Welcome to the MOSL Book Challenge


Showing posts with label New York. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New York. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 20, 2023

Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty by Anderson Cooper and Katherine Howe

Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty by Anderson Cooper and Katherine Howe

At the age of eleven, Cornelius Vanderbilt set out to forge a path in the shipping and railroad industries, and he would eventually become the richest man in America. After his death in 1877, his heirs would quarrel over his vast wealth, creating discord among the remaining family members that can be felt as recently as 2018, when the last Vanderbilt was forced out of The Breakers, the enormous summer home built by Cornelius’s grandson. Anderson Cooper, the great-great-great grandson of the Commodore, as Cornelius was called, chronicles the rise and fall of his ancestors.

317 pages.

Friday, April 15, 2022

This Will All Be Over Soon: A Memoir by Cecily Strong

This Will All Be Over Soon: A Memoir by Cecily Strong

Cecily Strong has a tight bond with her cousins, Owen and Leda. In early 2020, Owen passed away from glioblastoma, leaving Cecily and the rest of her family devastated. When the coronavirus pandemic hit two months later, Cecily was unable to bury herself in work as a cast member at Saturday Night Live. Living in New York City, in the epicenter of the virus, and facing months of isolation with few things to distract her, Cecily absconded to rural Hudson Valley, seeking a way to process her grief. There, trying to make sense of the new life she was facing, Cecily spent months writing, with the result being the diary-like This Will All Be Over Soon.

 

272 pages.

Friday, November 19, 2021

Before the Devil Breaks You by Libba Bray

"A Jew, two negroes, a half-Chinese half-Irish girl, and a couple of Catholics" Am I here for the mentioning of how Catholics were also seen as outsiders in America. Yes. Also. what a squad. 
....I am concerned. Mabel. 
Cough. Captain America. 
Anytime any of the bad guys has a single thought or starts talking about being "Unamerican" or anything to do with eugenics:

Oh. My. God. I was not expecting ace-rep and there is ace-rep and honestly I am here for it.
Hey so there was a second where almost everyone was having a good time and just being teenagers...and then that moment ended. 
I'm just gonna go walk into the ocean. Because yeah. I'm in pain. Cause I got a feeling that someone's gonna die and I'm not gonna like it. 
I just....just let my babies be happy, and don't let this be like Crooked Kingdom for that one character that is kind of like that one character. 
560 Pages



Tuesday, November 16, 2021

Lair of Dreams by Libba Bray

I just want more Jericho content.
Also can we...can we not do love triangles...plz....It's bad for my mental health. 
Can we just let the children be happy. Please. Just let them not be dead. Is that too much to ask?
Look at all the racism and eugenics. (I mean it was the 1920s in New York, so like...)
I just love that we're pulling in all of the historical elements, and that we're also pulling in like the....the conspiracies and folklore of what the US government did when no one was looking.
592 Pages



Friday, February 26, 2021

The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York by Deborah Blum

Completely forgetting why my friend thought of this book during a conversation, and then remembering we talked about it because we were talking about distilling alcohol and how you can't drink the first or last bits because methanol and then no breathing

.
Aaaaaand we're talking about the Spanish flu and wearing masks...Whelp it has been 100 years.

336 Pages



Tuesday, April 10, 2018

The Godfather by Mario Puzo

The Godfather by Mario Puzo

The Corleones are considered the First Family of the American branch of the mafia, and Don Vito rules it with an iron fist. Their legacy is rooted deep in Sicilian tradition, as well as blood and honor. But when greed and power threaten to unravel the Family and their closest alliances, the true violence that lurks behind every corner of the mafia is unveiled.

448 pages.

Tuesday, December 29, 2015

"A Deadly Secret" by Matt Birkbeck

The subtitle of this true crime book is "The Bizarre and Chilling Story of Robert Durst."  I recently viewed "The Jinx", a documentary about Durst and the 1982 disappearance of his first wife, Kathie, and I wanted to know more about the case.  This book seemed to be the most in-depth and was first published in 2002; the edition that I read was updated in March of 2015, after "The Jinx" had aired on HBO.

However, this is not just about Kathie's disappearance but also about the murder of Morris Black, a Texas drifter killed and dismembered by Durst in 2001.  The author interviewed the major players in both cases, including the police, private detectives, Kathie's family and friends, prosecutors, and witnesses.  He does a thorough job of going through details and using them to show that Durst is a sociopath.  The only quibble I have is with the way the author uses quotations of conversations for which he wasn't present nor were recorded.  Durst is currently being held in Louisiana on an illegal firearms violation but has been charged in California with the 2000 death of his friend Susan Berman.  That case is also covered in the book.  299 pages.

Monday, October 20, 2014

Dry


Title: Dry
Author: Augusten Burroughs
Pages: 293 pages
Audio: 12 hours 30 min



Inside cover blurb: From the bestselling author of Running with Scissors comes Dry the hilarious, moving, and no less bizarre account of what happened next.

You may not know it, but you've met Augusten Burroughs. You've seen him on the street, in bars, on the subway, at restaurants: a twenty-something guy, nice suit, works in advertising. Regular. Ordinary. But when the ordinary person had two drinks, Augusten was circling the drain by having twelve; when the ordinary person went home at midnight, Augusten never went home at all. Loud, distracting ties, automated wake-up calls, and cologne on the tongue could only hide so much for so long. At the request (well, it wasn't really a request) of his employers, Augusten landed in rehab, where his dreams of group therapy with Robert Downey, Jr., are immediately dashed by the grim reality of fluorescent lighting and paper hospital slippers. But when Augusten is forced to examine himself, something actually starts to click, and that's when he finds himself in the worst trouble of all. Because when his thirty days are up, he has to return to his same drunken Manhattan life and live it sober. What follows is a memoir that's as moving as it is funny, as heartbreaking as it is real. Dry is the story of love, loss, and Starbucks as a higher power.


My take: I really like Augusten Burroughs, I think there is only one book of his that I wasn't too keen on. He is funny and honest. This book is no different from his other works. Read this book, read his other books as well.

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Rules of Civility by Amor Towles



The title of this book is taken from George Washington: sometime before the age of 16, he transcribed ‘Rules of Civility & Decent Behaviour In Company and Conversation.’ It covers a year in the life of Katey Kontent, who seems to use the rules as a primer on social advancement.

On New Year’s Eve, 1937, Katey Kontent and Eve Ross meet Tinker Grey in a Greenwich Village jazz bar. Katey is the daughter of Russian immigrants who works in a secretarial pool at a law firm. Eve is from the Midwest, the daughter of wealthy parents who refuses her Daddy’s money and is working in a low-paying job in a publishing house. Katey is hard working and grounded; Eve is beautiful and mercurial. Tinker is a handsome, charming, enigmatic, wealthy banker. The three of them become fast friends. Tinker introduces them to a life far removed from theirs, one of wealth, privilege and sophistication. Then they are involved in a horrendous accident that changes all their lives forever.

I really liked this book. The characters are well developed and memorable. It has an underlying sense of sadness underneath the glitz and glamor of 1938 New York.


352 pages