Prince of the City, The: Giuliani, New York, and the Genius of American Life

Friday, July 25th, 2008 by Book Guy | No Comments »

“Siegel presents a positive but not uncritical opinion of the Giuliani record, which is
of interest in itself but especially if Giuliani runs for president.”Booklist

“The Prince of the City is a remarkable account of the Giuliani years by our best writer on urban
affairs. Anyone interested in how the dead hand of ideology came near to crippling our largest city must
read this book.”U.S. News &World Report

In the first post-9/11 account of the career of the man who established himself as “America’s Mayor” in
the dark days after America was attacked, Fred Siegel shows how Rudy Giuliani’s successes in New
York set a promising example for the rejuvenation of our major cities. Someone who has worked with
Giuliani as well as studied him, Siegel regards Giuliani as a shrewd tactician and artist of the possible
who could have stepped out of the pages of Machiavelli’s The Prince. A self-promoting,
self-absorbed man, the mayor made his enormous ego and tribal ethos serve the city’s well-being,
promoting ideals that transcended New York’s ethnic politics and business as usual. The Prince of
the City is at once a fascinating character study, a history of New York over the last forty years, and
a classic inquiry into the issue of how cities thrive or die.
Publisher: Blackstone Audio Inc
Author: Fred Siegel
Narrator: Brian Emerson
ISBN: 0-7861-5335-0
Normal Price: $39.95
Download Price: $26.95 Discover this audio book

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Tales of the Alhambra: A Series of Tales and Sketches of the Moors and Spaniards

Saturday, May 17th, 2008 by Book Guy | No Comments »

Tales of the Alhambra: A Series of Tales and Sketches of the Moors and Spaniards
A heady mix of romantic travel guide, Moorish legends, and historical fact, enhanced by Spanish guitar music

Written in 1831, Washington Irvings dreamlike description of the Alhambra, the beautiful Moorish castle that defined the height of Moorish civilization, and of the surrounding territory of Granada remains one of the most entertaining travelogues ever written of this region in Spain.

Enhanced here with exquisite Spanish guitar music, the narrative is a heady mix of historical fact, medieval myth and mystery, sensual descriptions, and an appreciation for a civilization that valued beauty, philosophy, literature, science, and the arts on an equal level with warrior skills. Secret chambers, desperate battles, imprisoned princesses, palace ghosts, and fragrant gardens, described in a wistful and dreamlike eloquence, will transport listeners to a paradise of their own.

Washington Irving (1783-1859) was born in New York and studied law; on account of his poor health he went to Europe in 1804. He visited Rome, Paris, the Netherlands and London, and in 1806 returned to New York where he was admitted to the bar. His first writing was in Salmagundi (1807), a semi-monthly sheet in imitation of the Spectator which ran for twenty numbers. His first work, A History of New York, by Diedrich Knickerbocker (1809), was a good-natured burlesque upon the old Dutch settlers of Manhattan Island.

Ralph Cosham has acted in numerous roles for film and TV and in more than one hundred professional theater roles in addition to narrating books for Blackstone Audiobooks. He lives in Reston, Virginia.
Publisher: Blackstone Audio Inc
Author: Washington Irving
Narrator: Ralph Cosham
ISBN: 0-7861-3415-1
Normal Price: $32.95
Download Price: $16.95

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