Between Ocean and City

Between Ocean and City
Author: Lawrence Kaplan
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2003
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780231128483

Lawrence grew up on the long peninsula, and though he is a professional historian, they say that Carol brought a degree of detachment and scholarship that prevented the account from being a personal memoir. They describe the transformation of the urban community in southern Queens during the decades immediately after World War II. Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).

Rockaway

Rockaway
Author: Tara Ison
Publisher: Catapult
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2013-05-28
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1593765169

“How tragic that this book--set in a Queens, New York, beach town that in real life was devastated by Sandy--has a new relevance. Sarah is a California painter who’s come east for a retreat she hopes will revive her artistic passion. It’s a sheer joy to stay in the company of Ison’s voice. There’s an unlikely relationship at the center, the kind of encounter that could happen only in the summertime suspension of ‘ordinary’ life.” --Karen Russell, O Magazine Rockaway Beach, 2001. Sarah, a painter from southern California, retreats to this eccentric, eclectic beach town in the far reaches of Queens with the hopes of rediscovering her passion for painting. Sarah has the opportunity for a real gallery showing if only she can create some new and interesting work. There, near the beach, she hopes to escape a life caught in the stasis of caregiving for her elderly parents and working at an art supply store to unleash the artist within. One summer, a room filled with empty canvasses, nothing but possibility. There she meets Marty, an older musician from a once-popular band whose harmonies still infuse the summertime music festivals. His strict adherence to his music and to his Jewish faith will provoke unexpected feelings in Sarah and influence both her time there and her painting. Rockaway is a time capsule love letter to a quirky, singular town, in a time before an entire community was brought to its knees in the events about to occur in September 2001, and to an entire town that faced tragedy again when it was summarily devastated eleven years later by Hurricane Sandy.

From Rockaway

From Rockaway
Author: Jill Eisenstadt
Publisher: Little, Brown
Total Pages: 205
Release: 2017-04-11
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 031650632X

Timmy and Chowderhead and Peg are lifeguards. They spend summers sitting in those tall chairs, smoking dope and staring at the waves, swatting insects, tormenting seagulls. Winters they work shit jobs like unloading trucks at Mickey's Deli. At night, winter and summer, they drink. Drink and get rowdy. Then there's Alex, the girl who gets away, not only from old boyfriend Timmy but also from "Rotaway"-on scholarship to a rich-kid's college in New England. One midsummer night when the four are reunited, tensions erupt in feats of daring and self-destruction during the wild, cathartic, near-sacred lifeguard ritual known as the Death Keg. Brilliantly capturing the restlessness and casual nihilism of working-class youth with no options, Jill Eisenstadt's acclaimed first novel startles in its power and originality, its depth of feeling, its bright and dark comic turns.

M Train

M Train
Author: Patti Smith
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 222
Release: 2015-10-06
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1101875119

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the National Book Award–winning author of Just Kids: a “sublime collection of true stories … and wild imaginings that take us to the very heart of who Patti Smith is” (Vanity Fair), told through the cafés and haunts she has worked in around the world. Patti Smith calls this bestselling work “a roadmap to my life.” M Train begins in the tiny Greenwich Village café where Smith goes every morning for black coffee, ruminates on the world as it is and the world as it was, and writes in her notebook. Through prose that shifts fluidly between dreams and reality, past and present, we travel to Frida Kahlo’s Casa Azul in Mexico; to the fertile moon terrain of Iceland; to a ramshackle seaside bungalow in New York’s Far Rockaway that Smith acquires just before Hurricane Sandy hits; to the West 4th Street subway station, filled with the sounds of the Velvet Underground after the death of Lou Reed; and to the graves of Genet, Plath, Rimbaud, and Mishima. Woven throughout are reflections on the writer’s craft and on artistic creation. Here, too, are singular memories of Smith’s life in Michigan and the irremediable loss of her husband, Fred Sonic Smith. Braiding despair with hope and consolation, illustrated with her signature Polaroids, M Train is a meditation on travel, detective shows, literature, and coffee. It is a powerful, deeply moving book by one of the most remarkable multiplatform artists at work today. Featuring a postscript with five new photos from Patti Smith

