A good writer, but the book itself was a little weak. Mostly about prostitutes in NYC, mixed in with some stuff about coke dealers, and a little bit about the porn business and strip clubs, and a lot about his own issues and then some more about academics and the field of sociology. All interesting topics but a little too mixed up together. Actually, if he wasn't such a good writer this would have been crap, but I'd give it 3.5 stars if that was possible. ( )

This book is a lot more all over the place than Gang Leader for A Day, and I guess, that is deliberate since the main theme is "floating", crossing barriers of race, class, and neighborhood (or failing to do so) in the Global City of New York (as opposed to the "solid", neighborhood-based Chicago).

Nevertheless, for my taste, it was much too much about the author himself, and his self-made dilemmas than about the research process or the product of the research (something I was a lot more interested in). In the ends, you get a few interesting stories about specific individuals (and you never really know whether they are typical or outliers) than the big pictures.

From my perspective, a few trees are interesting, but I would have liked more about the forest. ( )

Sudhir describes the depth and complexity of the human experience, relationships, and coexisting urban cultures while offering vivid, compassionate but academic observations of poverty, the sex trade, illegal drug trade, and underground economics. He weaves a subtle web of connections between class, race, socio-economic status and how they are not as delineated as sociology likes to often believe.

He re-humanizes the once-deviant and normalizes the lives of the most vulnerable who are faced with difficult choices.

And he does so in an easy-to-read manner with wide appeal. One of the most amazing creative non-fiction works I have read.

( )

I’ve read about the author’s research on drug gangs in Freakonomics. This book describes his research in New York underground, chiefly drugs and sex workers. It is not a sociological study; it is more an emotional diary of a researcher with a lot of interweaving stories of both low and high income people, engaged in the underground economy. I have to admit, I’m a sucker for those empathic anecdotes and it was a great read for me. ( )

This book was not what I'd expected. Sudhir Venkatesh is a sociology professor at Columbia University, NYC. His area of study is the criminal underworlds of USA cities, especially concerning sex workers and drug dealers. This book describes Venkatesh's groping toward his theory of underworld networks in NYC, how they cross regional and social divides. Most of the book is taken up with stories of Sudhir's subjects and the author's prejudices (yes he is quite judgemental!) and self-doubt. The actual theory remained elusive, at least in this book. An author's note explains that this book is more of a memoir than an exposition of the theory. I guess I would have preferred to know that up front, but the book was quite readable. ( )