5 comments about The Curious Shopper's Guide to New York City: Inside Manhattan's Shopping Districts.

1. In case you didn't notice the dimensions listed, be warned - this book is tiny! The size of your palm. At first I was disappointed, as it is fairly odd in size and content. But when I started looking through it I found it very interesting, even if I won't visit most of the places. It is a kind of local's view into some of the really old "districts", like undergarments, millinery, and diamonds. I don't think I will be shopping for any of those things on my trip to NYC, but it was a very nice glimpse into local color!



2. This book is the size of a deck of cards. Very hard to read because of it's size. I was disappointed by the content. Had hoped to discover some fun, hip shops in NYC but instead all this book contained were things like; restaurant supplies, where to find bolts of material and buttons! I don't recommend this book!



3. The book was good but it had many areas of shopping that the average shopper would not be interested in. It was petite in size which i could throw into my person while roaming around the streets in New York.
   A good deal for the price.



4. If you are looking for the little treasures and oddities, this is THE book. If you have no experience with NYC and are looking for the New York Shopping Experience, choose a different one. This is a tiny block of a volume laser-focused on the hidden treasures: buttons, beads, baubles, ribbons, resale and on and on. The directions are clear and the descriptions charming. Don't miss the editor's faves at the back--visiting this handful of locations makes a great walking tour.



5. A charming little book;not so easy to find. Amazon offered both new and used; I choose new. The book
   arrived ahead of projected ship date. Service is terrific. Love the book.

4 comments about New York Calling: From Blackout to Bloomberg.

1. Mandatory reading on New York history. That sounds boring, doesn't it. Rephrase: learn about the blackout, the Bronx, graffiti artists, the drug trade, the sex scene, jazz, rock and punk, senegalese food, stuff you'd never think of or know was in the same boro as you. You should probably do it soon, as according to John Strausbaugh in an essay on gentrification, the mall-ification of SoHo, the "cleanup" of Times Square, "the island is rapidly being leeched of much of its character."
   
   I wouldn't describe this book as particularly cheery or as having a positive outlook on the future of the city, (it certainly wasn't written by the Travel and Tourism Board), but I think anyone not living in New York who is considering a move here should read this, primarily so you have some idea about recent New York history, and secondly so you're aware before you give notice at your hometown job (the one where your salary and your cost of living would recognize each other if they passed on the street) that today's city ain't the same New York of the 70s 80s 90s written about here, the one built by Hilly Kristal, Allen Ginsberg, James Brown, Warhol, Klaus Nomi, Hubert Selby, Ol' Dirty Bastard, but rather a watered-down (whited-down?) variant.
   
   I liked that with 29 essays contributing to under 400 pages, nothing ran too long where I felt myself getting bored with one topic before coming to the next one. Also, hundreds of candid photos show everyday life in seemingly countless neighborhoods.



2. I bought this book after attending a reading in Williamsburg (Brooklyn) given by one of the co-editors & two of the book's writers (Luc Sante who wrote the outstanding essay "Commerce" & Tim McLouglin who wrote the essay on New York crime.) I've just finished the book and the main thing that became clear to me is, in line with recent trends in New York City as a whole, this might be the best Brooklyn book I've ever read. Brian Berger's essay "Who Walk In Brooklyn" is the standout (it begins with two epigraphs, one by my favorite writer Gilbert Sorrentino and the other by Ol' Dirty [...]) but pieces on civil rights, crime, small daily life and black cultural empowerment all take place largely in that borough. Fans of Brooklyn writer Jonathan Lethem won't be disappointed but most likely WILL be surprised at learning there's a lot more there to talk about. I was also extremely pleased to see the detailed and plugged-in attention the Bronx received, not just the usual cliches about fires, baseball & the birth of hip-hop. If there is a weak spot in the book, it's that although Berger and others go some way towards detailing the fullness of Latino cultures in the city, a little more salsa and a little less punk would have been nice. But at least after reading this, you'll know which Mexican joint in East Harlem makes the best pozole, that the little lunch counter by Lefferts Boulevard in Queens is Ecuadoran and that Puerto Ricans built Brooklyn too. The same goes for African-Americans, West Indians & Africans, Lebanese, Syrian & Greek & so forth: if Manhattan is becoming whiter, more expensive & less interesting, this book celebrates the abundance of new cultures as much as it reminiscently mourns the old ones.



3. At its frequent best, "New York Calling" has the scope of an encylopedia and the sweep of a novel. While Marshall Berman kicks things off in trademark mensch of the people style, it's the wide range of attentions given to street life of nearly every kind that makes this book special. Well-known contributors like Luc Sante, Tom Robbins, John Strausbaugh and Jim Knipfel are all predictably terrific but it's the boroughs that are brought most vividly, and uniquely, to the fore. Steve Maluk's Staten Island piece is a celebration and subtle 9/11 memorial all-in-one, CJ Sullivan's Boogie Down essay picks up where Jonathan Mahler left off in "Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bronx Is Burning" and Jean Thilmany's account of old folks at home in Italian Williamsburg (she lived next door to Manhattan Special) was wonderfully drawn.
   
