
Paradise Bronx
The Life and Times of New York's Greatest Borough
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Narrated by:
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Robert Fass
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By:
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Ian Frazier
About this listen
Winner of the 2025 Gotham Book Prize
Ian Frazier’s magnum opus: a love song to New York City’s most heterogeneous and alive borough.
For the past fifteen years, Ian Frazier has been walking the Bronx. Paradise Bronx reveals the amazingly rich and tumultuous history of this amazingly various piece of our greatest city. From Jonas Bronck, who bought land from the local Native Americans, to the formerly gang-wracked South Bronx that gave birth to hip-hop, Frazier’s loving exploration is a moving tour de force about the polyglot culture that is America today.
During the Revolution, when the Bronx was unclaimed territory known as the Neutral Ground, some of the war’s decisive battles were fought here by George Washington’s troops. Gouverneur Morris, one of the most colorful Founding Fathers, owned a huge swath of the Bronx, where he lived when he was not in Paris during the French Revolution or helping write the US Constitution.
Frazier shows us how the coming of the railroads and the subways drove the settling of the Bronx by various waves of immigration― Irish, Italian, Jewish (think the Grand Concourse), African American, Caribbean, Puerto Rican (J.Lo is one of the borough’s most famous citizens). The romance of the Yankees, the disaster of the Cross Bronx Expressway, the invention of rap and hip-hop, the resurgence of community as the borough’s communities learn mutual aid―all are investigated, recounted, and celebrated in Frazier’s inimitable voice.
This is a book like no other about a quintessential American city and the resilience and beauty of its citizens.
©2024 Ian Frazier (P)2024 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“Robert Fass performs this homage to New York City's northernmost borough, the Bronx, thoughtfully and skillfully. His pace reflects the author's peregrinations and considerations of the only part of the city connected to the continent. His tone is that of an engaged reporter committed to noting things large—the highways that penetrate the Bronx—and small. Through it all, listeners gain an understanding of the truth and irony of the title.… Here is a living portrait with the borough's harsh reputation etched in place and its lasting significance revealed.” —AudioFile Magazine, Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award
“A profound portrait of this storied place . . . Vivid profiles of historical figures . . . The culmination of many years of passionate inquiry, Frazier's deep history—grandly detailed, vibrant, and caring—does right by the resilient, ever-morphing Bronx.” —Booklist (starred review)
“[An] appreciation of a unique area that will appeal to those who have had enough tales of Manhattan.” —Kirkus Reviews
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Story
"I don't want you to rehabilitate me," Philip Roth said to his only authorized biographer, Blake Bailey. "Just make me interesting." Granted complete independence and access, Bailey spent almost 10 years poring over Roth's personal archive, interviewing his friends, lovers, and colleagues, and listening to Roth's own breathtakingly candid confessions. Tracing Roth's path from realism to farce to metafiction to the tragic masterpieces of the American Trilogy, Bailey explores Roth's engagement with nearly every aspect of postwar American culture.
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Unsparing & magnificent
- By noVack on 02-08-22
By: Blake Bailey
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Nat Turner, Black Prophet
- A Visionary History
- By: Anthony E. Kaye, Gregory P. Downs - contributor
- Narrated by: Leon Nixon
- Length: 12 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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In August 1831, a group of enslaved people in Southampton County, Virginia, rose up to fight for their freedom. They attacked the plantations on which their enslavers lived and attempted to march on the county seat of Jerusalem, from which they planned to launch an uprising across the South. After the rebellion was suppressed, well over a hundred people, Black and white, lay dead or were hanged. As news of the revolt spread, it became apparent that it was the idea of a single man: Nat Turner.
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Nat Turner The Black Prophet
- By Monty on 08-31-24
By: Anthony E. Kaye, and others
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Train Dreams
- A Novella
- By: Denis Johnson
- Narrated by: Will Patton
- Length: 2 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Suffused with the history and landscapes of the American West—its otherworldly flora and fauna, its rugged loggers and bridge builders—this extraordinary novella poignantly captures the disappearance of a distinctly American way of life. It tells the story of Robert Grainer, a day laborer in the American West at the start of the twentieth century—an ordinary man in extraordinary times. Buffeted by the loss of his family, Grainer struggles to make sense of this strange new world.
