Work and Other SinsWork and Other Sins
Life in New York City and Thereabouts
Title rated 3.5 out of 5 stars, based on 1 ratings(1 rating)
Book, 2004
Current format, Book, 2004, , No Longer Available.Book, 2004
Current format, Book, 2004, , No Longer Available. Offered in 0 more formatsPulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter Charlie LeDuff gives his incomparable take on the city and its denizens-the bars, the workingmen, the gamblers, the eccentrics, the lonesome, and the wise.
Work and Other Sins is filled to burst with stories of the fascinating, one-of-a-kind characters who populate the modern metropolis. In these pages we meet a Long Island used-car salesman; a professional Santa; the men who change the light bulbs atop the Empire State Building; a Sinatra imitator; a retired Harlem chorus-line girl; a lighthouse keeper; a saloon priest; Latin lovers; a host of barroom regulars; and myriad others-all of whom present their take on working, drinking, gambling, dying, and countless other facts of life. Charlie LeDuff takes us to the watering holes, prisons, veterans' hospitals, firehouses, apartment buildings, baseball fields, and graveyards that make up the landscape of modern life. Also included is LeDuff's acclaimed series of articles on Squad One, the Brooklyn firehouse that suffered devastating losses on September 11, as well as his Pulitzer Prize-winning piece on workers in a North Carolina slaughterhouse.
LeDuff captures the spirit of the people and places he profiles with a dead-on feel for character and idiom and his signature wry wit. But more than that, LeDuff lets his characters speak for themselves. What results is at turns riotous, dirt-under-the-nails, contemplative, salty, joyous, whiskey tinged-an utterly unique vision of life in the Big Apple and beyond.
Whether writing about a racetrack gambler, a firefighter with a broken heart, or a pair of bickering brothers and their Coney Island bar, LeDuff takes a reader into the lives of his subjects to explore their fears, faults, and fantasies as well as their own small niches of the globe. In doing so, he has expanded the jurisdiction of the news story from competent reports on political campaigns and budget bills to include the love lives of B-rate gangsters and the moral qualms of unapologetic drunks. He has tackled race, class, sex, death, work, and alcohol as topics, to name a few.
Work and Other Sins is a paean to the real New York - not the candied Big Apple of the movies or the flashy neon metropolis of ad campaigns. Here is a book that proves the guy on the bar stool has just as much to say about life as the stiff in the suit.
Capturing the spirit of New York City and its diverse neighborhoods, this entertaining array of portraits focuses on the colorful, eccentric, and unique characters that populate the modern-day metropolis, including a Long Island used-car salesman, a professional Santa, a Sinatra imitator, a retired Harlem chorus girl, a lighthouse keeper, and a saloon priest. 35,000 first printing.
Provides portraits of the colorful, eccentric, and unique characters that populate New York, including a Long Island used-car salesman, a professional Santa, a Sinatra imitator, a retired Harlem chorus girl, and a saloon priest.
Work and Other Sins is filled to burst with stories of the fascinating, one-of-a-kind characters who populate the modern metropolis. In these pages we meet a Long Island used-car salesman; a professional Santa; the men who change the light bulbs atop the Empire State Building; a Sinatra imitator; a retired Harlem chorus-line girl; a lighthouse keeper; a saloon priest; Latin lovers; a host of barroom regulars; and myriad others-all of whom present their take on working, drinking, gambling, dying, and countless other facts of life. Charlie LeDuff takes us to the watering holes, prisons, veterans' hospitals, firehouses, apartment buildings, baseball fields, and graveyards that make up the landscape of modern life. Also included is LeDuff's acclaimed series of articles on Squad One, the Brooklyn firehouse that suffered devastating losses on September 11, as well as his Pulitzer Prize-winning piece on workers in a North Carolina slaughterhouse.
LeDuff captures the spirit of the people and places he profiles with a dead-on feel for character and idiom and his signature wry wit. But more than that, LeDuff lets his characters speak for themselves. What results is at turns riotous, dirt-under-the-nails, contemplative, salty, joyous, whiskey tinged-an utterly unique vision of life in the Big Apple and beyond.
Whether writing about a racetrack gambler, a firefighter with a broken heart, or a pair of bickering brothers and their Coney Island bar, LeDuff takes a reader into the lives of his subjects to explore their fears, faults, and fantasies as well as their own small niches of the globe. In doing so, he has expanded the jurisdiction of the news story from competent reports on political campaigns and budget bills to include the love lives of B-rate gangsters and the moral qualms of unapologetic drunks. He has tackled race, class, sex, death, work, and alcohol as topics, to name a few.
Work and Other Sins is a paean to the real New York - not the candied Big Apple of the movies or the flashy neon metropolis of ad campaigns. Here is a book that proves the guy on the bar stool has just as much to say about life as the stiff in the suit.
Capturing the spirit of New York City and its diverse neighborhoods, this entertaining array of portraits focuses on the colorful, eccentric, and unique characters that populate the modern-day metropolis, including a Long Island used-car salesman, a professional Santa, a Sinatra imitator, a retired Harlem chorus girl, a lighthouse keeper, and a saloon priest. 35,000 first printing.
Provides portraits of the colorful, eccentric, and unique characters that populate New York, including a Long Island used-car salesman, a professional Santa, a Sinatra imitator, a retired Harlem chorus girl, and a saloon priest.
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- New York : Penguin Press, 2004.
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