The Girl in Times Square


Book Description

A stunning and powerful contemporary love story from one of the best storytellers this century. What if everything you believed about your life was a lie?




Times Square


Book Description

Once in a while right in the middle of an ordinary life, love gives us a fairy tale.I saw that quote about fairy tales embroidered on a decorative pillow at a home decorating store. Honestly, it pissed me off. Retail propaganda aimed to promote sales when any single girl in the city could tell them they'd sell more if they'd offer Keep Your Pants On, Asshole instead. But it's fine. I don't have room for decorative pillows anyway. And I don't have time for distractions. Which is why I'm ignoring the distraction staring at me right now. The one who looks like he belongs on a billboard campaign. The one with the full lips and the cocky smile. The one refusing to look away even when I give him my best no way scowl. The one headed in my direction. Right now.




The Girl in Times Square


Book Description

International bestselling author Paullina Simons delivers a riveting novel about a young woman whose search for her missing friend turns into a life-shattering odyssey. The truth will change her forever. Living in bustling New York City, Lily Quinn has plenty of distractions and is struggling to finish college as well as pay her rent. But that all pales in comparison when Amy, her best friend and roommate, disappears without a trace. Spencer O’Malley, a cynical NYPD detective assigned to Amy’s case, immediately captures Lily’s attention. Though he is wary and wrestling with his own demons, he, too, is irresistibly drawn to Lily. But fate has more in store for Lily than she ever expected. As she looks deeper into the mystery surrounding Amy’s disappearance, Lily finds answers she never imagined she’d find—answers that challenge everything she knows about her own life. Lily’s search puts her on a collision course with tragedy and love, and gives her a glimpse into the abyss that swallowed her friend . . . until she faces a final confrontation with her own life-changing destiny. “Part mystery, part romance, part family drama . . . in other words, the perfect book.”—Daily Mail




Times Square and Other Stories


Book Description

In William Baer’s Times Square and Other Stories, there are everyday characters walking extraordinary paths for love; there are smart, skillful characters struggling to reconcile their viewpoints and convictions with the status quo in fields such as art, education, the cinema and religious doctrine. There is baseball and the story of the skills, training and ethics of pitching in the big leagues. And there is war and an enemy invasion juxtaposed with a do-or-die chess game. The stories take us coast to coast from New York to LA, away to South America, and overseas to Eastern and Western Europe. This is a fun-filled, fact-filled collection that smoothly melds scholarship with the everyday for unique, fresh, and highly intelligent stories, which are also highly entertaining. PRAISE FOR TIMES SQUARE AND OTHER STORIES: How wonderful to come across such a serious collection of short stories! Not “serious” as in boring and tendentious; but serious as in grown-up, broadminded, large-hearted, sharply observed, and dryly, obliquely funny. Bill Baer’s fiction kicks ass. — Pinckney Benedict, author of Town Smoke As elegantly written as they are inventive, the short stories in Times Square and Other Stories engage the reader all the way from the title piece, an ambitious tale that draws upon art, love, and the complex beauty of the human narrative, through eight other works that touch upon the timeless questions of what it means to create and to act, to be and to pretend. Baer’s collection achieves that Horatian goal so sorely lacking in much of contemporary fiction—informing while delighting at the same time. The obligation to craft is taken very seriously in these pages, but the effort that undoubtedly went into their composition could easily be overlooked due to the skill with which they are rendered, and the degree to which they are enjoyed. — A.G. Harmon, author of A House All Stilled Times Square and Other Stories, William Baer’s twice-measured fictions, channel the reflecting reflections of James and Borges back into our self-conscious consciousness. Like the four-story signs plastering the “real” Times Square, these signs sing themselves, maps as detailed as the things they represent. These fictions resuscitate Poe’s unities of effects, breathing life back into the simulacrum of life. I loved this book; it can’t help but blurb itself! — Michael Martone, author of Four for a Quarter




