5 comments about Never a City So Real: A Walk in Chicago (Crown Journeys).

1. A Walk in Chicago: Never a City So Real
   by Alex Kotlowitz
   Crown Journeys, Crown: New York 2004 159 pp. Hardcover
   
   The "Big Onion" is better than the "Big Apple" in many ways, and Alex Kotlowitz, a former New Yorker who has made Chicago his home for over twenty years, sets out to prove how great and diverse his adopted city really is. As he writes in his introduction, "Chicago is a place of passion and hustle...a place eternally in transition, always finding yet another way to think of itself, a city never satisfied."
   
   But this is not the Chicago of the Art Institute, of Michigan Avenue, of Water Tower Place, or the Magnificent Mile. This is the Chicago of the South Side housing projects, the South East's closed steel mills, of Division Street and the 26th Street Criminal Court. It is the Chicago of the resilient and dedicated people who make their own neighborhoods places that come to life with positive energy and social change.
   
   In Kotlowitz's book you meet "Oil Can Eddie," AKA, Ed Sadlowski, the retired steelworker who climbed the ranks of union leadership and "...who loves his city's opera, its museums, and its baseball teams..." You read about how this steelworker went from the steel furnace to the cover of Time Magazine, and how the union that he organized created a better life for its workers, and how that working life is now in peril. The 64-year old Sadlowski takes Kotlowitz on a city tour in his beat-up "Crown Vic" to places off the tourist map, places like Pinkerton's gravesite and the Calumet Riverfront where the strikers once clashed with police.
   
   You get to lunch at Manny's Jewish Deli just south of the Loop, the hangout for political bosses and pit stop for every major politician who swings through Chicago. Then it's off to Edna's soul food restaurant with his two social worker friends, Millie and Brenda. As they sit down to eat, we get to overhear their conversation as if we were sitting in the next booth. This lets the reader eavesdrop on some of the problems that plague this city, from gangs in public housing to unwed teenage mothers. But in Kotlowitz's hands, the city is brought to life through the eyes of Millie and Brenda. And we get to meet Edna, sixty-six years old, who in the middle of taking lunch orders hears gunshots and runs out onto the street to shoo away the gang kids with her apron.
   
   We meet Milton Reed, the lanky street artist who paints provocative murals for the residents of the projects, and we tag along while Milton sets up his sketch pad on the street corner so that he can sketch portraits of parade watchers as the Bud Billiken Parade winds its way through the city's South Side, a still racially divided part of Chicago.
   
   Next we meet the embodiment of Sandburg's "City of Big Shoulders" in the form of a sturdily built six-foot female attorney, Andrea Lyon, who once while being attacked for her bag, punched her mugger so hard she broke his jaw. This imposing former public defender now works as a De Paul law professor and takes on some of the city's toughest criminal cases. It's a riveting account of the goings-on in this huge criminal beehive of a courthouse, and how Andrea heats up the proceedings.
   
   And we also meet a painter who paints the derelicts and prostitutes on Division Street near Wicker Park, and who has sold his work for many thousands of dollars in Paris, but who remains unknown in his own city. Robert Guinan paints the side of the city that is fast becoming gentrified out of existence and we hear him lament that the city is trying to homogenize itself. Guinan takes us into his studio and down to the jazz clubs like the HotHouse and the Velvet Lounge where he has painted the famous Blues musicians that have made Chicago legendary.
   
   We even go outside the city limits to Cicero, a suburb made infamous by Al Capone, to meet Dave Boyle, political gadfly and social activist, who runs a legal clinic for Cicero's disenfranchised. In Boyle's account, we learn how he foiled the town's corrupt politicians by exposing them to the truth of their actions when he tried to have illegal liquor licenses revoked.
   
   And finally, near the end of our tour in the city's northwest side at GT's Diner, a diner taken over by an Albanian immigrant who hands out free coffee and food to the Mexican day laborers who congregate in the parking lot outside his business, we read how he grumbles about the ones who don't pay and who sit all day in his booths, but we also learn why he sympathizes because as a child in Albania he learned from his parents that you have to help others.
   
