City of Nets

City of Nets
Author: Otto Friedrich
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 518
Release: 1997-05-02
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780520209497

History of Hollywood in the 1940's

Drowned City

Drowned City
Author: Don Brown
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Total Pages: 101
Release: 2015
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 054415777X

Sibert Honor Medalist ∙ Kirkus' Best of 2015 list ∙ School Library Journal Best of 2015 ∙ Publishers Weekly's Best of 2015 list ∙ Horn Book Fanfare Book ∙ Booklist Editor's Choice On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina's monstrous winds and surging water overwhelmed the protective levees around low-lying New Orleans, Louisiana. Eighty percent of the city flooded, in some places under twenty feet of water. Property damages across the Gulf Coast topped $100 billion. One thousand eight hundred and thirty-three people lost their lives. The riveting tale of this historic storm and the drowning of an American city is one of selflessness, heroism, and courage--and also of incompetence, racism, and criminality. Don Brown's kinetic art and as-it-happens narrative capture both the tragedy and triumph of one of the worst natural disasters in American history. A portion of the proceeds from this book has been donated to Habitat for Humanity New Orleans.

Pictures at a Revolution

Pictures at a Revolution
Author: Mark Harris
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 522
Release: 2008
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781594201523

Documents the cultural revolution behind the making of 1967's five Best Picture-nominated films, including Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, The Graduate, Doctor Doolittle, In the Heat of the Night, and Bonnie and Clyde, in an account that discusses how the movies reflected period beliefs about race, violence, and identity. 40,000 first printing.

Before the Deluge

Before the Deluge
Author: Otto Friedrich
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 442
Release: 1995-10-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 0060926791

A fascinating portrait of the turbulent political, social, and cultural life of the city of Berlin in the 1920s.

The Rest Is Noise

The Rest Is Noise
Author: Alex Ross
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Total Pages: 706
Release: 2007-10-16
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1429932880

Winner of the 2007 National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism A New York Times Book Review Top Ten Book of the Year Time magazine Top Ten Nonfiction Book of 2007 Newsweek Favorite Books of 2007 A Washington Post Book World Best Book of 2007 In this sweeping and dramatic narrative, Alex Ross, music critic for The New Yorker, weaves together the histories of the twentieth century and its music, from Vienna before the First World War to Paris in the twenties; from Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia to downtown New York in the sixties and seventies up to the present. Taking readers into the labyrinth of modern style, Ross draws revelatory connections between the century's most influential composers and the wider culture. The Rest Is Noise is an astonishing history of the twentieth century as told through its music.

The Bad & the Beautiful

The Bad & the Beautiful
Author: Sam Kashner
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 388
Release: 2002
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 9780393324365

Looks at the scandals, morals and sleaze of 1950's Hollywood.

Talking Nets

Talking Nets
Author: James A. Anderson
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 452
Release: 2000-02-28
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 9780262511117

Surprising tales from the scientists who first learned how to use computers to understand the workings of the human brain. Since World War II, a group of scientists has been attempting to understand the human nervous system and to build computer systems that emulate the brain's abilities. Many of the early workers in this field of neural networks came from cybernetics; others came from neuroscience, physics, electrical engineering, mathematics, psychology, even economics. In this collection of interviews, those who helped to shape the field share their childhood memories, their influences, how they became interested in neural networks, and what they see as its future. The subjects tell stories that have been told, referred to, whispered about, and imagined throughout the history of the field. Together, the interviews form a Rashomon-like web of reality. Some of the mythic people responsible for the foundations of modern brain theory and cybernetics, such as Norbert Wiener, Warren McCulloch, and Frank Rosenblatt, appear prominently in the recollections. The interviewees agree about some things and disagree about more. Together, they tell the story of how science is actually done, including the false starts, and the Darwinian struggle for jobs, resources, and reputation. Although some of the interviews contain technical material, there is no actual mathematics in the book. Contributors James A. Anderson, Michael Arbib, Gail Carpenter, Leon Cooper, Jack Cowan, Walter Freeman, Stephen Grossberg, Robert Hecht-Neilsen, Geoffrey Hinton, Teuvo Kohonen, Bart Kosko, Jerome Lettvin, Carver Mead, David Rumelhart, Terry Sejnowski, Paul Werbos, Bernard Widrow

Everything Now

Everything Now
Author: Rosecrans Baldwin
Publisher: MCD
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2021-06-15
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 0374721076

A LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER. NAMED A BEST CALIFORNIA BOOKS OF 2021 BY THE NEW YORK TIMES A provocative, exhilaratingly new understanding of the United States’ most confounding metropolis—not just a great city, but a full-blown modern city-state America is obsessed with Los Angeles. And America has been thinking about Los Angeles all wrong, for decades, on repeat. Los Angeles is not just the place where the American dream hits the Pacific. (It has its own dreams.) Not just the vanishing point of America’s western drive. (It has its own compass.) Functionally, aesthetically, mythologically, even technologically, an independent territory, defined less by distinct borders than by an aura of autonomy and a sense of unfurling destiny—this is the city-state of Los Angeles. Deeply reported and researched, provocatively argued, and eloquently written, Rosecrans Baldwin's Everything Now approaches the metropolis from unexpected angles, nimbly interleaving his own voice with a chorus of others, from canonical L.A. literature to everyday citizens. Here, Octavia E. Butler and Joan Didion are in conversation with activists and astronauts, vampires and veterans. Baldwin records the stories of countless Angelenos, discovering people both upended and reborn: by disasters natural and economic, following gospels of wealth or self-help or personal destiny. The result is a story of a kaleidoscopic, vibrant nation unto itself—vastly more than its many, many parts. Baldwin’s concept of the city-state allows us, finally, to grasp a place—Los Angeles—whose idiosyncrasies both magnify those of America, and are so fully its own. Here, space and time don’t quite work the same as they do elsewhere, and contradictions are as stark as southern California’s natural environment. Perhaps no better place exists to watch the United States’s past, and its possible futures, play themselves out. Welcome to Los Angeles, the Great American City-State.

Crazy Town

Crazy Town
Author: Robyn Doolittle
Publisher: Penguin Canada
Total Pages: 419
Release: 2014-02-04
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0143191349

His drug and alcohol-fuelled antics made world headlines and engulfed a city in unprecedented controversy. Toronto Mayor Rob Ford’s personal and political troubles have occupied centre stage in North America’s fourth largest city since news broke that men involved in the drug trade were selling a videotape of Ford appearing to smoke crack cocaine. Toronto Star reporter Robyn Doolittle was one of three journalists to view the video and report on its contents in May 2013. Her dogged pursuit of the story has uncovered disturbing details about the mayor’s past and embroiled the Toronto police, city councilors, and ordinary citizens in a raucous debate about the future of the city. Even before those explosive events, Ford was a divisive figure. A populist and successful city councillor, he was an underdog to become mayor in 2010. His politics and mercurial nature have split the amalgamated city in two. But there is far more to the story. The Fords have a long, unhappy history of substance abuse and criminal behavior. Despite their troubles, they are also one of the most ambitious families in Canada. Those close to the Fords say they often compare themselves to the Kennedys and believe they were born to lead. Regardless of whether the mayor survives the scandal, the Ford name is on the ballot in the mayoralty election of 2014. Fast-paced and insightful, Crazy Town is a page-turning portrait of a troubled man, a formidable family and a city caught in an jaw-dropping scandal.

City/Game

City/Game
Author: William C. Rhoden
Publisher: Rizzoli Publications
Total Pages: 196
Release: 2020-02-11
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 0847867625

The players, people, flavor, and contributions New York has given the game. From the playgrounds to the NBA, New York has invented a way of playing basketball, and City/Game is not only about the three renowned NBA teams--the Knicks, the Nets, and the Liberty--and their predecessors, but also the many high-school and college basketball teams with legendary rivalries. Through art and testimonials from the fans, coaches, and players, we learn about Lew Alcindor (later known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar), Kenny Anderson, and Chris Mullin, all birthed on the city blacktop and who took their skills to the NBA hardwood. Explore the famous street-ball courts on a map of the five boroughs, including Rucker Park and the Cage on West 4th Street, home to Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain, and Kyrie Irving; read about New York's style of play--like the infamous one-handed jump shot--and glossary of NYC-style trash talk and slang; see "celebrity row" photographs courtside at the Garden and Barclay's Center; revel in the images, headlines, and objects related to the 1970 and 1973 championship Knicks. Packed with new and archival images, this book brings the energy of the sport through original essays by noted writers and highlights from players, fans, and rising stars of the New York scene and features interviews with NBA greats including Queens-born Kenny Smith and Bronx-born former Knick Rod Strickland. A great book for any basketball fan to relive old memories and learn new details.