JAMES TRAUB has been writing about the politics, culture, characters, and institutions of New York City for twenty-five years. Currently a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, he has also served as a staff writer for The New Yorker and has written for the country’s leading publications in fields as diverse as foreign affairs, national politics, education, urban policy, sports, and food. He is the author of two books with New York City settings—one on the Wedtech scandal of the mid-1980s, the other on City College of New York. He lives in Manhattan with his wife and son.
praise for James Traub's previous works:
City on a Hill
“An excellent if sorrowful study of what City College has
become
since open admissions...informed, sympathetic, a heartbreaking
picture
of New York today.”
—Alfred Kazin, The New York Observer
“This is a deeply reported, lucidly written and clearly thought-out
book—a book
of merit.”
—A. M. Rosenthal, The New York Times Book Review
Too Good to Be True: The
Outlandish Story of Wedtech
“Traub...brings a novelist’s sensibility to the vastly complex
story; his characters
are so alive and the narrative so vivid that you feel like washing
your hands
every time you put the book down.”
—John Schwartz, Newsweek
The first part of Traub's learned cultural history focuses on Times Square (originally Longacre Square before it was renamed in 1904) when it was the center of New York's-and the nation's-entertainment industry. Evoking the Runyonesque worlds of vaudeville, burlesque, speakeasies, gangsters and molls, the author provides lots of glamorous information about old Times Square and its most recognizable invention-oversized electronic signs or "spectaculars." Part two opens in the 1970s after Hollywood, suburbanization and television had marginalized live entertainment and its capital, turning Times Square into a haven for drug dealers and prostitutes, "a disease to be cured." This section, on the rebirth of Times Square, is particularly valuable for showing how private interests and the public sector joined forces to create a capital for corporatized fun. In part three, some readers may become impatient with Traub's tortured indecision about whether to enjoy this weird, overblown world, as his 11-year-old son does, or to decry it as a plot by global capitalism, as well as with his tendency to obsessively analyze the place (he visits Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum with a professor who's "a deconstructionist, or perhaps a postdeconstructionist"). Despite the sometimes overly intellectual approach, this book should appeal to those looking for some of the joy and excitement that even the new "sanitized" Times Square has to offer. (Mar. 23) FYI: Traub is a contributor to the New York Times Magazine and the New Yorker. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
praise for James Traub's previous works:
City on a Hill
"An excellent if sorrowful study of what City College has
become
since open admissions...informed, sympathetic, a heartbreaking
picture
of New York today."
-Alfred Kazin, The New York Observer
"This is a deeply reported, lucidly written and clearly thought-out
book-a book
of merit."
-A. M. Rosenthal, The New York Times Book Review
Too Good to Be True: The
Outlandish Story of Wedtech
"Traub...brings a novelist's sensibility to the vastly complex
story; his characters
are so alive and the narrative so vivid that you feel like washing
your hands
every time you put the book down."
-John Schwartz, Newsweek
|
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