   As for New York's most populous (and popular?) borough, Brian Berger's "Who Walk In Brooklyn" might be the first piece on modern BK that gets ALL of it, or as much as could fit in seventeen action-packed pages. From Albemarle to Avenue Z, from the criminal to the sublime, with slavery, shanty towns, brutal labor strikes, mafia wars, sand dunes, salt marshes and the rush of food, music, noise, excitement and anger that every true Brooklynite recognizes as their own. Less ecstatic but equally important are the African-American voices of Armond White and Leonard Greene, each of whom cast a colder eye on the realities of race in what is, after all, also city's blackest borough.
   
   Lastly, although I didn't notice until a particularly grueling airport layover, Berger also wrote three panoramic section introductions and, at the end of the book, an eccentric 1964-2007 Chronology that's really quite thrilling. (If you see the book in a store, start here.) Others have noted the terrific photography but also hiding near the back is five page photo key with hundreds of detailed, often witty CAPTIONS, placing nearly every location down to the exact block. Imagine my surprise when I realized that whoa! Here were photos of Bay Ridge, where I now live; Midwood, where I went to high school; the Gowanus Canal, where my father worked and East New York, where my grandparents lived. I gave a copy of this as a gift my 85-year-old Aunt Nana in Florida. Nana grew up in the Bronx, lived in all the boroughs but Staten and she LOVED IT, graffiti, drugs, gentrification, the wacky art world, hip-hop, jazz, Rockaway Beach, Astoria, the Lower East Side-- nothing fazed her, although she wishes she hadn't sold her house in Park Slope 30 years ago for... oh, my she can't even say it!
   
   But I will: at last a book BY New Yorkers FOR New Yorkers, or anyone who wants to know why the natives are sometimes restless. A jillion thumbs up, two slices to go please, and if I could pay with old Show World or subway tokens, I'd treat all the writers to a night out at Randazzo's... or at least Roll N Roaster, hah.



4. I didn't enjoy this book as much as I was hoping. I think it's a little too "inside joke/story". Definitely geared towards actual New York city folk - which is cool - except I live in Seattle- har har!!

3 comments about A Time Before Crack.

1. If you were born between 1965 and 1975, this book will take you back to many forgotten memories. It is all at once an ode to fashion, an ode to attitude, and an ode to hip hop culture in its original form.
   
   Pictured here are the days when the budding hip hop culture was special. Hip hop fashion and style had yet to escape the boundaries of the hood, and here we see ourselves in all our "fresh" glory.
   
   The Puma sneakers with fat laces. The black goose "bomber" jackets. The sheep dog coats. The safari Kangol caps. And of course the Cazals...in every color. Its all here. This is a trip down memory lane that will surely make you smile.
   
   Jamel Shabazz was at the right place at the right time with his camera to capture the essence of hip hop culture in its infancy. This is as much a nostalgic book as a historical document to a time long gone. It was a time when being cool didn't necessarily mean being "thug", it was just...cool.
   
   Shabazz is an absolute master at capturing the raw grittiness of urban life while still showing the fun side. "A Time before Crack" is a necessary testiment to cultural evolution and is a must have for anyone that came of age in the hood in the late seventies and early eighties.



2. Okay...I'm only 30 but I was a little kid during this time period and I grew up right in the Boogie Down Bronx (South Bronx). I remember going to the skate key, seeing my uncles rocking sheep skin coats, addidas with the fat laces, Gazelle glasses. Seeing the birth of the Rap/hip hop game right before my eyes...from Curtis Blow, Luv bug Starski, to Kool Herc. This book will bring back things to your memory that will bring a warm feeling to your heart. This was the best time of my life and I wish I could go back...but now I can by revisting the pages of my life in this book.



3. There aren't enough words to capture how well this book captures the essence of the elements of Hip-hop. I am a cartoonist working on an animated series and when it comes to designing clothing, "Jamel Shabazz - a time before crack" has proven to be a resourceful and inspirational library of images to get motivation from. Not to mention he has photos from my block in the Lower East side of Manhattan!
   -David Heredia

2 comments about The Gluten-Free Guide to New York: Everything You Need To Know About GF Dining, Shopping, and Cooking in the World's Greatest City (and Its Suburbs).

1. This is a great gluten-free restaurant guide for people living in or visiting the NY tri-state area. It not only highlights great places to eat gluten free, but also lists where to shop. The sample menus are also very helpful.