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2011 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction finalist
- By Louis on 06-20-12
By: Denis Johnson
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Life Stories
- Profiles from The New Yorker
- By: Truman Capote, Ian Frazier, Susan Orlean
- Narrated by: Philip Bosco, Amy Irving, Alton Fitzgerald White
- Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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One of art's purest challenges is to translate a human being into words. The New Yorker magazine has met this challenge more often and more successfully than any other modern American journal. Starting with its light fantastic evocations of the glamorous and the idiosyncratic in the '20s and continuing to the present, with complex pictures of such contemporaries as Marlon Brando and Richard Pryor, The New Yorker's Profiles have presented readers with a vast and brilliant portrait gallery.
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Exceptional writing makes this a fascinating read
- By Jody R. Nathan on 08-25-04
By: Truman Capote, and others
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Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning
- 1977, Baseball, Politics, and the Battle for the Soul of a City
- By: Jonathan Mahler
- Narrated by: Kyle Tait
- Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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By early 1977, New York City was in the grip of hysteria caused by a murderer dubbed "Son of Sam". And on a sweltering night in July, a citywide power outage touched off an orgy of looting and arson that led to the largest mass arrest in the city's history. As the turbulent year wore on, the city became absorbed in two epic battles: the fight between Yankee slugger Reggie Jackson and team manager Billy Martin, and the battle between Ed Koch and Mario Cuomo for the city's mayoralty.
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Excellent
- By pp on 04-22-21
By: Jonathan Mahler
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Farewell Yellow Brick Road
- Memories of My Life on Tour
- By: Elton John, David Furnish - foreword
- Narrated by: Richard Armitage, Vikas Adam, Daniel Henning, and others
- Length: 6 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Farewell Yellow Brick Road is a celebration of Elton John's record-breaking, globe-spanning farewell tour—from Allentown to Auckland, from Sydney to San Francisco. Featured concerts include Elton’s dazzling performances at Los Angeles’ Dodger Stadium in November 2022, the finale of which streamed live on Disney+. Fans will be treated to a behind-the-scenes glimpse into every aspect of these spectacular shows, including Elton’s legendary touring wardrobe by Gucci, the set design, official photography, and more.
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Could have been …
- By Tracy F. on 01-04-25
By: Elton John, and others
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Great Black Hope
- A Novel
- By: Rob Franklin
- Narrated by: Justice Smith, Rob Franklin
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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An arrest for cocaine possession on the last day of a sweltering New York summer leaves Smith, a queer Black Stanford graduate, in a state of turmoil. Pulled into the court system and mandated treatment, he finds himself in an absurd but dangerous situation: his class protects him, but his race does not. It’s just weeks after the death of his beloved roommate Elle, the daughter of a famous soul singer, and he’s still reeling from the tabloid spectacle—as well as lingering questions around how well he really knew his closest friend.
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awesomr
- By Wide Awake on 06-15-25
By: Rob Franklin
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Taking Manhattan
- The Extraordinary Events That Created New York and Shaped America
- By: Russell Shorto
- Narrated by: Russell Shorto
- Length: 11 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1664, England decided to invade the Dutch-controlled city of New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island. Charles II and his brother, the Duke of York, had dreams of empire, and their archrivals, the Dutch, were in the way. But Richard Nicolls, the military officer who led the English flotilla bent on destruction, changed his strategy once he encountered Peter Stuyvesant, New Netherland’s canny director general.
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I really appreciated how the author continually related the past to what we see today.
