Book Review: The Floating City by Sudhir Venkatesh

 
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Floating City: A Rogue Sociologist Lost and Found in New York's Underground Economy by Sudhir Venkatesh. Published September 13, 2013, by Penguin Press. 304 pages, hardcover.   ISBN-10: 1594204160 ISBN-13: 978-1594204166

   Certain authors, when they post new books, catch my attention immediately. For whatever reason, their writing seems to resonate with me, and Sudhir Venkatesh is one. I first met Dr. Venkatesh's work in Gang Leader for  a Day. In that book, he documents the underground economy of Chicago and the gangs who form a major part of it. Recently, I was privileged to read a galley of The Floating City . Although I enjoyed it, the book seemed to only scratch the surface of the topic. Perhaps this seemed to me to be this way because of Venkatesh's frequent referrals to the angst he was feeling about his career and his marriage; I felt torn between sympathy and anxiety because of my work toward a PhD and the uncertainty of this being the right thing for me as a fifty-something to be spending money on-- I see his struggles and I feel that he is brilliant! How can I hope to be successful in my chosen career path if he is having doubts, issues, and personal trials!

     Nonetheless, the book was a great read and a way to understand how people in poverty-stricken areas make their way through the world. It also uncovered ways that bright young people with no outward reason to delve into the dark world of crime find themselves taking part in it. I felt that the personal revelations in the book made it difficult for me to understand what Dr. Venkatesh's original intent actually was. It seemed as though he was using the desperation and deprivation of the people whose behavior he was trying to document as a participant observer to delve into his own needs and shortcomings. Since I can't feel that my knowledge about his personal issues would be at all helpful to him, I'm not sure why it was included in the book and made it more difficult to follow the thread of the narrative.
   
     I believe this book has a place on high school and public library shelves and would recommend it to anyone who would like to understand New York, sociological research, or big cities in general-- both how they differ and how they are alike.

Book Review of Detroit: An American Autopsy

Detroit: An American Autopsy by Charlie LeDuff. Hardcover, 304 pages

Published February 7th 2013 by The Penguin Press HC

ISBN 1594205345 (ISBN13: 9781594205347)

 

I finished this book in two days. It was like a train wreck-- I couldn't look away. I have been reviewing quite a few books about Detroit and the issues surrounding the every day life of people who live in the D. This title has a combination of witty prose, hearfelt pain, and a canny understanding of the people who have shaped and made Detroit the city it is today. LeDuff claims with evidence that Detroit has been a corrupt political landscape for at least a hundred years, and the common "line in the sand" that is 1967 rebellion was only a convulsion of a larger disease. He delves into many headline stories from Detroit's recent history, and tells us "the rest of the story." It is a well-researched book. Some might say that it is over the top reportage. However, LeDuff is outraged. He has every right to his anger, and shows us why he is so upset with everything that has happened in the city. The types of stories he tells are about the politicians, police, firemen, victims and criminals that are Detroit, as well as the people who have been left behind while the multi-national companies take their bailout money and move their factories elsewhere. Yes GM, Chrylser, and Ford have survived. They haven't shared any of their good fortune with the city of their birth.

LeDuff paints vibrant pictures of Kwame Kilpatrick and Monica Conyers, just two of the crooked politicians and the most recent of the steaming piles that is Detroit politics. The book was a great read; I believe it is an accurate picture and a heartfelt howl of rage and pain that many Detroiters feel but cannot so eloquently express.

Book Review: Detroit: a biography by Scott Martelle

 

Detroit: A Biography by Scott Martelle. Published April, 2012, Chicago Review Press, Incorporated. ISBN-13: 9781569765265, ISBN: 156976526X

 

Scott Martelle's in-depth look at Detroit is an enlightening read. He talks about the history of the city, from the earliest days until the very recent past, and the story he relates is at times painful to read. This is not, however, because of the writing; it is because the story of Detroit could have been so different! He relates what he feels are the main issues that caused the city to come to the place in which we find it, mainly the well-known fact that Detroit has basically only had one main industry for about a hundred years, and there was no cultivation of any other means of support for the city. However, the other little-mentioned fact that also hurt Detroit was that, after World War II, the "arsenal of democracy" stayed focused on automobiles, rather than trying to get a piece of the defense market on a larger scale. No one ever took another step toward diversification, while the auto companies themselves moved away and out of Detroit, leaving many without jobs and the city without revenue.

