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Floating City
- A Rogue Sociologist Lost and Found in New York's Underground Economy
- Narrated by: Sudhir Venkatesh
- Length: 8 hrs and 18 mins
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Publisher's summary
"[A] fascinating X-ray of the city…Venkatesh's engrossing narrative dissects the intricacies of illegal commerce." (Publishers Weekly)
New York is a city of highs and lows, where wealthy elites share the streets with desperate immigrants and destitute locals. Bridging this economic divide is New York's underground economy, the invisible network of illicit transactions between rich and poor that secretly weaves together the whole city.
Sudhir Venkatesh, acclaimed sociologist at Columbia University and author of Gang Leader for a Day, returns to the streets to connect the dots of New York's divergent economic worlds - and crack the code of the city's underground economy. Based on Venkatesh's interviews with prostitutes and socialites, immigrants and academics, high end drug bosses and street-level dealers, Floating City exposes the underground as the city's true engine of social transformation and economic prosperity - revealing a wholly unprecedented vision of New York.
A memoir of sociological investigation, Floating City draws from Venkatesh's decade of research within the affluent communities of Upper East Side socialites and Midtown businessmen; the drug gangs of Harlem and the sex workers of Brooklyn; the artists of Tribeca and the escort services of Hell's Kitchen. Venkatesh arrived in the city after his groundbreaking research in Chicago, where crime remained stubbornly local: gangs stuck to their housing projects and criminals stayed on their corners. But in Floating City, Venkatesh discovers that New York's underground economy unites instead of divides inhabitants: a vast network of "off the books" transactions linking the high and low worlds of the city.
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Critic reviews
“If you live in the New York of Shake Shack burgers and business meetings at the W Hotel, you should read Sudhir Venkatesh’s Floating City.... If it’s criminal or iniquitous and happens here, it’s probably to be found in this book.” (New York Magazine)
“Compelling…. Like the acclaimed writer Katherine Boo, Venkatesh is interested in deep research, in spending years with subjects and piecing together a detailed portrait. Unlike Boo, Venkatesh is present in his books. He has crossed the line and entered the scene." (The Guardian)
"[A] fascinating X-ray of the city...Venkatesh's engrossing narrative dissects the intricacies of illegal commerce and the subtle ways it both divides and entwines different classes and races, while painting rich, novelistic portraits of its participants and their dreams of self-reinvention." (Publishers Weekly, starred review)
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Overall
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In this lyrical, unsentimental, and compelling memoir, the son of a Black African father and a White American mother searches for a workable meaning to his life as a Black American. It begins in New York, where Barack Obama learns that his father - a figure he knows more as a myth than as a man - has been killed in a car accident. This sudden death inspires an emotional odyssey - first to a small town in Kansas, from which he retraces the migration of his mother’s family to Hawaii, and then to Kenya, where he meets the African side of his family.
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Powerful
- By Gene R. on 10-26-21
By: Barack Obama
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Ghosts of Manhattan
- A Novel
- By: Douglas Brunt
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 7 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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It’s 2005. Nick Farmer is a 35-year-old bond trader with Bear Stearns clearing seven figures a year. The novelty of a work-related nightlife centering on liquor, hookers, and cocaine has long since worn thin, though Nick remains keenly addicted to his annual bonus. But the lifestyle is taking a toll on his marriage and on him.
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Great Book
- By Melvin on 06-30-15
By: Douglas Brunt
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The Todd Glass Situation
- A Bunch of Lies about My Personal Life and a Bunch of True Stories about My 30-Year Career in Standup Comedy
- By: Todd Glass, Jonathan Grotenstein
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 6 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Growing up in a Philadelphia suburb in the 1970s was an easy life. Well, easy as long as you didn't have dyslexia or ADD, or were a Jew. And once you added gay into the mix, life became more difficult. So Todd Glass decided to hide the gay part, no matter how comic, tragic, or comically tragic the results. Now, Todd has written an open, honest, and hilarious memoir in an effort to help everyone - young and old, gay and straight - breathe a little more freely.
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Worth It
- By Heather on 11-17-14
By: Todd Glass, and others
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Bangkok 8
- By: John Burdett
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 12 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Witnessed by a throng of gaping spectators, a charismatic Marine sergeant is murdered under a Bangkok bridge inside a bolted-shut Mercedes Benz. Among the witnesses are the only two cops in the city not on the take, but within moments one is murdered and his partner, Sonchai Jitpleecheep - a devout Buddhist and the son of a Thai bar girl and a long-gone Vietnam War G.I. - is hell-bent on wreaking revenge. On a vigilante mission to capture his partner’s murderer, Sonchai is begrudgingly paired with a beautiful FBI agent named Jones....