- By Jaelyn Dean on 05-22-25
By: Russell Shorto
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Strangers to Ourselves
- Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us
- By: Rachel Aviv
- Narrated by: Andi Arndt
- Length: 7 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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In a powerful and gripping debut, Rachel Aviv raises fundamental questions about how we understand ourselves in periods of crisis and distress. Drawing on deep, original reporting as well as unpublished journals and memoirs, Aviv writes about people who have come up against the limits of psychiatric explanations for who they are. Animated by a profound sense of empathy, Aviv’s exploration is refracted through her own account of living in a hospital ward at the age of six and meeting a fellow patient with whom her life runs parallel—until it no longer does.
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Just Falls Short ...
- By Jenny Jenkins on 01-15-23
By: Rachel Aviv
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The Island at the Center of the World
- The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America
- By: Russell Shorto
- Narrated by: Russell Shorto
- Length: 14 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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In a landmark work of history, Russell Shorto presents astonishing information on the founding of our nation and reveals in riveting detail the crucial role of the Dutch in making America what it is today.
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Incomplete history, but fun. Performance is poor.
- By Matthew on 11-27-18
By: Russell Shorto
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Red Hook
- Brooklyn Mafia, Ground Zero
- By: Frank Dimatteo, Michael Benson
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 10 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Packed with jaw-dropping stories of public violence and personal vengeance, vivid insights into the Mafia's way of life, and shocking portraits of America's most wanted crime families, Red Hook is a must-listen for anyone fascinated by the history of organized crime in America.
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Nothing
- By Keith Michel on 05-19-25
By: Frank Dimatteo, and others
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Stop Me If You've Heard This One
- A Novel
- By: Kristen Arnett
- Narrated by: Cameron Esposito
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Cherry Hendricks might be down on her luck, but she can write the book on what makes something funny: she’s a professional clown who creates raucous, zany fun at gigs all over Orlando. Between her clowning and her shifts at an aquarium store for extra cash, she’s always hustling. Not to mention balancing her judgmental mother, her messy love life, and her equally messy community of fellow performers. Things start looking up when Cherry meets Margot the Magnificent—a much older lesbian magician—who seems to have worked out the lines between art, business, and life.
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Pulpy nonsense trying to pass for “literary fiction”
- By cassandra on 05-03-25
By: Kristen Arnett
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Paris in Ruins
- Love, War, and the Birth of Impressionism
- By: Sebastian Smee
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 12 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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From the summer of 1870 to the spring of 1871, famously dubbed the "Terrible Year" by Victor Hugo, Paris and its people were besieged, starved, and forced into surrender by Germans-then imperiled again as radical republicans established a breakaway Commune, ultimately crushed by the French Army after bloody street battles and the burning of central Paris.
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Stunningly great narrator!
- By Julie Seavello on 12-26-24
By: Sebastian Smee
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3 Shades of Blue
- Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and the Lost Empire of Cool
- By: James Kaplan
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 14 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1959, America’s great indigenous art form, jazz, reached the height of its power and popularity. James Kaplan’s magnificent 3 Shades of Blue captures how that golden era came to be, and its pinnacle with the recording of Kind of Blue. It’s a book about music, and business, and race, and heroin, and the cities that gave jazz its home, and the Black geniuses behind its rise. It’s an astonishing meditation on creativity and the strange environments where it can flourish most.
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Great deep dive into a pinnacle of jazz, marred by author bias against later jazz years
- By Michael J. Anderson on 04-08-24
By: James Kaplan
Great Info on the History of the Bronx
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The presentation was descriptive but did not tie together with a cohesive theme. I would’ve preferred more editing with more connections between the stories and chapters.
A cheer for Da Bronx!
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Recognition
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Great book.
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Where did it come from?
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the older history
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Many famous figures who grew up in the Bronx, the music that originated in the Bronx.
This is a book that every American should read.
I have read and listened to many books in my life (mostly history)) and I consider this one among the best.
The narrator does an outstanding job.
My heartfelt thanks to all involved, JK.
ALL AROUND EXCELLENT
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Excellent historical details about the Bronx from its earliest settlements.
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Just Beautiful
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An exquisite tapestry woven of thoughts and experience
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