   We read about how the city keeps changing in Kotlowitz's book as new immigrants arrive and change old neighborhoods, but we learn how much they add to the life of this great city. Wherever Kotlowitz takes us, we learn to love "his Chicago" and the very real people he introduces us to. These are the people that you would love to meet and sit down with in a bar to talk to for hours. Fortunately, Kotlowitz has done the sitting for us, taking it all down in this brilliant book.



2. Sometimes a book is "fine". This is one such book. I'd recommend it, but not very very strongly.



3. This waste of ink, paper, and time isn't even useful as a doorstop. This book is not about Chicago, it is about the author's politics (which is communism disguised as liberalism.)
   
   Early in the book, the author claims that the owners of Chicago steel companies got complacent and forgot how to compete. The fact of the matter is that meeting the demands of the unions priced the steel much higher than the units arriving from East Europe and Asia. This is the first of so many instances that the author proves he is uninformed. He is also inaccurate in geography, history, and one funny instance of a math goof.
   
   Don't waste your time.



4. Alex Kotlowicz mostly succeeds with this slice-of-life look at Chicago's grittier side. He begins by interviewing Ed Sadlowski, former steelworker and union official living on the southeast side where most of the mills have shuttered. Equally interesting was the view from Edna's restaurant in the west side ghetto where there are few businesses other than liquor stores. We also hear from an artist that paints murals for residents in public housing, a neighborhood of recent immigrants from many lands, a gadfly that fights corruption in the border suburb of Cicero (former headquarters of Al Capone), and several others. In many ways the author captures the city's feel, and allows readers to see how Chicago has evolved into a mostly post-industrial city, yet one where poverty and fear of minorities and violence remain touchstones for some.
   
   Oddly the author, who moved here 20 years ago from New York City, alternates praise with suggestions that the most successful see Chicago as unlovely and leave. In reality, most stay put in middle-class neighborhoods (or suburbs), acknowledging the city's problems, but prideful of our vibrant economy, superb lakefront, museums, parks, skyline, and universities - Chicago leads the USA in Nobel Prize winners. Despite small flaws, this is a revealing, concise, readable book.



5. Alex Kotlowitz's "There Are No Children Here" is rightly held up as one of the greatest works of journalistic nonfiction of the last twenty-five years. His "Never a City So Real," though, falls somewhat flat precisely because he tries to write an anecdotal series of re-creations of "Children."
   
   This book is readable and even interesting, but fails at introducing its reader to much of Chicago as a city. It contains almost no history and focuses solely on poorer, fringe neighborhoods while neglecting many more central (and historically important) points of interest. An interesting diversion, but one that is too skewed by Kotlowitz's politics to serve as anything more than that.

3 comments about Great Lodges of the Canadian Rockies: The Companion Book to the PBS Television Series.

1. Great pictures, informative text, and a tempting vacation guide (the book comes with a pocket guide showing prices, phone numbers, directions, photography tips, and other information). Describes the architectural and cultural evolution of the greatest lodges in Canada - most are those lodges built by the railways or by early 20th century mountaineers. All your guests will pick it up.



2. Anyone who loves spectacular mountain scenery and historic lodges should grab this book! Not only does the book contain the well-known spots (Banff Springs Hotel, Chateau Lake Louise and Jasper Park Lodge) but there's an entire section on lodges you can ONLY hike or ride horseback to. Barnes other books all feature American lodges, so this trip into the Canadian Rockies is a special visual treat full of history and plenty of sentiment. There are fold-out pages for real panoramic shots and a neat little guide in the back.



3. After watching the PBS series in July, I decided to buy the book. (I already own Great Lodges of the National Parks.) Not only are all of the spots in the series here, but MANY more. They all have wonderful photos and even better stories. It was touching to hear once more about Ken Jones (the first show of the series is in his memory).

1 comments about Cruisin' the Fossil Freeway Map.

1. Like most of the illustrations in the book the map is way too "busy" too much "stuff" in too small of space

1 comments about Insiders' Guide to the Oregon Coast, 3rd (Insiders' Guide Series).