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Very dissapointing
- By Dennis on 05-29-13
By: John Burdett
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Baltimore Blues
- Tess Monaghan, Book 1
- By: Laura Lippman
- Narrated by: Deborah Hazlett
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Unemployed at 29, Tess Monaghan is willing to take any freelance job to pay the rent—including a bit of unorthodox snooping for her rowing buddy, Darryl "Rock" Paxton. In a city where someone is murdered almost every day, attorney Michael Abramowitz's death should be just another statistic. But the slain lawyer's notoriety—and his noontime trysts with Rock's fiancée—make the case front page news...and point to Rock as the likely murderer. But trying to prove her friend's innocence could prove costly to Tess.
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I'm on #8 - This series is almost unique
- By connie on 02-19-12
By: Laura Lippman
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Power & Beauty
- By: Tip "T.I." Harris, David Ritz
- Narrated by: Prentice Onayemi
- Length: 10 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Hip-hop artist Tip "T.I." Harris has received every acclaim the music world has to offer. Now, working with bestselling celebrity collaborator David Ritz, T.I. applies all his talent and experience to the world of fiction by creating the epic love story of Power and Beauty. After the death of his mother, Charlotte, Paul “Power” Clay allows himself to be guided by Slim, a local businessman. Slim always has the best of everything, and Power is sure that if he learns Slim's ways, he'll make something of himself - and perhaps be worthy of Tanya “Beauty” Long.
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Suprised by T.I.'s story telling skills
- By Dream on 07-11-12
By: Tip "T.I." Harris, and others
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Trans Figured
- My Journey from Boy to Girl to Woman to Man
- By: Brian Belovitch
- Narrated by: Joel Froomkin
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Brian Belovitch has the rare distinction of coming out three times: first as a queer teenager; second as a glamorous transgender woman named Tish, and later, Natalia Gervais; and finally as an HIV-positive gay man surviving the AIDS crisis in the 1980s. From growing up in a barely-working-class first-generation immigrant family in Fall River, Massachusetts, to spinning across the disco dance floor of Studio 54 in New York City, Brian escaped many near-death experiences. Trans Figured chronicles a life lived on the edge with an unforgettable cast of characters.
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How utterly exhausting
- By Leah on 11-19-18
By: Brian Belovitch
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My Korean Deli
- Risking It All for a Convenience Store
- By: Ben Ryder Howe
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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This sweet and funny tale of a preppy editor buying a Brooklyn deli with his Korean in-laws is about family, culture clash, and the quest for authentic experiences. It starts with a gift. When Ben Ryder Howe’s wife, the daughter of Korean immigrants, decides to repay her parents’ self-sacrifice by buying them a store, Howe, an editor at the rarefied Paris Review, agrees to go along.
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Absolutely delightful!
- By Grace O'Malley on 03-19-11
By: Ben Ryder Howe
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The Art of the Pimp
- One Man's Search for Love, Sex, and Money
- By: Dennis Hof
- Narrated by: Kevin Stillwell
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
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Dennis Hof, proprietor of the world-famous Moonlite Bunny Ranch brothel and the P.T. Barnum of prostitution, charts his path to fame and infamy, while dispensing homespun wisdom about sex, sales, money, and how to live as the country's most recognizable pimp. In The Art of the Pimp, Dennis Hof offers a hilarious, insightful, behind-the-scenes look at life as the proprietor of The Moonlight Bunny Ranch, the world's most famous legal brothel, and recounts his chaotic life.
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if you love the sex industry then yell love this
- By Amazon Customer on 11-28-17
By: Dennis Hof
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Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots?
- Flaming Challenges to Masculinity, Objectification, and the Desire to Conform
- By: Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore
- Narrated by: Mark Bachman
- Length: 8 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Gay culture has become a nightmare of consumerism, whether it's an endless quest for Absolut vodka, Diesel jeans, rainbow Hummers, pec implants, or Pottery Barn. Whatever happened to sexual flamboyance and gender liberation, an end to marriage, the military, and the nuclear family? As backrooms are shut down to make way for wedding vows, and gay sexual culture morphs into “straight-acting dudes hangin’ out”, what are the possibilities for a defiant faggotry that challenges the assimilationist norms of a corporate-cozy lifestyle?
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Forget the Status Quo South Beach B.S.