Murder in Times Square


Book Description

Many Words Press-and imprint of Able Muse Press-is proud to introduce Murder in Times Square, a Deirdre Mystery, initiating a new series by the author of the popular Jack Colt mystery series: When a young woman in a red designer dress falls twenty-five stories from the roof of Times Square One, the well-known New York fashion model known as Deirdre resolves to unravel the mystery. Capable and determined, Deirdre is relentless in her drive to unravel the mystery and find justice for the victim, while protecting those she loves from looming threats. Baer, who has worked in the New York City's fashion district, showcases not only his depth of knowledge of the fashion industry, but also of New York City and its landmarks and history. He weaves an intricate, fast-paced, and spellbinding narrative that takes us through New York City, Atlantic City, the Jersey Shore, and the Caribbean. In Murder in Times Square, Baer once again proves he is a master of suspense and intrigue. PRAISE FOR WILLIAM BAER'S JACK COLT MURDER MYSTERY SERIES: "William Baer brilliantly mixes all the human emotions. . . . The layers, the depth, the characters, the intrigue, and the references to local settings all captivate and draw the reader in. I love books like this! A rarity! Five stars!" - Robert Leon Davis, Reader Views (Five-star review) "A brilliant debut novel . . . precise prose, perfect pacing, stunning imagery, complex characterization, grand historical and cultural contexts, and a superb sense of place." - Hollis Seamon, author of Somebody Up There Hates You "Not since Donna Tartt's The Secret History have I read a novel as mesmerizing, engrossing, and delectable as William Baer's New Jersey Noir. In prose as fast-moving as a bullet, Baer compels the reader to keep flipping pages more and more rapidly. The writing is taut and gut-wrenching." - Terri Brown-Davidson, author of Marie, Marie, Hold On Tight "With a head for crime and his own set of scruples, Jack moves effortlessly through the seamy underbelly of the state he loves. . . . [T]his is a can't-put-it-down thrill ride." - Publishers Weekly (Starred review) Writing is crisp, sarcastic, and wryly funny. . . . Characters are authentic and realistic. Dialogue is brisk and to the point. - Robin Farrell Edmunds, Forward Reviews (Five-star review) ABOUT THE AUTHOR: William Baer worked briefly in New York City's fashion district after high school. He's now the award-winning author of twenty-five books, including the first three novels in the popular New Jersey Noir mystery series. He's a graduate of NYU, Rutgers, South Carolina, Johns Hopkins, and USC's School of Cinema, where he received the Jack Nicholson Screenwriting Award. He's also been the recipient of a Fulbright, a Guggenheim, and a Creative Writing Fellowship in fiction from the National Endowment for the Arts.




Tales of Times Square


Book Description

“Friedman has drawn a vivid picture of the Times Square area and its denizens. He writes about the porn palaces with live sex shows, and the men and women who perform in them, prostitutes and their pimps, the runaways who will likely be the next decade's prostitutes, the clergymen who fight the smut merchants and the cops who feel impotent in the face of the judiciary.”—Publishers Weekly This classic account of the ultra-sleazy, pre-Disneyfied era of Times Square is now the subject of a documentary film of the same name to be theatrically released this year. With this edition, Tales of Times Square returns to print with seven new chapters.




Broadway


Book Description

This volume is another example in the Routledge tradition of producing high-quality reference works on theater, music, and the arts. An A to Z encyclopedia of Broadway, this volume includes tons of information, including producers, writer, composers, lyricists, set designers, theaters, performers, and landmarks in its sweep.




Closing Time


Book Description

The real story behind the murder of a Manhattan schoolteacher that became a symbol of the dangers of casual sex: “A first-rate achievement” (Truman Capote). In 1973, Roseann Quinn, an Irish-Catholic teacher at a school for deaf children, was killed in New York City after bringing a man home to her apartment from an Upper West Side pub. The crime made headlines and the ensuing case quickly evolved into a cultural phenomenon, spawning both a #1 New York Times–bestselling novel and a film adaptation starring Diane Keaton and Richard Gere, and sparking debates about the sexual revolution and the perils of the “pickup scene” at what were popularly known as singles bars. In this groundbreaking true crime tale, Lacey Fosburgh, the New York Times reporter first assigned to the story, utilizes an inventive dramatization technique, in which she gives the victim a different name, to veer between the chilling, suspenseful personal interactions leading up to the brutal stabbing and the gritty details of its aftermath, including the NYPD investigation and the arrest of John Wayne Wilson. An Edgar Award finalist for Best Fact Crime, this classic of the genre is “more riveting, and more tragic, than the Judith Rossner novel—and 1977 movie Looking for Mr. Goodbar” (Men’s Journal).