1. THE INSIDERS' GUIDE TO THE OREGON COAST should be purchased with THE INSIDERS' GUIDE TO PORTLAND, OREGON, in order to give you a complete picture of Western Oregon. It's interesting to note that certain topics in this book are broken up into different sections of the coastal region, including town listings and tourist accomodations. Certain radio station categorizations, however should be taken like the humor in comedy movies featuring Melissa Joan Hart, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Cameron Diaz, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jennifer Garner, and Natalie Portman, as they are incorrect. This is a minor quibble however, as this book is generally a great guide for anyone looking for things to do in coastal Oregon to get in shape for their significant other and/or their favorite celebrity.

No comments about Not for Tourists Guide to Boston 2009 (Not for Tourists Guidebook).

5 comments about Journey to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Guidance Computer (Library of Flight Series).

1. Eldon Hall has done something rare with this book. He has taken a very complex subject, nearly forgotten due to time, and made it utterly relevant and engaging. For anyone with an interest in either space or computer history, this is a vital book.

   It is somewhat technical (I had no idea how they made rope memory modules, an early ROM format before this book for instance), but Hall is very careful to explain things in terms that an average reader can readily understand.

   The book itself documents the Apollo Guidance Computer from conception through numerous iterations and changes, to final successful lunar landings. Although the AGC capabilities seem trivial today, the AGC was the world's first Integrated Chip computer, and had enormous hurdles to overcome. In the end, of course, we know that Hall and his fellow employees at MIT did a good job...what I didn't know before was exactly what they had to do and the challenges they had to overcome.




2. This text is a very narrow treatise on an archaic topic; specifically, the history of the Apollo Navigation Computer. This computer was compact and versatile, being the first major effort to use integrated circuits extensively but before microprocessors.
   The book is well written and interesting to me. There are many color photographs and diagrams that bring the author's description's to life. His narrative is enlightening for technically knowledgeable readers though the author also takes time to explain some basic concepts without slowing the work down.
   The only problem with the book is that it costs 58 bucks. This is very expensive for a paperback book and that amounts to almost $3 dollars per page. This is probably due to being printed in small numbers by a specialty press. For this much money, though, I expect a hardcover.
   Due to the specialization of its content and its high cost, I recommend this book only to those with great interest in either in early manned spaceflight or the history of computers.



3. Even though the marketplace is getting bigger, many publications today are either "academic level" or "dummed down" for general consumption. This book is positioned between these two extremes and is just what I was looking for. One of many surprising things I learned was how the AGC (Apollo Guidance Computer) was the largest consumer if integrated circuits in the 1960s and was mainly responsible for kicking off this industry.



4. A great read. I couldn't put it down. Technical enough to engage the scientifically savvy. Humorous and personal too. A must for those interested in how we became surrounded by computers in our daily lives.



5. As a high-school then college student during the development of the Apollo missions, I found the book very interesting. In 1967, our senior class math teacher took us to Bowling Green State University to learn how to program BGSU's new IBM 360 computer using Fortran and punch cards. I designed a small computer the year before that could count from 0 to 7 as a science fair project, so the details on how they selected components for the Apollo computers was very interesting. During my senior year in high school, using my new knowledge of computers, I designed and built a computer that computed poker odds using just diode arrays, so the construction techniques used to develop the AGC (Apollo Guidance Computer) was even more interesting. I watched Apollo 11 land on the moon on my 20th birthday on July 20th, 1969, so I have always had an interest in that great program. It depicts admirably what this country can do when challenged.

5 comments about New York City For Dummies (Dummies Travel).

1. This book was very helpful. I enjoyed the brief history of NYC and the simple easy descriptions of different sections of NYC.

   They have very good suggestions on Cabs, Subways, Buses, Eating, where to stay, suggested itineraries, etc. Loads and loads of contact information for museums and sights to see.

   Easy to follow index to look up anything you might want to do or need info on.




2. We loved this book! We especially liked the author's opinions. Our hotel was right on and so were the restaurants. We appreciated the fact that the author was opinionated.............who needs another book that simply lists all to see and do. We actually felt like real New Yorkers and not just tourists. Kudos Brian!



3. Make it this one if you are going to NY. I bought several books and this was the best laid out of all the books and it doesn't try to be a resource for ALL restaurants or ALL stores - it just gets to the best.
   