- By Susie on 03-14-13
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The Soloist
- A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music
- By: Steve Lopez
- Narrated by: William Hughes
- Length: 6 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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When journalist Steve Lopez sees Nathaniel Ayers playing his heart out on a two-string violin on Los Angeles' skid row, he finds it impossible to walk away. More than 30 years ago, Ayers was a promising classical bass student at Juilliard - ambitious, charming, and also one of the few African-Americans there - until he gradually lost his ability to function, overcome by schizophrenia.
Over time, the two men form a bond and Lopez imagines that he might be able to change Ayers' life. The Soloist is a beautifully told story of devotion in the face of seemingly unbeatable challenges.
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Fantastic Audiobook
- By reggie p on 06-26-08
By: Steve Lopez
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Road Dog
- Life and Reflections from the Road as a Stand-up Comic
- By: Dov Davidoff
- Narrated by: Dov Davidoff
- Length: 5 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Road Dog is comedian, actor, and writer, Dov Davidoff's unflinching memoir told through reflections of twelve months on the road. Davidoff travels across the country from college campuses to local theaters doing stand-up comedy and telling it like it is. He's been known to wax poetic about everything from encounters with large fake breasts, to people who have too many kids, to magnum condoms the size of CD cases. He is hilarious and relatable and will have you laughing at yourself in no time.
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dark, real, & exceptional
- By Luis F Rodriguez on 11-22-17
By: Dov Davidoff
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Faces of the Gone
- Carter Ross, Book 1
- By: Brad Parks
- Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Four bodies, each with a single bullet wound in the back of the head, stacked like cordwood in a weed-choked vacant lot: That's the front-page news facing Carter Ross, investigative reporter with the Newark Eagle-Examiner. Immediately dispatched to the scene, Carter learns that the four victims - an exotic dancer, a drug dealer, a hustler, and a mama's boy - came from different parts of the city and didn't seem to know one another.
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Wish Brad Parks were more prolific!!!!
- By shelley on 02-16-18
By: Brad Parks
What listeners say about Floating City
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Monni G.
- 08-24-23
A weak follow up
I loved his Gang Leader for a Day book. This one feels way to personal and fullnof his own bitterness leaking in to his objectivity. This felt more like a diatribe than a study in sociology.
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- Absinthe
- 01-08-15
Couldn't Hit Pause
Would you listen to Floating City again? Why?
I would probably listen to Floating City again if there was a connection in future books if Sudhir would write.
Who was your favorite character and why?
New York was my favorite character. I have only been to New York twice after 2010 so I do not know how New York really was before Giuliani became the Mayor. I have heard of Hell's Kitchen but I am assuming it is not what Sudhir experienced back in 2003.
Have you listened to any of Sudhir Venkatesh’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
I read his first book years ago and have enjoyed his ethnography since! It feels like I am a fly on the wall while he talks about what he has observed in the communities he has observed.
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
I did not have any extreme reactions to the book. I did feel bad about Sudhir's personal life.
Any additional comments?
Great book! I finished it in less than a week!!
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- felipe
- 07-19-18
Good storytelling
Positively interesting how the author shifts from one narrative to another.. Very different characters with so much in common. The book gives a good notion on the fluidity of the underground economy. And the external view from the author that becomes evident at the end of the chapters is mind blowing.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Javier
- 11-19-15
Rich, poor, drugs, and escorts
Great read. Love the part when Shine tells Sudhir to use change in place of the word fail. Blue bloods have many options.
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- Lindsay
- 12-06-22
Sudhir never disappoints
This book of his was so genuine and interesting. I would label it as a tragic drama that is grounded and relatable.
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- Abby
- 07-27-15
Fascinating
I'm a curious person by nature, and this book, like Gang Leader for a Day, gave me a glimpse into a world I'll never know firsthand. It's well-written, and I love finding audiobooks narrated by the author because I feel they're as they're intended to be read.
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1 person found this helpful
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- None
- 04-28-19
Don't want to finish!
I first read about Sudhir in Freakonomics and have been enthralled in his studies and writing since. Hopefully he's working on a second book, but in the meantime, I'm not ready to get to the end of this one.
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- Kati
- 10-29-15
Floating storyteller
Fascinating depiction of how the under economies are tied top and supported by white collar business. Venkatesh is a great storyteller. Perhaps the most compelling story he tells in floating city is his own. The central theme and idea of floating really captures each story he tells.
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- Anonymous User
- 05-29-19
disappointed
after his first book was really excited. this one struggled for a common thread and never developed to anything with continuity
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1 person found this helpful