<div>A &ldquo;diverse collection&rdquo; of essays, stories, and poems about Baltimore that provide &ldquo;a wide-ranging account of what the city feels like today&rdquo; (Baltimore Magazine). To many outsiders, Baltimore--sometimes derisively called &ldquo;Mobtown&rdquo; or &ldquo;Bodymore&rdquo;&mdash;is a city famous for its poverty and violence, twin ills that have been compounded by decades of racial segregation and the loss of manufacturing jobs. But that portrait has only given us a skewed view of a truly unique and diverse American city, the place that produced Babe Ruth, Elijah Cummings, Nancy Pelosi, Edgar Allan Poe, John Waters, Frank Zappa, Billie Holiday, and Thurgood Marshall, among other notables. In over thirty-five essays, poems, and short stories, the authors take an unfiltered look at the ins and outs of Baltimore&#39;s past and present. You&rsquo;ll hear about the first time an umbrella appeared in the Inner Harbor, nineteenth-century grave robbers, and the city&rsquo;s history with redlining and blockbusting. But you&rsquo;ll also get a deeper sense of what life is like in Baltimore today, including stories about urban gardening in Bolton Hill, the slow demise of local journalism, what life was like in the city during COVID, and the legacy of Freddie Gray. As Ron Kipling Williams writes in his essay about the city&rsquo;s magnetic appeal, &ldquo;Baltimore has always been a city worth fighting for,&rdquo; and running through all these pieces is the story of Baltimore&rsquo;s resilience. Edited by an award-winning author and a former staff writer for The Wire, this anthology offers an unfiltered look at Baltimore, far more nuanced than the stories that are generally told about it. &ldquo;Let[s] the people of this city define their home through reflections in prose, poetry, recipes, and even a comic strip . . . speaks to the heart of the city.&rdquo; &mdash;Baltimore Fishbowl</div>

A Lovely Place, A Fighting Place, A Charmer

<div>Welcome to the critically acclaimed HBO drama series The Wire, hailed as "the best show on television, period" by the San Francisco Chronicle.The New York Times calls it "a vital part of the television landscape...unvarnished realism." Time declares that The Wire, "like its underfunded, workaday cops, just plugged away until it outshone everything else on TV." The Wire stands not only as riveting drama but also as a sociopolitical treatise with ambitions beyond any television serial. The failure of the drug war, the betrayal of the working class, the bureaucratization of the culture and the cost to individual dignity -- such are the themes of the drama's first two seasons. And with every new episode of season three and beyond, another layer of modern urban life will be revealed. Gritty, densely layered, and realistic, The Wire is series television at its very best, told from the point of view of the Baltimore police, their targets, and many of those caught in the middle. Rafael Alvarez -- a reporter, essayist, and staff writer for the show -- brings the reader inside, detailing many of the real-life incidents and personalities that have inspired the show's storylines and characters, providing the reader with insights into the city of Baltimore -- itself an undeniable character in the series. Packed with photographs and featuring an introduction by series creator and executive producer David Simon, as well as essays by acclaimed authors George Pelecanos, Laura Lippman, and Anthony Walton, here is an invaluable resource for both fans of the show and viewers who have yet to discover The Wire. Hollywood has long used the cop drama to excite and entertain, and Hollywood has always dictated the terms. But The Wire is filmed entirely in Baltimore, conceived by Baltimoreans, and written by rust-belt journalists and novelists intimately familiar with the urban landscape. It's as close as television has yet come to allowing an American city to tell its own tale.</div>

Rafael Alvarez
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Books By Rafael Alvarez (1 Book)

The Wire

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Books By Rafael Alvarez (1 Book)

The Wire

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Corporate

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