   I loved nearly every recommendation. The only one that I had a beef with was the "Kid friendly" rating of Mickey Mantles. Not sure how a small bowl of pasta for $10 and no sides is "kid friendly."



4. This is a terrible excuse for a guidebook. Its maps are blatantly incorrect: the subway map is a ballpark approximation, at best, and things in Central Park are not located where the map says they are, among others. Its attraction descriptions neglect crucial information about the details you actually need at the sites (the Empire State Building and Statue of Liberty in particular), and the restaurant descriptions do not show the complete picture. I don't throw out books I dislike, but this one is going straight to the recycling bin.



5. Great book if you've never been to New York before. I found it extemely helpful in planning our trip with lots of advice and "secret" things I would never have seen or planned on. Has a lot about prices, places and pitfalls. The only thing I would have liked to see was some information on travel from the ports.

No comments about City Walks: Chicago: 50 Adventures On Foot (City Walks).

5 comments about A Kid's Guide to Washington, D.C..

1. I am horrified that this book did not address the vast history of Afican American's in Washington, DC. No mention was made of U-Street, Howard University or Frederick Douglas' home in SE section of the city as places to explore.

   Parents, Washington is a great place to visit with your children come off of the Mall and find out.




2. I bought a copy of this book for my three daughters to use while we were in DC. And it proved to be a hit. The book gives good information in an easy-to-understand format. The graphics and games were fun, and it kept them entertained on the plane ride there. They are telling me to give it a thumbs-up, so anything educational portrayed in a fun format gets my thumbs-up as well. The only criticism I have is that some of the information was outdated (the book was written 17 years ago, with no apparent updates) and is badly in need of a revision. Since 9-11, things have changed with some of the sites. Perhaps a short section explaining this to the kids, including why there has to be a security check in pretty much every building, would be in order. The Pentagon and FBI are not accessible at this time, and great limiations have been made at other buildings. Other than this shortcoming, though, the book is highly recommended.



3. We took this book along on our trip to DC and the whole family had fun and learned a lot from it. It is geared to kids of course, but was interesting and informative for adults to read also. It says for ages 4-8, but that means the activities, not the reading level. With our 8 yr old, she read some and we read some to her; it is probably too advanced for younger readers to read on their own. We learned a lot of things that were not found in any of our other (grown up) guide books. A great book.



4. We bought this book for my 6 year old before a trip to D.C. He had just started reading over the previous year, and he read it during the entire drive and during our stay. He was able to look up all of the sites we planned to visit, and was so proud to share facts he learned with us. It was perfectly targeted to a young child, and he has picked it up to read many times since. He did not actually complete many of the activities (he is much more of a reader than a writer at this point). I only wish there was a book like this for every one of our trips! I would highly recommend!



5. I think I liked this book more than my children did. It does have alot of interesting facts and features. I recommend it for ages 8 to 11.

5 comments about Connecticut/Rhode Island Atlas and Gazetteer (Connecticut, Rhode Island Atlas & Gazetteer).

1. I wanted to get this atlas, especially to help us find places to go camping and hiking.. It's not always easy to find campgrounds or primitive campsites (since they're not always located in clearly identified campgrounds), so having these detailed maps is very useful for that. We recently used the atlas when we camped in the Catskill Mountains region, and I was glad we had these maps to help us out.



2. These are fantastic maps! I have several others, and use them quite often. I don't know of another one that will be better than this one.



3. I currently own CO, TX, TN, VA and now AL atlas & Gaz.
   all are useful for home hunting, trying to locate a key area, etc.
   don't count on this for in depth directions. but a good look at contours and gps this works.
   this one isn't as good as the TX or TN version.



4. Already have an Atlas, topo CD set of Northeast, Garmin GPS Vista with topo/street maps. Once I found these Gazetteers, I bought one for every state in New England and New York. Each of the above provide different levels of information and alternative routes and access to various locations, often places with no direct road or trails. The gazatteers provide fast detail access to areas in question over the GPS or atlas and are invaluable to me while in the vehical. Although, the GPS is my lifeline away from the vehical, the gazatteers are large and not weather resistant.



5. The product came on time, well packaged, and exactly as described. A great shopping experience.