Rockaway Memories

Rockaway Memories
Author: Joseph Daniel Murphy
Publisher: Dorrance Publishing
Total Pages: 132
Release: 2021-08-11
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1637641133

Rockaway Memories: Growing up in Rockaway Beach, Long Island By: Joseph Daniel Murphy A national treasure of family life on Rockaway Beach, Long Island in the 1920’s – 1930’s through WWII. A captivating story written by Joseph Daniel Murphy, a WWII naval officer. Life lessons about family, compassion, faith, determination, and survival—from a member of the “Greatest Generation”. A deeply personal story of one young man growing up in the early 1920’s and 1930’s in the Belle Harbor section of Rockaway Beach, Long Island. Life was dramatically different than the hustle and bustle of families living in New York City which was just thirty miles away. In the remote location of the Long Island Peninsula and Belle Harbor, very few families had automobiles and public transportation was a long and time-consuming process. As a result, people didn’t leave their small neighborhoods or their Atlantic Ocean playground very often. Everyone watched out for one another and took care of each other. Growing up in Rockaway in the 1920’s-1930’s provides the framework of what helped shape and build the gentlemen and officer Joseph would become. It is a self-written memoir of essential life lessons of family, community, service, and survival during a period of history that challenged America’s grit and produced the “Greatest Generation”. The ‘Great Depression’ was an economic challenge to every American. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal helped rebuild America, and his ‘Fireside Chats’ calmed everyone’s fears and gave the American people a reason to believe that life would become better with new opportunity. A resident of Long Island, and one of three boys, Joe fondly recalls his life and the best of times growing up in Belle Harbor. This is a story of hardship and hope. On December 7, 1941, Japan launched a devastating surprise attack from the air and the sea on Pearl Harbor and initiated WWII. This event challenged every American to his very core. It was to become a time of service and sacrifice, with every American doing their part to support the war effort from home and abroad. Joseph D. Murphy at age twenty, served as one of the youngest commissioned Naval Officers aboard the aircraft carrier USS Intrepid in the United States Pacific Fleet during WWII. The USS INTREPID was the flagship of Task Group 38.2 led by Admiral William (Bull) Halsey. This treasured memoir is of Joe’s pre-war childhood on Rockaway Beach, Long Island through the end of WWII.

Firefly Lane

Firefly Lane
Author: Kristin Hannah
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Total Pages: 532
Release: 2008-02-05
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1429927844

From the New York Times bestselling author Kristin Hannah comes a powerful novel of love, loss, and the magic of friendship. . . . now a #1 Netflix series! In the turbulent summer of 1974, Kate Mularkey has accepted her place at the bottom of the eighth-grade social food chain. Then, to her amazement, the "coolest girl in the world" moves in across the street and wants to be her friend. Tully Hart seems to have it all—beauty, brains, ambition. On the surface they are as opposite as two people can be: Kate, doomed to be forever uncool, with a loving family who mortifies her at every turn. Tully, steeped in glamour and mystery, but with a secret that is destroying her. They make a pact to be best friends forever; by summer's end they've become TullyandKate. Inseparable. So begins Kristin Hannah's magnificent new novel. Spanning more than three decades and playing out across the ever-changing face of the Pacific Northwest, Firefly Lane is the poignant, powerful story of two women and the friendship that becomes the bulkhead of their lives. From the beginning, Tully is desperate to prove her worth to the world. Abandoned by her mother at an early age, she longs to be loved unconditionally. In the glittering, big-hair era of the eighties, she looks to men to fill the void in her soul. But in the buttoned-down nineties, it is television news that captivates her. She will follow her own blind ambition to New York and around the globe, finding fame and success . . . and loneliness. Kate knows early on that her life will be nothing special. Throughout college, she pretends to be driven by a need for success, but all she really wants is to fall in love and have children and live an ordinary life. In her own quiet way, Kate is as driven as Tully. What she doesn't know is how being a wife and mother will change her . . . how she'll lose sight of who she once was, and what she once wanted. And how much she'll envy her famous best friend. . . . For thirty years, Tully and Kate buoy each other through life, weathering the storms of friendship—jealousy, anger, hurt, resentment. They think they've survived it all until a single act of betrayal tears them apart . . . and puts their courage and friendship to the ultimate test. Firefly Lane is for anyone who ever drank Boone's Farm apple wine while listening to Abba or Fleetwood Mac. More than a coming-of-age novel, it's the story of a generation of women who were both blessed and cursed by choices. It's about promises and secrets and betrayals. And ultimately, about the one person who really, truly knows you—and knows what has the power to hurt you . . . and heal you. Firefly Lane is a story you'll never forget . . . one you'll want to pass on to your best friend.

