Robert Lambert Lambert itibaren Bogdanovka, Samarskaya oblast', Rusya, 446613
i truly felt like i was losing my mind when reading this. i was on tour, i suggest being grounded when you read this.
This book was much better than the first two. Though the others led you to want to KNOW more, they weren't nearly as attention grabbing as City of Glass. She really does a good job at clearing up all the questions you might have and closing the door to their world. What bothered me: The fact that she used the word "ozone" to explain smells... multiple times. It wasn't really a big deal at all, just enough to pop out at you. I'm really glad I decided to finish this series.
I love him : )
Brownsville, New York in the 1920s and 1930s belonged to ‘the Combination’ or as they’re more commonly known as the infamous, ‘Murder Inc’. This was a group of notorious Jewish gangsters who carried out murders on behalf of the mob. In his new book, Funny Boys, Warren Adler brings the characters of Murder Inc back to life. But this isn’t just another gangster story. This is a story about comedy, about heroes emerging in unlikely places and about the ups and downs of having ambition. But those looking for a story about gangsters won’t be disappointed either, all the classic elements (violence, crime, murder, sex, double crossing) are there as well. In a world that seems like it’s run by the Combination, Mickey Fine is an unlikely pick for a hero. The young man who has an ambition to be a famous comedian takes a job at Mr Gorlick’s Catskills hotel as a tumler-- an entertainer, comedian and hotel host. He’s expected to entertain the guests, keep the jokes clean in front of men and women together but anything goes, the “smuttier the better” when the men are alone. He’s also to remember that the women don’t mind hearing a dirty joke when the men aren’t around. All of this, Mickey can handle, but as for the clientele that he’s going to be entertaining, he’s naïve until the manager of the hotel elaborates to him who they are. The Brownsville Boys. The most important clientele of the hotel are the dangerous thugs from Brownsville. And worst of all, Mickey has had a run in with them before. The heroine of the story is Mutzie Fedler. Mutzie is a plain-Jane from Brownsville who, like Mickey, dreams of being something more. For Mutzie, her dreams involve finding love and living the sort of life that Jean Harlow always seems to in the movies. Instead of taking the safe choice and marrying her high school sweetheart, she rejects a life of drudgery, dyes her hair, buys some new clothes and is transformed into a beautiful Harlow look alike. Mutzie’s fabulous new look wins her the attention of Pittsburgh “Pep” Phil Strauss and she soon becomes his number one girl. When the summer starts, Pep installs his girl at Gorlick’s hotel and visits her on the weekends. At first, Mutzie is besotted with Pep and the glamour of her new life but the dark reality of life as a gangster girlfriend soon catches up with her. Mickey, smitten with Mutzie becomes determined to help her escape Pep and the boys from the Combination. Together the two hatch a plan to bring down the Combination. But of course, in a world where everyone is on the take and no one can be trusted, things don’t always go according to plan. Warren Adler not only brings the gangsters of Murder Inc alive on the page, but he’s captured the glitz and glamour and the seedy, vulgar underbelly of the time beautifully. It’s a page-turner, one of those books that will take you half the time it normally takes to read a book and it’s peppered with the kind of humour that will make you laugh out loud. The dialogue is amazing. It’s one of the many ways that Adler creates characters that jump off the page and have a life of their own. Though admittedly, it does take a few pages to get your head around the way they speak and the Yiddish words and phrases that aren’t used in an obvious context are at times a little bit jarring, (as in, it’s not hard to work out what a schmuck is when Mr Gorlick is telling Mickey to mind what he does with his) but this is more a reflection of being an Australian reader rather than a negative aspect of the book. And even as an Australian reader, not understanding everything that’s said and all the cultural won’t detract from the storyline at all, there’s enough there to keep you with the text the whole way through. Move over Underbelly, these are real gangsters.
اين كتاب در نوع خود جالب است، چون گرچه با يك ديدگاه تقريبا عاطفي مطلب را شروع كرده، اما پس از آن كاملا چگونگي تطور ذهني تفكر پراگماتيكي از ديد عاطفي به ديد منطقي را مي توان ديد. به علاوه اينكه موضوع بحث هم يك موضوع عام است. فارغ از اينكه شما يك ايراني باشيد يا يك انگليسي و يا يك فرانسوي، دغدغه جداشدن جامعه از گذشته احتمالا افتخار آميز و قرار گرفتن در مسيري كه به آينده اي بدون اخلاق، بدون ارزش هاي سنتي، و بدون افتخار منتهي مي شود، در كنار شماست. اين دغدغه حس مشترك همه كساني است كه تكامل و يا سقوط معنوي جامعه براي آنها مهم است. در كل با توجه به حجم كم كتاب (130 صفحه) حتما خواندن آن را به كساني كه به فلسفه و جامعه شناسي علاقه دارند، توصيه مي كنم.
This is a very interesting read, unpacking the way creative thinkers make their decisions. It can apply to many areas of life, including business decisions. The book is not really a "how-to" and at the end I felt stimulated, wanting to know more, feeling like I'm at the beginning of finding out about integrative thinking. I loved the concept of reverse engineering as a way of debriefing an outcome. Also his highlighting the way we go into defensive mode to defend our ideas against alternatives, rather than looking at the most creative outcome of opposing views.
Sad