American history: non fiction
Audio book
On Amazon UK HERE
I started listening to this because I adored the TV series Boardwalk Empire, which was taken from this book - not the other way round, oh people who reviewed it saying it has a lot of boring history in it...!
It tells of the rise of Atlantic City from a tiny fishing village in nowheresville, South Jersey, into a resort for the entertainment of the working man. The idea was the brainchild of one Dr Joseph Pitney, whose original idea was to turn it into a health resort - but the first thing he had to do was negotiate with the railroad companies, so that visitors could actually reach this isolated outpost. By the end of the 19th century, the basis was in place for the Atlantic City empire of treasurer Nucky Johnson, on whom Steve Buscemi's Nucky Thompson is based.
The pre-Nucky section of the book is probably about a third of it, and I liked this part the best. If you're interested in Americal sociological history you will find this book as fascinating as I did, though if you're expecting lots of dramatic gangster type stuff in the Prohibition era you will be disappointed - people like Al Capone are scarcely mentioned, and Arnold Rothstein not at all, I don't think; much of the story in the televison series is fictional.
Narrated by actor Joe Mantegna, of 101 gangster films fame ~ the perfect choice.
