A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago

Lots of times the Kindle freebies of works by well known authors are just collections of juvenilia or minor pieces, or otherwise obscure spinoffs from their main body of work. Not so here. There are at least a dozen versions of "A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago" for sale on Amazon as I write this, and many more available from booksellers as collectibles, so I'm sort of surprised this freebie is so readily available. That said, this Kindle version doesn't have the illustrations that graced the upper end hardbound editions; it does have the original preface and all of the important words, though.Hecht was a fascinating and celebrated author, tied intimately to Chicago, (like Sandburg or Nelson Algren), in the public's mind. He was a successful novelist and a supremely successful Hollywood screenwriter. (Often considered to be "the" ultimate screenwriter he had six different scripts nominated for academy awards, and his list of plays and movie scripts reads like an index to the golden ages of both venues.)But even these early pieces, (64 total), display all of Hecht's skills of observation, empathy and expression. They were written after the publication of Hecht's first book, but predate his most famous and successful screen writing years. They were written on or before 1921, but they have a light, breezy and modern feel. In some ways they prefigure the new journalism of writers like Wolfe and Capote and Mailer and Hunter Thompson, in that they bring a literary and fictional sensibility to what are basically colorful news and newspaper feature stories.Anyway, if you are curious about Chicago in the 1920's, or about what really good newspaper writing was all about during that era; or, if you recognize Hecht's name and are curious about his work and his style; or, if you just like good punch-in-the-gut or comic or sardonic audacious writing, this is a very nice find.

Ben Hecht ran away from his home in Racine, Wisconsin when he was sixteen and came to Chicago where he became a reporter. A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago is a collection of columns he wrote for the Daily News. These amazing stories brim with the undercurrents of the city bringing to life the everyday characters who wandered its streets during the 1920s. Mr. Hecht was one of those rare souls who immersed himself into Chicago and in doing so captures not only its spirit but speech and the mannerisms of its denizens. This collection of stories is a marvel! Highly recommended!

A poorly produced reproduction of a book published during the 1920s. However, the essays are excellent.

Thanks

Good book by a now-little-known writer.

Really helps since i need to feed my kitty girl 3 times a day. And when we have to be gone, it works! Never fails. Love it.

The main problem I have with this book is that the text is too small. I don't consider myself to have vision problems, yet I had to put the book very close to my eyes so that I could see all the words. Maybe it's intentionally tiny to reflect how stories were written back in 1921, but I don't think it was a good idea! There is enough space on every page for the text to be much larger, but the publishers made a wrong move keeping the font small.Even if you can read the text, it doesn't mean it will hold your attention. In short, the book is an anthology, containing stories and images from 1921, and if you're not a fan of the writing style of the 1910s and 1920s, it is likely that you won't enjoy many of the stories. Yes, some of the stories are good anyway, but others will bore or confuse you since few readers are used to this kind of writing.Some of the stories are pretty specific to a situation that can happen in Chicago, mentioning neighborhoods and other locations, along with descriptions of immigrant groups prevalent in the windy city. Other stories seem more generic that if you just change the street names, the story could pass off as one about New York or Minneapolis. But the black and white pictures are always interesting to look at. Basically, there are both good and bad attributes to this book, and if you can stand 1920s style writing, it's worth reading.

Bought this book because it lay in my parent's bookcase for 60 years unread. At age 70, or so, I thought I was old enough to read it. Ben Hecht is a great writer and he is entertaining. . .but, I think, somewhat dated. I have never been a great fan of 30s short stories or at least the writing style, and I can't tell you why. I'm about 40 pages into the book, maybe a little less, so everything I write should be rubbed with a grain of salt. Some of the stories were pretty interesting, but most of them have, by now, been done to death. I wouldn't discourage anybody from buying the book, though. It's very title suggest something wonderful: *1001 Afternoons* in Chicago now that really piques one's curiosity, doesn't it???