 

Martelle dwells quite a bit on the racial issues that have plagued the region, really, not just Detroit. These ways that people have been wrongly treated also help explain the downfall of a great city.  He lays out the entire saga, starting with the people who moved to Detroit from the southern states, because even the racism they encountered in Detroit was not as bad as staying in the South. However, it was bad enough. He describes the riots and their influence on the outcome of events in Detroit.

In the book Detroit: a biography, Martelle helps us understand the sheer size of the problem that is Detroit's reality with the use statistics from census data, historical records, and real estate. It is staggering to know, for instance, that housing values are a small fraction of what they were worth only ten years ago. This loss of valuation also impacts the property taxes that the city can receive and other revenue streams that have dried up just because of the huge amount of people who no longer live within the city limits. The problem is not all gloom and doom, but Martelle is more interested in giving a historical perspective to the issues surrounding the city of Detroit. This book was less entertaining than, say, Detroit City is the Place to Be, but my reading of it helped me understand just what is going on in the city of Detroit, and how it came to be this way.

Book Review: Detroit City Is the Place to Be

Detroit City is the place to be : the afterlife of an American metropolis / Mark Binelli. New York : Metropolitan Books, 2012.

1st ed.

ISBN: 9780805092295, 0805092293

There is a tenacious optimism rampant throughout the city of Detroit. Artists, Internet start-ups, and many other players seem to feel that Detroit could be the new Brooklyn, according to Mark Binelli, a native Detroiter who spent a year in the heart of the city. In this extremely readable narrative, Binnelli brings to light quite a few of the many counterintuitive realities of the city. For instance, many do not know that Matty Maroun, the owner of the Ambassador bridge linking Canada and the US, makes about 60 million dollars a year on the tolls he charges for the use of the bridge. It is unthinkable that the bridge, which carries a fourth of the commercial traffic between Canada and the US, is privately held. One would assume that this link is held in the public trust. Or that the Detroit Public Schools would even consider closing the Catherine Ferguson school, a school for pregnant and parenting teen moms with a graduation rate of 95%.  Through all of the stories and interviews, Binelli shows why there is such optimism in this city, even when there seems to be no evidence that this mindset is even realistic, let alone warranted. This book was a lot of fun to read, and I learned a lot about my home town that I never knew. It was good to walk the streets of Detroit with Binelli. He is a great guide, and the city itself is fascinating. This title is recommended for those who are interested in the renewal of urban areas or who love Detroit and would like to know more about it.

Book Review: American Isis

American Isis : The Life and Art of Sylvia Plath by Carl Rollyson

9780312640248, 0312640242

Hardback / With dust jacket

$29.99 US

Biography & Autobiography / Literary 

336 pages

Plus one 8-page black-and-white photograph insert

I was disappointed in American Isis. I would like to find a biography that might help interested students understand Sylvia Plath and her work. This book is choppy and seems to take a smug attitude toward the subject. The author could have tried to help make sense of a poet who seems well-known but is not; whose work is part of the American experience and yet seems that people know very little about her as a human being. I was really hoping that this title might help people like me, not an English major nor a psychology major, understand Plath. This particular book just confused me more. 

Book Review: The Adventurer's Guide to Living a Happy Life by Matt Mosteller

Paperback: 88 pages
Publisher: Premier Digital Publishing (October 9, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1624670091
ISBN-13: 978-1624670091 (from Amazon.com).

I read with some excitement The Adventurer's Guide to a Happy Life. The problem was, it just didn't deliver. It was like someone took Don't Sweat the Small Stuff and threw in some pretty common observations. I wasn't really looking for a self-help book; rather, I thought perhaps the author would use some of his more interesting experiences to show how they helped him have a happy life. There's no adventure in The Adventurer's Guide, unfortunately. I found myself reading faster and faster, skimming through the book for the juicy bits, only to find that everything was cut-and-dried. It was a disappointment.