are there any books

fiction, with some kind of contemporary social commentary that deals with the economic underclass, profiles a city, etc? or is it that all fiction writers are basically white males who complain about sex or living in the suburbs?

oh i dont want to ruin this thread but i just want to point out that season 1 of the wire just came in the mail yesterday so i'm pumped to start watching it this weekend. carry on.

yeah i'm rewatching it which is why i made this. also watching the corner, which is nearly as good.

Ed McBain books?

the Wire but old school....

Harry Potter?

oh yeah harry potter.

*deletes thread*

kidding man, true crime section, third row on the left

No one has mentioned 'The Corner' yet.

Check out 'The Corner'

Mrs Dalloway

  zaphod said:

fiction, with some kind of contemporary social commentary that deals with the economic underclass, profiles a city, etc? or is it that all fiction writers are basically white males who complain about sex or living in the suburbs?

you know, dickensian! other than dickens, no

also; watching the wire for the second time, with someone else, as i did last year, actually made me appreciate it less. a lot of the dialogue is really silly; and some of the actors (especially mcnulty) aren't actually that impressive.

david simon, the guy who created the wire and the corner based them on some books he wrote.

homicide; a year on the killing streets

the corner; a year in the life of an inner city

The Hardy Boys

check out goethe's 'faust'

I'm suddenly reminded of Mr.Man, "Have you got any books?"

i downloaded and re-watched the corner about 3 months ago

such an excellent, depressing miniseries

check out k'wan www.kwanfoye.com

  playbynumbers said:

  zaphod said:

fiction, with some kind of contemporary social commentary that deals with the economic underclass, profiles a city, etc? or is it that all fiction writers are basically white males who complain about sex or living in the suburbs?

 

 

 

you know, dickensian! other than dickens, no

 

also; watching the wire for the second time, with someone else, as i did last year, actually made me appreciate it less. a lot of the dialogue is really silly; and some of the actors (especially mcnulty) aren't actually that impressive.

well, no, not dickensian actually. i'm talking about a panoramic view of a city like what the wire presents, and it would have to be contemporary. i dont think dickens really resembles that at all, except maybe on a superficial level. also he's a terrible writer, lol.

and what was wrong with the dialogue? i thought they nailed all of the street talk...

lol at mrx

i think the thing you have to realize is that the wire is entertainment, though it's steeped in reality much more than many other series.

this was the realization i had while reading sudhir venkatesh's "off the books"... interesting but more of an academic book (nothing wrong with that, just mentioning it because it's a different sort of reading)

but zaph you might want to read his book "gang leader for a day", chronicles time he spent with a prominent south side chicago gang... that book was really interesting.

there's also a dude who was an east coast grad student who wrote a good chronicle of life as a cop in baltimore, his book was entitled "cop in the hood" but his name escapes me right now. those two would be a good start for you.

im on season 4 episode 1... season 2 and 3 were the best ones imo, probally liked 3 more then 2 though.

  zaphod said:

well, no, not dickensian actually. i'm talking about a panoramic view of a city like what the wire presents, and it would have to be contemporary. i dont think dickens really resembles that at all, except maybe on a superficial level. also he's a terrible writer, lol.

well yes, a lame attempt at referring to the critics calling the show dickensian and then the character in s5 calling it dickensian, because david simon was annoyed by it

  Quote

and what was wrong with the dialogue? i thought they nailed all of the street talk...

that was all fine; basically any dialogue with white people, not so great. like; every single line uttered by every single dockworker in s2. or most of the things said by mcnulty, or carcetti. the big difference, to me, was watching it alone vs. watching it with someone else; it makes the bad lines stand out much more, not sure why.

  playbynumbers said:

the big difference, to me, was watching it alone vs. watching it with someone else; it makes the bad lines stand out much more, not sure why.

you probably start to get self conscious that the person might not enjoy something you've presented to them as "amazing" or "really fucking good", so you start to pick apart everything that could possibly be construed as bad and focusing on it a lot more than if you were just going with the flow. that will happen with just about anything, no matter how good it is.

Read "Clockers" by Richard Price, who also wrote a few episodes of The Wire.

  toosharp said:

Read "Clockers" by Richard Price, who also wrote a few episodes of The Wire.

Beat me to it. Yeah, I listened to an interview where Simon basically admitted he got the idea for the series after reading 'Clockers'.

Toosharp, have you read Price's newest book? Apparently it's about the gentrification of New York.

  catsonearth said:

david simon, the guy who created the wire and the corner based them on some books he wrote.

 

homicide; a year on the killing streets

 

the corner; a year in the life of an inner city

lol, there you go zaph.

Obviously the books by the Wire creators are your best bet.

If you just want cool realistic cop books, I'd definitely suggest The Choirboys by Joseph Wambaugh, along with pretty much all his other books.