Book Description

An Orphan in New York City is about survival.When immigrant parents died or could no longer financially or emotionally support their children, benevolent Jews came to the rescue. This is the story of life at the Hebrew Orphan Asylum with a thousand brothers and sisters during the Great Depression. ... Read more

Book Description

Not Long Ago is an autobiographical view of Doris Drake's experiences through life. Starting in upstate New York, living through two World Wars, and settling in California. I had two sons and five grandchildren (to date) and a fascinating voyage through the journey of life. Not Long Ago is intended to leave a recital of these travels and my observations for my descendants and those I love. I am grateful to the many extraordinary people I encountered and I live with collected and pleasant memories. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

a wakling god
This book without a doubt is the best book I have read ever.
Its clear and simple english make it a breath of freshair
to read.

Lets just look at one sentence:
"Everytime I go back to brownsville its as if I had never
been away"

A demanding read that rewards the effort
One of the most respected literary critics this country has produced, Kazin made a significant contribution to the literature of the American immigrant with "Walker in the City." This demanding autobiography of his youth in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn vividly recreates the life of pre-Depression and Depression Jews for whom Manhattan, though just miles away, represented a faraway land filled with mystery and fear.

It is the world outside of Brownsville that looms over the book and the spirit of its narrator. Kazin successfully captures the yearning for new experiences that filled his heart as he grew up in the streets. It was that yearning that led him to the public library and ultimately across the bridges and out of the Brooklyn borough. It was also that yearning that made him wonder about a world that was not filled with Jews.

The mystery of the lands that lay beyond Brownsville's streets fills the book with a sense of tension. We can almost feel the young Kazin's heart burst as he begins to sense the vastness of the world. "Beyond! Beyond!" the narrator shouts, and prose turns into poetry in many passages of the book as he seeks to express the mixture of fear and exhiliration stirring within him.

One chapter, "The Kitchen," has been frequently anthologized, and rightfully so. It is a meditation on the room in which his mother spent much of her time working on the sewing she took in to make extra money. In the end, his mother's constant pounding on the foot treadle of the sewing machine comes to the author to represent the fire burning within her -- to achieve, to make a better life for her son, to survive in a strange new land where this exiled Jewish woman is once again a stranger.

This is a great book that deserves a vast readership. Though not a novel, it takes its place next to "The Rise of David Levinsky" and "Call It Sleep" as a masterpiece of immigrant and Jewish/American literature. ... Read more

Book Description

If you enjoy this book, you should really give the credit to my wife. Absent her encouragement, it might never have been written. She'd listened to my Meadville stories for years, finally urging cheerfully, "You know, you really should write a book."

So I wrote two other books. She loved them both. But they weren't the book she wanted. I was skeptical. "Who would want to read a book about me growing up?"

"Well, your grandchildren, among others."

My initial efforts were tentative at best: a bit of story here, a fragment there, until finally (partly because of the writing itself?) it began to sink in that she had a point. Our stories are more important than we realize. The very telling of them summons back to consciousness not just the places where our pasts unfolded but the people who inhabited them, places and people that shaped who we are and, to some extent, who we may yet become. The more deeply I probed those far-off memories, the more brightly my childhood town lit up around me, and the larger became the company of shadows who gathered around my chair, looking over my shoulder and prodding me to remember.

Because places change, we no longer see ourselves in them-until we revisit them as they were, and see ourselves again as we were. Maybe, I thought, reading my story will help others to explore their own, to find out how their hometowns, and the people who lived there, matter in ways they'll not grasp unless they go there.

One other consideration drove the writing. Stories deserve to be told well. Forty years of preaching, teaching and writing have taught me the importance of that. If I have done nothing else here, I have tried to tell my stories in such a way that their beauty and fun-and their sad mortality-remain unmistakably present. How well I succeeded I'll leave for you to judge. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

A beautiful story, beautifully presented...
Don Skinner's new memoir of growing up in northwest Pennsylvania in the 1930s and '40s is is a must-have for folks with a small-town upbringing, those with a passing interest in community life of half a century ago, or anyone looking for a lovely, comforting, satisfying book.This chronicle is often laugh-out-loud funny, sometimes throat-catchingly poignant, and always vividly and expertly presented.

