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The Bookmaker : A Memoir of Money, Luck, and Family from the Utopian Outskirts of New York City by Michael J. Agovino (2008, Hardcover)

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THE BOOKMAKER: A MEMOIR OF MONEY, LUCK, AND FAMILY FROM THE UTOPIAN OUTSKIRTS OF NEW YORK CITY By Michael J. Agovino - Hardcover **Mint Condition**.

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Product Information

Marking the debut of a gifted new writer, The Bookmaker teems with humanity, empathy, humor, and insight. At the heart of Michael J. Agovino's powerful, layered memoir is his family's struggle for success in 1970s, '80s, and '90s New York City--and his father's gambling, which brought them to exhilarating highs and crushing lows. He vividly brings to life the Bronx, a place of texture and nuance, of resignation but also of triumph. The son of a buttoned-up union man who moonlighted as a gentleman bookmaker and gambler, Agovino grew up in the Bronx's Co-op City, the largest and most ambitious state-sponsored housing development in U.S. history. When it opened, it landed on the front page of The New York Times and in Time magazine, which described it as "relentlessly ugly." Agovino's Italian American father was determined not to let his modest income and lack of a college education define him, and was dogged in his pursuit of the finer things in life. When the point spreads were on his side, he brought his family to places he only dreamed about in his favorite books and films: the Uffizi, the Tate, the Rijksmuseum; St. Peter's, Chartres, Teotihuacán. With bad luck came shouting matches, unpaid bills, and eviction notices. The Bookmaker is both a bold, loving portrait of a family and their metropolis and an intimate look into some of the most turbulent decades of New York City. In elegant and soaring prose, it transcends the personal to illuminate the ways in which class distinctions shaped America in the last half of the twentieth century.

Product Identifiers

Publisher
HarperCollins
ISBN-10
0061151394
ISBN-13
9780061151392
eBay Product ID (ePID)
65619201

Product Key Features

Book Title
Bookmaker : a Memoir of Money, Luck, and Family from the Utopian Outskirts of New York City
Author
Michael J. Agovino
Format
Hardcover
Language
English
Topic
Board Games, Personal Memoirs, Gambling / General (See Also Self-Help / Compulsive Behavior / Gambling), General
Publication Year
2008
Genre
Biography & Autobiography, Games & Activities
Number of Pages
368 Pages

Dimensions

Item Length
9in
Item Height
1.3in
Item Width
6in
Item Weight
22.2 Oz

Additional Product Features

Reviews
[The Bookmaker] is Mr. Agovino's debut book. Here's hoping it won't be his last. A writer for various publications and Web sites, Mr. Agovino has produced a charming, evocative memoir about growing up a generation ago in Co-op City, the Bronx., The Bookmaker is a family adventure of the highest order. Michael Agovino has the talent to capture the energy and spunk of his Italian American family and the artistry to tell a fast-paced, highly entertaining story. I couldn't put it down., A fascinating coming-of-age story, not only of the author and his Italian-American family, but of Co-op City in The Bronx—the title's utopia—and a compelling story of a dad who had a city job, but also worked as a bookie., The Bookmaker is both a hilarious, affecting memoir and a loving street-level portrait of a city—the city—during turbulent times. Michael Agovino writes with grace, confidence, originality, and above all, a natural feel for the rhythm of New York and the one-of-kind characters it produces., The book offers a unique portrait of the mutability of class...Agovino strikes a nice balance between the histories of a beloved place and a turbulent family. A generally engrossing narrative of class and mobility in urban America., Mr. Agovino has crafted a sensitive and engrossing memoir. . . . All of the characters in The Bookmaker are extraordinarily vivid, thanks in part to the author's uncanny ear for the accents and cadences of New Yorkers of every stripe., The Bookmaker is socially panoramic in the vein of John Dos Passos, displaying relish for all walks of life. In telling the debt-defying adventures of his family, Agovino has composed a New York City classic., [A] deeply evocative, pitch-perfect memoir of growing up the son of a bookie in Co-op City in the Bronx in the '70s and '80s., Michael Agovino brings a gift for capturing urban sounds and symbols and a keen sense of shifting social status to his memoir of growing up in the Bronx., For Agovino and his family, life does not build toward a crescendo. It grows exponentially, then subsides, puttering along, waiting for that next spurt. Throughout it all, family is there. A nice story of an individual coping with a unique situation yet always buttressed by family.
Intended Audience
Trade

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Most relevant reviews

4 out of 5 stars
by joelaniaDec 08, 2008
The Bookmaker brought back somepersonal memories for me
I am a few years older than the author, but shared many of the same memories. My parents, like Mr. Agovino's dad were raised in East Harlem in the late 40's-50s. They share the same memories, same hangouts, same neighborhood guys as the author's father. My dad, like the author's, also supplemented his income a few different ways, on of them was bookmaking. It was an exciting life for a kid. The men (and women) who came and went were all characters, each different and each with a story. Also, we moved to the Bronx, then (along with everyone else) to Co-op when it first opened. Although I never attended any school in the educational section of Co-op, we all did the same things. In Evander and around the Coop. This book was refreshing in it's clarity of life at that time.
5 out of 5 stars
by mary1961catsDec 15, 2009
The Bookmaker by Michael Agovino
THIS IS A GREAT BOOK ESPECIALLY FOR THOSE HAVING LIVED IN NEW YORK CITY. THE WRITER CAPTURES THE TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS OF POOR AND MIDDLE-CLASS PEOPLE LIKE FEW OTHER WRITERS. I RELATE TO THE SITUATIONS AND SETBACKS DESCRIBED IN THE BOOK, EVEN NOW IN MY EIGHTY YEARS OF LOVING NEW YORK. BOOKS OF THIS KIND BOOST MY SPIRIT IN MANY WAYS. CHARLES CARLO FASCIANA

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