2. This is a great resource for people travelling to New York. It's in reference form, with titles, addresses and some menus of restaurants that are aware of the celiac diet, and in some cases specially prepare gluten-free food. I needed my book quickly and Maria did everything she could to get it to me. This book and its author are terrific.

2 comments about 360º New York.

1. I got this book for Christmas and it makes you wanna book a flight to the big apple right away !!

   There's another 360° about London that is also very good.




2. I bought this book as a gift to a Chilean family I will be staying with this summer. I chose it because, other than captions, there is very little writing and because the pictures are gorgeous and varied. I liked it because it gave a good taste of New York -- yes, there is a picture of the Crystler Building, the statue of liberty, but there are also pictures of Dylan's Candy Bar, the Tiffany's on Fifth Avenue, etc.

2 comments about Brooklyn: A Journey Through the City of Dreams.

1. While this is not a review of the book, it is a review of the author. I took a class from Francis Morrone at NYU and was captivated every day by his breadth of knowledge, his ability to either synthesize or extrapolate at will and, best of all, his ability to convey his undying love for the greatest city in the world. I could wander through NYC with this guy for a month and never tire of the stories he could tell. I don't live in NY right now, but every day I wake up missing the sights and sounds of the city, and that is in no small part due to what I learned from Francis. He is a cultural treasure. Take his class; walk on his tours; and buy his book. I'm online to do just that right now. Oh, and I'm pretty sure Brooklyn is his favorite borough, so it's gotta be good!



2. What a beautiful book -- for your coffee table or your nightstand. It will make you proud to live in Brooklyn, if you do already (I do!), and it will make you want to visit if you don't. Francis Morrone is, to my view, our city's best architectural historian, and here he also brings his incredible knowledge of food, baseball, and just plain fun to bear on the city's most delightful borough.
   
   A book for anyone who cares about the beauty and majesty of New York City.

No comments about High Peaks: A History of Hiking the Adirondacks from Noah to Neoprene.

No comments about Long Island: A Guide to New York's Suffolk and Nassau Counties.

5 comments about Apple of My Eye.

1. I read this book in hardback more than 20 years ago, when I was a wee tot (comparatively speaking). I had spent one day in New York, and I brought the book back as a souvenir. It immediately gave me ideas for what to see when I returned. The book is especially poignant after 9/11, but the city is as great as ever. A great way to taste the excitement of New York--and not just its big public spaces, but its smaller, more intimate ones too.



2. This book could be considered out of date in some circles but major landmarks have changed and with all of the changes in NYC since the destruction of the WTC, it is also now a look into NYC's history.

   Helene Hanff wrote this book in 1976 when the WTC was still coming up, still being developed. The Top of the Tower Restuarant was "The Talk of the Town!" Over the past 28 years or so it has not only a wonderful tour guide; but for those of us who have never walked the streets of NYC or took the elevator to the 115th floor of the WTC to see the City this a book of pure vision.

   Helene Hanff reminds you to never look back at NYC when you are going out to the Statute of Liberty, you'll have plenty enough time to see it on the way back. It seems Her Majesty's beauty should be gazed upon until you etch every detail of her graceful,nurturing, beauty into your mind.

   A must read for anyone going to New York City for site seeing, or thinking about writing a book about your own hometown. Helene Hanff's flow of words are perfection and her use of adjectives second to none. A must read for young writers. You are bound to learn something; even if it is where to find the best local hangouts for lunch on a Sunday 12:00 NOON!




3. In 1976, Hanff got a job to write copy for a book of photographs of New York City. Beginning her research, she made a list of "Must See" sights, and realized that she'd missed most of them! She'd never been to the Statue of Liberty, or Wall Street, or the Stock Exchange. She'd been to the Cloisters once, many years before, never toured Rockefeller Center, never been to Grant's Tomb. So she enlisted her friend, Patsy Gibbs, and the two of them spent two months doing the things tourists do in New York City.
   
   However, this is not a guidebook. It's written from the point of view of a longtime resident, and is as much about the people as the sights. Hanff minces no words when she disapproves of something (the loss of Central Park land for additions to the Metropolitan Museum, the soullessness of theTrump Tower), but you'll be in no doubt about the things she loves, either (the Statue of Liberty, the skyline and so much else). The East Side/West Side split is analyzed and explained ("East Siders are conventional and proper, part of the Establishment and in awe of it -- which God knows, and God be thanked, West Siders are not."). She revels in the city's diversity ("And you won't believe it, but on Allen Street there's a Kosher Chinese restaurant where the Chinese waiters wear yarmulkas.") She acknowledges the bloody history behind the fortunes (Frick, Morgan, Rockefeller) that nevertheless contributed so much to the ordinary people of the city, those whom John D. Rockefeller III called "the many".
   