The most striking aspect this book is Skinner's incredible imagery:whether he is describing an unanticipated trip down Main Street attached by his snowsuit to the bumper of a Model T Ford, or an impoverished African-American man plucking lumps of coal from the floodwaters of a creek, or a squabble with his sister and brothers to claim the cream at the top of the morning milk-bottle, the reader is instantly and charmingly transported into young Don's world.

While the greater part of the book describes a gentle community and a child's life in a loving, close-knit family, Skinner doesn't shy away from tackling more troubling issues, both personal and societal:his father's untimely death when Skinner was only seven; the failure of the local educational system to recognize and address his learning disability; the years of World War II, when an unbearable number of the town's sons and daughters left and never returned; the tacit subculture of racism; the simmering anti-Catholic bias of some of the community's Protestants. This is by no means a view through rose-colored spectacles, but Skinner treats his subject with wisdom, sagacity, and affection.A very enjoyable read. ... Read more

Book Description

International best-selling author Allan Cole serves up the sometimes humorous and always exciting mean streets’ exploits of an undercover cop in Philadelphia. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

High Praise From Other Cops
I thought it most interesting that Mr. Cole and Mr. Grubb have won highest praise possible - the good opinion of police officers themselves. Here are just a few of the comments I read on the back of the book: "'A Cop's Life'" is a must read by anyone who ever wore the uniform or badge!" - Robert V. Eddie, Recording Secretary Philadelphia Lodge #5 Fraternal Order of Police; "If you like the inside story, if you like dealing with facts and not fluff, then you will love reading 'A Cop's Life!'"- Michael G. Lutz, President, Pennsylvania Fraternal Order of Police; "I thoroughly enjoyed 'A Cop's Life.'" It was both witty and right on target." - Bill Pawley Inspector, Retired, Philadelphia Police.

A Fun Informative Easy Read -A must read
If you want to know what it is really like to be a police officer in "real life", you must read this fun, informative book. The style is, informal, real, refreshing, and very enjoyable. I could not put this book down. If you are like me and enjoy understanding your world a little better then this book belongs in your personal library. I loved it!

Travel back in time and ride shift with a Philly Cop
This book is a departure from my normal reading genres, but a friend recommended I read it and I'm glad he did.It is written in an unpretentious, personal narrative writing style of an uncle to a nephew (Grubb to Cole).The book draws you into the world of a rookie cop, poorly equipped and trained by today's standards, in Philadelphia in the 1950's.Mr. Grubb takes us back into his world and provides lessons in both history and humanity.What impressed me most was the quiet, unassuming professionalism and personal character Mr. Grubb demonstrated while working in some of Philadelphia's toughest neighborhoods peopled with pimps, prostitutes, pushers and junkies -- good cops and bad.This book is nothing like the sanitized TV cop shows of today. It is instead an accurate account of a difficult job in a different time.Check it out.I think you'll enjoy it. ... Read more

Book Description

In this delightful memoir, at once hilarious, canny, and moving, Michael Korda does for Dutchess County, New York, what Frances Mayes did for Tuscany. This witty memoir reads like a novel, as it chronicles Korda's transformation from city slicker to full time resident of Dutchess County.

Korda tells the true tale of what country life is really like - from fried bologna sandwiches to the ups and downs of owning pigs, from the challenges of properly keeping horses, to the sad but true fact that all the locals are fully aware that he "don't know shit about septics." Sure to have listeners in stitches, this is an audiobook that will appeal to everyone who's ever dreamed of owning the perfect little escape up in the country. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

My opinion
I really enjoyed reading and learning about a whole new and enjoying life that someone had been through.I recomend that others out there purchase this book and read it. ... Read more

Book Description

Memories Are Like Clouds, a touching memoir, is a fond remembrance of growing up when life seemed simple.

Gliding on the porch swing while listening to their mother’s stories of her youth, counting dead goldfish at the five-and-ten cent store, playing pick-up baseball games down near the dump, collecting Ralph Kiner and Stan Musial baseball cards, helping Daddy at his candy business, devouring Sgt. Rock comic books, and running numbers for the neighborhood bookie in a housedress filled Kenny and Diana’sinnocent days in East Vandergrift, Pennsylvania.

The author weaves together the universal experiences shared with millions of other baby boomerssuch as that first television set, iceboxes, “Amos ‘n Andy,” hula hoops,and the milk man and the individual memories specific tothis family (the rag man and his tired old horse, the Polish Barber’s dirty adventure magazines, and shotgun weddings at the Slovak Club).