Lily's Crossing

Lily's Crossing
Author: Patricia Reilly Giff
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Total Pages: 150
Release: 2001-11-13
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 0385729936

This “brilliantly told” (New York Times) Newbery Honor Book gives readers a sense of what it was like to be on the American home front while our soldiers were away fighting in World War II. As in past years, Lily will spend the summer in Rockaway, in her family’s summer house by the Atlantic Ocean. But this summer of 1944, World War II has changed everyone’s life. Lily’s best friend, Margaret, has moved to a wartime factory town, and, much worse, Lily’s father is going overseas to the war. There’s no one Lily’s age in Rockaway until the arrival of Albert, a refugee from Hungary with a secret sewn into his coat. Albert has lost most of his family in the war; he’s been through things Lily can’t imagine. But soon they form a special friendship. Now Lily and Albert have secrets to share: They both have told lies, and Lily has told one that may cost Albert his life.

Hattie and the Wild Waves

Hattie and the Wild Waves
Author: Barbara Cooney
Publisher: Turtleback Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 1993-07
Genre:
ISBN: 9780785708278

A young girl from Brooklyn, New York, enjoys her summer at the beach where she can paint and listen to the wild waves

Rockaway Blue

Rockaway Blue
Author: Larry Kirwan
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2021-03-15
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1501754246

When terrorists attacked on September 11, 2001, Lieutenant Brian Murphy rescued seven people from the World Trade Center. Even as steel girders buckled and groaned, Brian rushed back up the stairs of the North Tower in search of those in need. He died a hero, one of more than four hundred police officers, firefighters, and other first responders who perished that fateful day. Three years later, Vietnam veteran and retired NYPD detective-sergeant Jimmy Murphy is on a mission to find the truth behind his son's death. Why was Brian in the tower that morning? Had he anticipated the attack? Suspecting a cover-up of a deeper truth, Jimmy must confront his family, friends, and old colleagues in the police department to discover what happened to Brian and who his eldest son really was. Murphy's investigation takes him from his home turf in the Irish American enclave of Rockaway Beach to Muslim Atlantic Avenue and beyond in order to find his own truth about 9/11. Dry-eyed and determined, Murphy battles barstool patriotism, the NYPD blue wall of silence, and a ticking clock—all the while haunted by his own secrets and the raw memory of his difficult relationship with his dead son. Written by author and musician Larry Kirwan, Rockaway Blue is a thrilling and poignant story of a family struggling to pull itself together after an unthinkable trauma.

Surf Shacks

Surf Shacks
Author: Matt Titone
Publisher: Die Gestalten Verlag-DGV
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2017
Genre: Architectural photography
ISBN: 9783899559071

Many abodes can fall under the label of surf shack: New York City apartments, cabins nestled next to national parks, or tiny Hawaiian huts. Surfing communities are overflowing with creativity, innovation, and rich personas. Surf Shacks takes a deeper look at surfers' homes and artistic habits. Glimpses of record collections, strolls through backyard gardens, or a peek into a painter's studio provide insight into surfers' lives both on and off shore. From the remote Hawaiian nook of filmmaker Jess Bianchi to the woodsy Japanese paradise that the former CEO of Surfrider Foundation in Japan, Hiromi Masubara, calls home to the converted bus that Ryan Lovelace claims as his domicile and his transport, every space has a unique tale. The moments that these vibrant personalities spend away from the swell and the froth are both captivating and nuanced.