The Devil's Playground


Book Description

As Times Square turns 100, New York Times Magazine contributing writer James Traub tells the story of how this mercurial district became one of the most famous and exciting places in the world. The Devil’s Playground is classic and colorful American history, from the first years of the twentieth century through the Runyonesque heyday of nightclubs and theaters in the 1920s and ’30s, to the district’s decline in the 1960s and its glittering corporate revival in the 1990s. First, Traub gives us the great impresarios, wits, tunesmiths, newspaper columnists, and nocturnal creatures who shaped Times Square over the century since the place first got its name: Oscar Hammerstein, Florenz Ziegfeld, George S. Kaufman, Damon Runyon, Walter Winchell, and “the Queen of the Nightclubs,” Texas Guinan; bards like A. J. Liebling, Joe Mitchell, and the Beats, who celebrated the drug dealers and pimps of 42nd Street. He describes Times Square’s notorious collapse into pathology and the fierce debates over how best to restore it to life. Traub then goes on to scrutinize today’s Times Square as no author has yet done. He writes about the new 42nd Street, the giant Toys “R” Us store with its flashing Ferris wheel, the new world of corporate theater, and the sex shops trying to leave their history behind. More than sixty years ago, Liebling called Times Square “the heart of the world”—not just the center of the world, though this crossroads in Midtown Manhattan was indeed that, but its heart. From the dawn of the twentieth century through the 1950s, Times Square was the whirling dynamo of American popular culture and, increasingly, an urban sanctuary for the eccentric and the untamed. The name itself became emblematic of the tremendous life force of cities everywhere. Today, Times Square is once again an awe-inspiring place, but the dark and strange corners have been filled with blazing light. The most famous street character on Broadway, “the Naked Cowboy,” has his own website, and Toys “R” Us calls its flagship store in Times Square “the toy center of the universe.” For the giant entertainment corporations that have moved to this safe, clean, and self-consciously gaudy spot, Times Square is still very much the center of the world. But is it still the heart?




The Kissing Sailor


Book Description

On August 14, 1945, Alfred Eisenstaedt took a picture of a sailor kissing a nurse in Times Square, minutes after they heard of Japan's surrender to the United States. Two weeks later LIFE magazine published that image. It became one of the most famous WWII photographs in history (and the most celebrated photograph ever published in the world's dominant photo-journal), a cherished reminder of what it felt like for the war to finally be over. Everyone who saw the picture wanted to know more about the nurse and sailor, but Eisenstaedt had no information and a search for the mysterious couple's identity took on a dimension of its own. In 1979 Eisenstaedt thought he had found the long lost nurse. And as far as almost everyone could determine, he had. For the next thirty years Edith Shain was known as the woman in the photo of V-J DAY, 1945, TIMES SQUARE. In 1980 LIFE attempted to determine the sailor's identity. Many aging warriors stepped forward with claims, and experts weighed in to support one candidate over another. Chaos ensued. For almost two decades Lawrence Verria and George Galdorisi were intrigued by the controversy surrounding the identity of the two principals in Eisenstaedt's most famous photograph and collected evidence that began to shed light on this mystery. Unraveling years of misinformation and controversy, their findings propelled one claimant s case far ahead of the others and, at the same time, dethroned the supposed kissed nurse when another candidate's claim proved more credible. With this book, the authors solve the 67-year-old mystery by providing irrefutable proof to identify the couple in Eisenstaedt's photo. It is the first time the whole truth behind the celebrated picture has been revealed. The authors also bring to light the couple's and the photographer's brushes with death that nearly prevented their famous spontaneous Times Square meeting in the first place. The sailor, part of Bull Halsey's famous task force, survived the deadly typhoon that took the lives of hundreds of other sailors. The nurse, an Austrian Jew who lost her mother and father in the Holocaust, barely managed to escape to the United States. Eisenstaedt, a World War I German soldier, was nearly killed at Flanders.