![]() King, and particularly on that fateful day in Washington. With stirring original artwork mixed with photographs of the events (and the segregationist policies in the South, such as separate drinking fountains and entrances to public buildings), Ruffin writes of how an end to slavery didn’t mark true equality and that these rights had to be fought for-through marches and sit-ins and words, particularly those of Dr. More than 250,00 people are pouring into the city.” They have come to protest the treatment of African-Americans here in the US. It is a hot summer day in Washington, D.C. ![]() Ruffin gives the book a good, dramatic start: “August 28, 1963. ![]() This early reader is an excellent introduction to the March on Washington in 1963 and the important role in the march played by Martin Luther King Jr. “It’s something you grapple with, accept, resist, accept again, resist again, then resolve to live with”-which, they add, is “absolutely in character for this show.”Įssential for fans and the definitive celebration of a show that made history by knowing the rules and breaking every one of them. “It’s not something you just watch,” they write. The authors’ interviews with Chase are endlessly illuminating, though we still won’t ever know what really happened to the Soprano family on that fateful evening in 2007. Seitz and Sepinwall occasionally go too Freudian (“Tony is a human turd, shat out by a mother who treats her son like shit”), though sometimes to apposite effect: Readers aren’t likely to look at an egg the same way ever again. It is high and low art, vulgar and sophisticated.” It barely hinted at what was to come, a classic of darkness and cynicism starring James Gandolfini, an actor “obscure enough that, coupled with the titanic force of his performance, it was easy to view him as always having been Tony Soprano.” Put Gandolfini together with one of the best ensembles and writing crews ever assembled, and it’s small wonder that the show is still remembered, discussed, and considered a classic. The pilot was “a hybrid slapstick comedy, domestic sitcom, and crime thriller, with dabs of ’70s American New Wave grit. As they note, The Sopranos was first shot in 1997, helmed by master storyteller David Chase, of Northern Exposure and Rockford Files renown, who unveiled his creation at an odd time in which Robert De Niro had just appeared in a film about a Mafioso in therapy. New York magazine TV critic Seitz (Mad Men Carousel: The Complete Critical Companion, 2015, etc.) and Rolling Stone TV critic Sepinwall (Breaking Bad 101: The Complete Critical Companion, 2017, etc.) gather a decade’s worth of their smart, lively writing about New Jersey’s most infamous crime family. Newcomers and experts alike will be well-served by these basic reminders.Ī clear, invigorating point-by-point breakdown of how money works.Įverything you ever wanted to know about America’s favorite Mafia serial-and then some. Alexander’s writing is remarkably free of the financial jargon that tends to creep into similar books on money basics, and his warnings-against con artists, pyramid schemes, and government overreach-are stark and straightforward. For example, the author explains nuances of the United States government’s decision to move its currency away from the gold standard, the nature of credit and debt, and the darker nature of credit cards, which, he contends, “are designed to enslave you.” This final point, that debt must be avoided at all costs, is a recurring theme, and the author strikes an equally cautionary note when discussing the difference between speculating and investing. Alexander has authored a series of similar instructional manuals, and that expertise is evident here on every page he effectively breaks complex ideas into their essential elements and untangles complicated connections. Wealth is essentially good.” The book moves quickly via concise, clear chapters that address such concepts as paper money, banking, investment, inflation, and the Federal Reserve. Wealth grants time to do other work, or time to play. Money, he maintains, is a sign of wealth, but only one of many true wealth is the goods and services that money buys, which “frees people from drudgery. ![]() This slim book from Alexander ( Mozart and Great Music, 2015, etc.), a manager for a semiconductor company, asks some simple questions-What is the difference between money and wealth? What is the nature of debt? Why are con artists so common and so successful?-and provides some equally simple clarifications. A plainspoken primer on the basics of personal finance.
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