This coming-of-age tale, filled with hope and old-fashioned values, will delight and engage and then, long afterward, persist in memory.

Reviews (9)

Memories - for all of us baby-boomers!
Diana Dell has a talent for transporting the mind back in time and place - to the times that us baby boomers still remember with fondness. Her look backwards is also her way of dealing with the loss of her brother - without reminding us of that fact all the time. She has loving respect for her roots - her family and her neighborhood. She has captured those times and people and given us a snap shot of her heart as she grew up. The reader will find that they will get involved in all these people's lives that she introduces in the book. It is a book for both men and women to read. It makes a nice weekend reading journey as I have done this weekend.

Memories Are Like Clouds
Memories Are Like Clouds is a beautiful, evocative memory of the bucolic and misty 1950s in a small town in Pennsylvania. Diana Dell's love of Kenny, her younger brother, her family and her 'place' screams off the page. I found myself chuckling often and when not chuckling, a twinkle nestled in my eye side-to-side to a stray tear or a chill.
This is a story about a boy, a family, a town, and a time that comes alive in the present and says something meaningful to us.
Memories Are Like Clouds is a celebration of Kenny Dell, an All-American boy, a poignant toast to Kenny, the soldier and hero, and a song to the sacrifices of American soldiers heeding their country's call. We can pray their country exercises their love with wisdom.
Memories, like clouds, stir and churn. This book is a must-read that places history in context to the present. Bob Lupo, author, A Buffalo's Revenge; Extremities-4.

Recollections of growing up in a small ethnic community
I enjoyed this book. The title is perfect for a work that snapshots growing up in a Polish community. My grandparents were Russian Jews (both sets) who came to America about 1912. Both my parents were born here. So much of the anecdotal tales of local characters, mom and pop shops, numbers running, close communities, mirrored so much of what I remember as a child. Overlaying the story and presented initially is the loss of a loved one in Viet Nam. This book relates how immigrant families sacrificed for their children encouraging their education that resulted in 2nd generation Doctors, Lawyers, Accountants etc. Its a wonderful book to read and struck many chords for me.

Would Make a Great Movie!
This wonderfully descriptive and delightful memoir is charming. Hollywood filmmakers take note: This poignant remembrance of the 1950s would be a great movie or TV series!

Compelling Story of Post World War Two Coming-of-Age
What makes this book so appealing to a "Baby-Boomer," like myself, is that it brings back memories of what it was like growing up in a small town in the fifties. The wiry humor and interesting characters make the book hard to stop reading. Fact is---I read it twice, and would certainly recommend it for its entertaining aspects, as well as its literary merit. Dell's other book, "A Saigon Party," is a must read for those desiring a different view-point of the Vietnam war. Her writing is poignant, sincere, and manages to capture a little of the American spirit that is in all of us. Sincerely, Franklin D. Rast, author: "Don's Nam," and "Ghosts In The Wire." ... Read more

Reviews (24)

Excerpts from Port Folio Weekly review
Norfolk's Port Folio Weekly reviewed this book and said: "For Pearson, the world was dominated by the Bronx. And in this beautifully crafted memoir, he has brought that world to life.

His recollections of his literary experiences -- set against his memories of everday life on the street -- create a tension that is sustained throughout the book. One gets the impression that he was forever torn between the small world in which he lived and the wide world of his book-fueled imagination.

Dreaming of Columbus gives us a brilliantly detailed picture of one boy's life in the Bronx. But to a great extent, it also transcends the particulars of time and place. Regardless of where you grew up, this is a book that will help you see your own past in new ways."

Rambling Reminisces about a Childhood in the Bronx
Michael Pearson has the right idea, but the ideas that are gathered into the book are a little disjointed and fractured. If he could smooth out the stories so that blend one into the other, the entire book would read better.
On the positive note, Dreaming of Columbus would definitely stir memories of the neighborhood for those growing up in that part of New York. He does have some descriptive stories of people, places and landmarks in the book that are entertainingly delightful.
If you are a Bronx native, I would recommend this book so you can remember things you may never see again.

We are all dreamers
I loved this book. It gave a shape to Pearson's life and let me understand that there is a shape to all of our lives. It's just up to us to find the meaning that is there for us notice.

