in which there seem to be no dreams. His detached, almost off-handed presentation of horrors sets them in high relief and heightens their impact. Only when Pavese describes the attraction of the speaker to his employer's two daughters do we get a feeling that there's a heart beating within him, yet he remembers his "place," something which makes the daughters' fates doubly affecting and ironic for the reader. The moon and the bonfires, men and the land, nature and spirit, and ultimately life and death all combine here in a story about a small town, and, Pavese points out, "one needs a town, if only for the pleasure of leaving it." Mary Whipple

i came across the book because i was reading some material on jean-luc godard, from which i learnt that godard read pavese's work, so i got the book from the library... i really don't know how to say anything about the book, but it certainly is one of the few books that really touched me... the protagonist's nostalgic sadness on reflecting his childhood and its innocent charm, the solitude of (impossible) love were depicted as they were natural, natural but not natural enough for him to be at ease. the style is bare but this bareness proved to be great merit, it's like hou hsiao hsien's film

There is only one word to describe this book: Sloppy. So sloppy that you have to ask yourself if the author has ever taken his own tour.

I don't know if the blame falls to the author, or publisher McGraw Hill, for failing to edit this book.

I pulled a page (142) from a neighborhood I happen to know something about and found these errors on a single page:

# 21 "The former Metropolitan Savings Bank", opened in 1867 not 1868. He uses the apprehensive phrase "attributed to Carl Pfeiffer." A newspaper article about the grand opening day of this building as a bank reports it as May 21, 1867, and declares that the builder is Carl Pfeiffer.

Then he repeats an urban myth from a discredited revisionist "historian" that McSorley's Old Ale House did not open in 1854, but in 1862. He goes on to describe the items "on the grimy sheet-tin walls." The bar has no tinned walls. (With the exception of the lavatories) Step inside if you are going to describe the inside!

Save your money. McGraw Hill did when it came to hiring an editor to check his facts. Buy the AIA guide and make your own tour. Although the old photos are pretty good, they are not quite enough to be the saving grace here. Wolfe gets the addresses right, but if this one page is any indication., no one checked his historical facts, and that makes me even more surprised by the American Heritage review of this work.

This is the best guide of its kind which I have seen. Wolfe is thorough, engaging, sometimes funny and a joy to read. As a tour guide I have read many books on NYC, and this is one of my favorites. Unlike many other authors, he pays more than lip-service to the outer boroughs, and also offers a good guide to Roosevelt Island.

Let's see an updated edition!!!

This anthology covers the American anarcho-individualists gathered around Benjamin Tucker in the latter part of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century. The essays do a pretty good job covering different aspects of these figures, their acts and disagreements and so forth. Those with a particular interest in these individuals will want this book, but it lacks wider relevance. Anarchists of other stripes may also find it of interest.

Passing, written by Nella Larson, portrays the thoughts and feelings of a black woman dealing with inter-racial issues during the early twentieth century. The main character Irene Redfield, who has led a semi pleasant life with her husband and child finds herself dealing with issues brought upon by her past childhood friend Claire. Claire creates an intense and unstable environment for Irene and her family throughout most of the story. Towards the end a dramatic and suspenseful moment leaves the reader to create an ending in itself. I enjoyed Passing and found it to be an interesting book in relation to the early Harlem Renaissance years.

I'm biased: these reports were written by my great-grandfather, and edited by my great-uncle. That aside, what emerges from this book are well-worded images of a 21-year-old's leaving Utica, NY, for Washington and becoming part of the Army of the Potomac in 1861: marching and bivouacking; social events; provisioning; endless battle preparations; comments on society, the countryside, the mood of soldiers and civilians encountered; personal feelings. The battles in which Ritchie saw great action were those of Seven Pines (late May, 1862), Spotsylvania Court House and the North Anna (May, 1864), and Petersburg (March, 1865).

To give an idea of Ritchie's writing, here is his description of meeting Abraham Lincoln at one of the President's Tuesday evening social events:

I attended the last one and escaped unharmed... I held no conversation with any of the notables except Mr. Lincoln, the main portion of which I can recollect. A man who did not know my name introduced me to the President and he immediately extended his hand, seemed delighted to meet me and remarked with much concern, 'How do you do?' In my blandest tone I responded, 'Very well, thank you, sir' and was about to inquire after Mrs. Lincoln's health when we both dropped the subject and our conversation ceased. As I passed on I noticed that there were two or three hundred others behind me waiting to talk with Mr. Lincoln on the same subject.

The book is an easy read, because it has been well edited from Ritchie's diary, letters written home, and from his reports sent to the Utica Herald, for which he was a correspondent. The book gives a human aspect to the huge machinery of making -- and making ready for -- war. I liked it.

Alpern has collected a comprehensive array of images and information both past and present that illustrate the breadth of work by Carpenter and Candela. Their buildings still house the privileged members of New York's social set that these apartment houses were designed for. Netto's intro is overwrought, pretentious and obviously included to lend a certain cachet from a card carrying member of Park Ave society. The book is a good visual reference, yet somewhat anticlimactic in it's format.

Alpern has written several books about New York apartment buildings and this is his best. This time he focuses exclusively on the genius of two ground-breaking designers, James Carpenter and Rosario Candela. If you are not adept at reading floor plans (of which there are many), it might not be immediately obvious what defines the genius of these two architects. It is the innovation of their layouts and the graciousness of their spaces that made apartment house living so desireable, allowing for the migration from town house to apartment building. Regardless, everyone will still enjoy the exterior and interior views of these great New York buildings and get a sense of how the rich really live. Alpern raises our awareness of the apartment house type in the City to a higher level, just as others had focused on the greatness of NYC's commercial structures.
Each building is described in detail and there is some chatty material about who lived where, who bought what, and maybe a little more of that would have added fun to the book. There is a chronology of all the buildings and I would have liked to have seen thumbnail pictures of the buildings next to the timeline, since the book is organized geographically. It is otherwise an excellent and elegant study of the complete apartment house works of these two great designers.

Candela and Carpenter were two of New York's most noted architects of the inter-war era, specializing in luxury apartment buildings. Architectural historian Andrew Alpern has assembled a reference text of their buildings, organized in geographic sequence. In this book, a typical building has two pages dedicated to it. One page consists of a floor plan, and the facing page has a photo or rendering of the exterior, combined with a one-to-six sentence description. Also, there are several brief essays at the beginning of the book.

I enjoyed this volume, which Alpern has directed at a very narrow segment of readers, but it's not for everyone. This is a volume for architectural enthusiasts who are intrigued by room arrangements. Others might be better served by a book broader in scope (including some by this same author).