   Times change and cities change, though, and it's amusing to read about the shocking "suggested contribution" at the Cloisters: $1.75. The Met and the Cloisters are now charging $15 (though one payment will get you in to both if you're crazy enough to try to see them on the same day), and the Museum of Modern Art wants $20 from you if you want to enter its lovely new building. The edition I read is, in fact, a later one, published in 1988, and Hanff notes a number of changes in several "P.S." chapters. (Sadly, Gibbs had died of breast cancer several years before this edition.)
   
   Hanff admits it when she's wrong about something, too. She had gloomily predicted that damage to Central Park from a subway excavation would never be repaired. It was, with no scars.
   
   Even if you can walk to Zabar's in your sleep, you'll find something you didn't know about NYC in Hanff's book.



4. A pleasant little read providing delicious tidbits of information on the city that never sleeps. A native New Yorker, Helene Hanff sets out to rediscover her city so to write a tour book. Her love for the city is renewed as was mine. Sadly, Helene Hanff passed away in 1997. The book was last updated in 1980 so its still a bit outdated. Nevertheless very lovely, reminiscent, and timeless. It is easy to read and will provide you with a little bit of lore not found in guide books. It is not a comprehensive or indepth look at the city. In fact it is quite fragmented and simplistic. It reads more like an adventure story than a guide book. It is fun to read, full of dry humor, and it gives the reader enough taste of the apple to satisfy. Besides, NY city is much too big of a place to cover it all in one book. For those who are madly in love with NY, whether as a visitor or a native, this book is a must.



5. I am first of all a bit surprised by how many Amazon readers were so highly enthusiastic about this book. I found it O.K. a kind of mild, and light look at some of the City's great sites, and a kind of informative set of observations about some of the city's denizens.
   I did not find in it the drive, the excitement, the power of the City, nor a true reflection of its wild craziness. I think of something like Saul Bellow's meditation near the forty- second street Library on the passing crowd, of every type and kind Mankind has managed to produce. I think of the deli corners of Damon Runyan, or the Upper West Side cafeterias of I.B. Singer.
   Hanff knows parts of the city I have never really understood, like Sutton Place and Murry Hill .She does inform and I learned something about the Frick a museum which seems to most fully exemplify the meaning of the word ' quality'. But the City is so vast, so rich, so intricate ( Think of Melville at the Custom 's House, or Whitman's Manhatta, or James' Washington Square) both in Literature and Life that this small taste could not really fully satisfy.

3 comments about Appalachian Trail Guide to New York-New Jersey.

1. If the reader is really serious about hiking the A.T., specifically the N.Y. /N.J. section, this book, along with the 6 very detailed maps that come with it, will be a tremendous help, with all the relevant information all packed into a (large)pocket-sized paperback.
   In addition to very interesting facts behind the history and the beginnings of the AT, the information found in this book will guide you, almost hold your hand along the trail and, it will then be up to you to listen to the wisdom, advice and warnings found here or, ignore them and find out -the hard way- why only 10% of the people who attempt to hike the Appalachian Trail will finish it in a year.
   Where can you find water?; where are you not allowed to camp?; is it safe to hike alone?;can you take your dog with you? (NO!). Statistically speaking, did you know that you will be safer hiking the entire A.T., than walking the streets of most large american cities?
   These and many other topics, too numerous to mention here, are dealt with in this volume.
   Having all of that information ahead of time will make it (just a little) easier to put on your backpack, lug your 3 liters of water needed daily, consume the 4000 calories of food needed every day and.....in about 6 months time you will have arrived at your destination, very tired, much thinner and, much wiser.



2. 
   I've used previous editions of this guide, but the 16th edition includes validated GPS data and is certainly the best of a very good lot. The package includes a guidebook, with detailed trail descriptions for the 174 miles from Kent, Connecticut, to Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area on the New Jersey-Pennsylvania line. There are also four waterproof color maps (scale: 1 inch = 1 mile) which show the A.T., other trails in the area, and roads used to access the trails.
   
   My favorite hike in this book includes the Agony Grind on the west side of the entrance to Harriman Park, just off Old 17. There's a short, fairly steep scramble up to a long ridge walk above Greenwood Lake with great views -- you can often see hawks flapping across the lake far below you, and then rising effortless just out of reach on the thermals formed by the ridge. It's a rewarding out and in hike, of whatever length you have time for. Save a little energy for a careful descent at the end of the hike.
   
   There are other excellent local guides to New Jersey and New York trails. The New Jersey Walk Book: A Companion to the New York Walk Book and the New York Walk Book: A Companion to the New Jersey Walk Book are the pick of the litter.
   
   Nonetheless it is romantic to use one of a series covering the entire Appalachian Trail. One can pretend to be an End to Ender of this most famous of our trails.
   
   Robert C. Ross 2007 2008



3. This book was an excellent source of information. The maps were also helpful for planning out my mileage for my weekend adventures.