"Featuring a stunning gallery of portraits by the world's finest poets, essayists, and fiction writers -- including Walt Whitman, Stephen Crane, Jos Mart, Maxim Gorky, Federico Garcia Lorca, Isaac Bashevis Singer, E. E. Cummings, Djuna Barnes, Colson Whitehead, Robert Olen Butler, and Katie Roiphe -- this anthology is the first to focus on the unique history and transporting experience of a beloved fixture of the New York City landscape.
Moody, mystical, and enchanting, Coney Island has thrilled newcomers and soothed native New Yorkers for decades. With its fantasy entertainments, renowned beach foods, world-class boardwalk, and expansive beach, it provides a welcome respite from the city's dense neighborhoods, unrelenting traffic, and somber grid. Coney Island has long offered a kaleidoscopic panorama of people, places, and events, creating, as Lawrence Ferlinghetti once wrote, "a Coney Island of the mind." This anthology captures the highs and lows of that sensation, with works that imagine Coney Island as a restful resort, a playground for the masses, and a symbol of America's democratic spirit, as well as a Sodom by the sea, a garish display of capitalist excess, and a paradigm of urban decay. As complex as the city of which it is a part, Coney Island engenders limitless perspectives, a composite inspiring everyone who encounters it to sing its electric song."
Expected publication: December 16th 2014
RATING 5 STARS
When downloading this book I expected a thorough history on Coney Island.
What I received was much better.
This unique compilation of poems, short stories, memoirs, and personal accounts from years past was an easy, light-hearted, and still informational read. The text in itself reads like a story, because, well, it is a story - told from multiple perspectives and multiple time periods. Arranged in chronological order, the book has a great flow between pieces and a very poetic feel overall making the entire reader whimsical, which I found as a fabulous tribute to Coney Island.
Coney Island in all of its time, has been magical, whimsical, complex, historical, and full of memories of past prosperity - all of which were included in the book through different authors, points of view, and separate writing styles - ultimately showing the diversity of the Island. Shown throughout the reader {as promised by the title, and probably the most enticing part of reading this wonderful book} were multiple visuals, maps, diagrams, illustrations, photographs, and other historical artwork and artifacts - giving life to the varied stories and poems on the pages.
Overall, this was a fabulous read. I was swept away into the pages and into the fantastic history of Coney Island as we know it. This unique reader gave new meaning to the history of Coney Island as told by many historical authors and natives of the island.
Also reviewed at http://www.goodreads.com
http://www.netgalley.com
**I received an Advanced Electronic Copy of A Coney Island Reader for free through NetGalley**
**This review is based on an uncorrected proof, the novel is subject to change until publication**