Boogaloo on 2nd Avenue

A Novel of Pastry, Guilt, and Music

By: Mark Kurlansky

Narrated by: George Guidall

New York Times best-selling author Mark Kurlansky has turned the seemingly ordinary (salt, the year 1968, the humble cod fish) into some of the most enthralling nonfiction ever written. Now this gifted writer delivers an engrossing and long-awaited first novel.

The booming 1980s have arrived, and in Manhattan's Lower East Side, that means the yuppies have arrived, too. Gentrification has begun! Amidst the hubbub, Nathan Seltzer pursues an affair with the sexy daughter of the local German bakers and fights to protect his little photocopy shop from the predatory advances of the Kopy Katz chain. And all the while, a murderous maniac is terrorizing the neighborhood.

Boogaloo on 2nd Avenue presents an exhiliarating menagerie of peoples and customs while vividly capturing a colorful period of American cultural history.

©2005 Mark Kurlansky (P)2005 Recorded Books, LLC

Critic reviews

"A definitive portrait of an era that's all the better for not really trying to be one." (Kirkus Reviews)

A lot of fun!

George Guidall's performance of this book with all the dialects and languages is incredible!
Enjoy listening to it.

A Fun And Irreverent Stroll Through Alphabet City

Listening to this story is like wandering down a street in an old New York neighborhood. You hear all kinds of languages, see things both lovely and ugly, and smell the cooking of cuisine from around the world. People all have long memories, rich emotional lives--not always nice-- and plenty of opinions about one another. Portrayed in this work, these truths are not good or bad; it just is. And in spite of the jerry-rigged and mismatched weirdness of a community where Dominicans pretend to be Puerto Rican so Americans are okay with them, where Spanish folks learn Japanese to work in a sushi restaurant, where Jewish recipes get reworked to include bananas and people debate whether getting a lip piercing is kosher at the corner store, it is a community. It is a place to belong. And it has its own quirky beauty. I find it delightful.

We'd listen to George Guidall read phonebooks -

- - but not this time. Just couldn't get into the story - very disjointed and didn't make much sense. Excellent narration - very weak story line. I'll be returning it....