A Memoir that Reads like a Novel
For me Dreaming of Columbus read more like a novel than a memoir. I mean that as a compliment to the writer. The story had the feel of fiction to it, as if you could see inside the characters lives and enter the story for a while. I loved it.

Familiar Themes in Dreaming of Columbus
Despite the images of sea voyages inspired by its title, Dreaming of Columbus is not the story of a young man spending his salad days in exotic, foreign settings. Instead, Michael Pearson takes the road less traveled and keeps his story closer to home. The reader looking for journeys will not be disappointed, however, in the imaginative way the Pearson uses literature to break away from the confines of the Bronx and the unpredictable, bourbon induced, violent outbursts produce by his father's rage to live. Although Pearson engages in excessive epigraph dropping, the means by which literature provides an avenue for escape adds a universal element to his narrative from which we call all learn something about the art of bridge building. ... Read more

Book Description

Herb Streifer was born in the Bronx in 1915, an area where upward, aspiring immigrants—Jewish, Italian and Irish—went to escape the ghettos of the lower East Side. When his father died in 1930 at the beginning of the Great Depression, Streifer was fifteen. He and his siblings helped their mother run the family grocery in Elmhurst, Queens through the depression years. Cash became so tight they had to give up their large apartment and move to the back of the store.

Once Streifer finished high school, he continued working and went to City College nights. He graduated in 1941 with a BS just in time to be drafted into the army. Streifer married during WW II and, after the war, earned an MBA by night at NYU, and started a family.

From these experiences, his wry humor, and an appreciation for a great anecdote, the stories came.

Book Description

This book is a collection of eighteen personal accounts of growing up in an Italian-American home in an inter-city neighborhood of the 1930’s, 40’s, and 50’s. Accompanying the text are over fifty pictures of an historical era many Americans hold close to their hearts and consider the most precious of their lives.

The author, a gifted storyteller, writes about topics that range from his parents’ roots in Italy to life in Catholic schools; from how teenagers dressed when he was a boy to how U.S. military personnel are honored in American cemeteries throughout the world. The love of family, regard for old friends and classmates, and the importance of “roots” are threads that are woven throughout the book.

The stories recounted here were originally published as separate articles in a local newspaper over a period of seven years in a series entitled “Flashbacks” – thus the title of this book. The reference to “the other side of the tracks” in the book’s title refers to the where the author’s home was located in relation to his hometown’s “Little Italy”. The “Flashback” series was recently recognized with an award from the local Historical Society, in no small part because of the literary efforts of Gino Carlotti.

This is a book for the young – so they can learn. And for the old – so they can remember. ... Read more

Book Description

Written by a born and bred New Yorker who spent the first half-century of her life in the world's most unique City, this engaging, vibrant memoir evokes a fascinating, unforgettable era with rare fidelity. Operating on many levels--family, show business, social activism and the human heart--these vivid memories reflect a poignant and comic sense of life. Narrated with compelling honesty, sensitivity and infectious humor, they conjure not only a colorful image of years gone by, but also hint hauntingly of the City's evolving destiny. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Absorbing and Evocative
Surely the definitive book about growing up in New York from the 1920's to the 1950's, this is far more than an absorbing salute to the City's indomitable spirit. Written with shrewd insight and enormous verve, Phillips' evocative, enthralling, often hilarious memoir, accomplishes the two goals of its particular genre, summoning up the general spirit of a colorful time and place while conveying a keen sense of individual uniqueness. With her brother, Arnold, as focus, the author creates a poignant and comic sense of life during a fascinating era. Once begun, I could not put the book down. From "Prelude" to "Postlude" it is a totally captivating read. ... Read more

Book Description

On of the most used phrases that was heard in the inspectors’ area of the office was, “I tell you that I saw this most incredible sight today and if I could, I would write a book about it.” The only problem is that no one would believe it. INCREDIBLE!!! tells the true life stories of a chief building inspector in New York City. Stories such as walking into a railroad room house of prostitution where no one looked up to greet you or question you, attempting to evacuate structures that were about to fall and being threatened by tenants. One tenant refused to leave until he was convinced that his dog would be dead tomorrow...the next day the tenant showed up at his apartment to find the bed covered with bricks. All he said was, “Thanks.”

INCREDIBLE !!! ... Read more